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UCF'73

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First let me tell you about how I became involved with this whole Elio Motors thing:

In November 2013 a friend of mine just happened to be at Lenox Mall in Atlanta, GA while the P3 was being shown as part of the marketing tour. He took some pictures and posted about it on Facebook where I read a little about it and thought it was pretty neat but really did not do anything more. The following month, December 2013, another friend, who I have ridden motorcycles with on occasion, again mentioned this Elio thing to me and at that point I decided to read up on it some more which lead to my $100 all-in reservation.

A few months passed and in early March I just happened to see another motorcyclist friend post something about Elio Motors on Facebook as well. While digging around and researching a bit I discovered this site and joined in the fun. After a few days of reading a bunch of information, and enjoying this forum best of all, I upgraded all-in to $1K.:)

After about three weeks on this forum Okuma Steve posted that he needed another moderator. The site was still very small, this forum hit 500 members just a few hours after I joined, so I guess not a lot of extra people volunteered and after chatting with Okuma Steve for a bit I became the newest moderator in late March. Since then I have really just been sucked down the rabbit hole learning with a lot of reading and talking to so many people about Elio Motors.:cool:


Now for the general bio:

My real world name is Hector Jimenez. I was born about 35 years ago in Manhattan, New York City, and I currently reside In the northern Atlanta suburb of Cumming, GA.

I was always the type of child who took apart his toys to see how they worked and eventually tried to 'improve' on the design to varying degrees of success. This interest in how things work was almost certainly inherited, and definitely encouraged, by my father who is a mechanical engineer and a life long gear head. He always had project cars which I would help him with and he even eventually came to own several auto repair shops. My dad and one of his brothers even attempted to purchase a new car dealership as my uncle has had a long career in dealerships starting out as a used car salesman and ending up as the general manager of several large new car dealerships. Being raised in this type of family meant that my understanding of how cars work and how the auto industry works is just something I was exposed to and learned about as I was growing up.

My very first car, which I still own 20 years later and likely would only sell if I was very desperate, was a 1979 Triumph Spitfire 1500 for which my dad only paid $300 as even though it was in fairly good overall condition it did not run. It became my task to have it running and looking nice before my 16th birthday as this is when I was legally able to receive my full drivers license and drive on my own. He likely ended up paying more for parts and such than he envisioned however working so much on this car definitely made me appreciate it much more while I learned a heck of a lot more about cars.

Anyone who knows anything about these classic British cars knows that they can be a handful. Over the last 20 years there have been many ups and downs and a heck of a lot more maintenance just to keep the thing on the road. There are also a whole host of stories involving various places I ended up visiting and people I have met while being stranded and/or having to repair the car on the side of the road. To me all the history I have with this car just makes enjoy it even more.:cool:

After high school I wasted about 1.5 years in college, and blew an academic scholarship, having way too much fun and not studying enough so eventually my parents decided they would not foot the bill for my fun any longer. As a result my father gave me the choice of going to work full time, paying for my own college education, or his recommendation was to do as he and most of the other men in my family had done, mostly after being drafted, and join the military. I chose the military and even though it was not always easy it was probably one of the best decisions of my life. When tested I showed good aptitude with computers and electronic systems so I ended up becoming a 74B/25B IT Specialist which at the time was pretty much a do it all IT guy. I thought my military career would be a relatively calm one however just about a year after I left for boot camp 9/11 happened followed by Iraq. Before my enlistment was through I ended up being deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq where my role was to serve the IT needs of various combat outposts which put me outside the wire on a regular basis with exposure to everything that entails.

I had actually passed a few classes before enlisting and completed some more college coursework during my down time in the Army so after separating I ended up using my GI Bill benefits to complete a degree in Electrical Engineering Technology with a focus in digital communications. A few weeks after graduation I took a six month project job working for a government contractor upgrading Defense Department IT systems throughout the world. Upon returning home from that I found another IT job working for a local Atlanta outsourced IT provider. After about six months one of the clients I was supporting decided to fire their IT Director and made me an offer to take over the position. This client was a small four year college with several hundred full time students who mostly lived on campus. I ended up spending the next four years managing that IT department which was quite a lot of fun as college students are always up to something.:D Unfortunately it all came to an abrupt end as they struggled to raise funds during the bad economy and eventually closed their doors for good in 2010.

I was out of work for a few months but ended up taking what I thought was going to be a good job with Comcast as a network engineer as they were hiring engineers to undertake a multi year project to upgrade all the Comcast data center network for higher network capacity. Well, six months after I started, the entire project was put on hold and for the second time in two years I was in search of a new job.:(

I managed to get an interview with the company that eventually hired me only a few weeks after being laid off from Comcast however it would end up taking nearly three months to go through the process and actually start working for what I also thought at the time would be a great job as it was working for a huge company, Schneider Electric, and working on a national security related government project. This job was really a lot of fun and also took me all over the world over the next 18 months. In 2012 I even took a vacation trip to Antarctica just because this meant that I could say that I visited all seven continents that year. However, thanks to the budget battles in congress which ended with the whole sequester mess, my entire project was completely defunded for a budget year which led to my entire team being laid off.:mad:

After being laid off three times in less than four years I had enough and actually had a great idea already brewing in my head which led to the formation of my own business with my father as my partner helping with the mechanical engineering side of things. Even if things have not gone as great this year as they did last year, I am having to wind things down before I start losing money, it has still been a fun journey for me to use some of the skills I haver acquired over the years while being able to work for myself. Proving to myself that I could take an idea from my head and develop it into a real product which I have been able to manufacture and sell to others has been a very rewarding experience.:)

I have a few possibilities I am working on for my professional future, or I may just start sending out resumes soon, however my business winding down over the last few months has actually been why I have had so much spare time lately to help on this forum. This moderator experience has been a lot of fun for me and I hope to meet a lot our members over the next year or more as we hopefully move closer to getting these things into production.:eek::cool:

My personal life has been a bit less hectic than my professional life however along the way there was a Mrs for a while but that did not end very well. As I have mentioned in the hobbies thread I love to read and quickly end up digging through a lot of material on subjects I choose to study. I still consider myself to be a gear head and routinely work with my father on our project vehicles which is very easy for me since for the last few years I have lived in the apartment over the workshop on the family property. I enjoy traveling both domestically and internationally and in the past I have road raced both cars and motorcycles. I also enjoy watching a variety of racing and in particular love Formula 1. :cool:

I have been told many times that I have a calm demeanor and can sometimes even appear to be too calm about things. I believe that comes from my time in uniform as since then my view has been that compared to IED's exploding and bullets flying there is just not much to get terribly upset about in life.:)

Thanks for the background, Hector. You've had an interesting path so far. Technical aptitude and training along with the ability to communicate in writing is very marketable and in demand. An early career that is a bit disjointed is not unusual at all and can often be an advantage in the long run. You'll do great. By the way, my brother is an engineer with Comcast. Bill
 

LockMD

Elio Addict
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Goofyone: Okay (Hector) I'll bite, so what is YOUR business? If it's something to do with Hi-Tech Redneck, I'll probably buy it LOL

Oh and Fobo Tire....I bought 5 sets, should I have purchased international shipping (1 or 5 times) since they are shipping from Maylasia?

Steve, Joshua, Jake: Where are your bio's? Don't blame me, Goofyone (Hector) started it. Did I miss anyone, only 4 mods, yes?
 

Jambe

Elio Addict
Joined
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Location
Top of Utah
Okuma Steve Administrator/Founder
Joshua Caldwell Moderator
Buckeyejake Moderator
Goofyone Moderator
Cali Chris Moderator
Austin Sersen is Elio Motors on Facebook
Joel Sheltrown, Elio Motors VP for Government Affairs
Jerome Vassallo Elio VP of Sales, jeromevassallo@yahoo.com
Steve Semansky, Vice President of Supply Chain Management
Chris who is in charge of the IAV motor
Guido who is in charge of production
Chip Stempeck, Elio’s vice president of marketing
Tim Andrews, CMO
Kody Klindt, Project Development Director/Powertrain System for our supplier partner IAV
Brendan Carey, Fleet Sales Division
Chip - problems with order--can get into your account.
Mike - Cooper Tires
Jim Holden, Elio Motors board member and former Chief Executive Officer of DaimlerChrysler.
Gino Raffin, plant manager

That's all I have.:)
 
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LockMD

Elio Addict
Joined
Jun 27, 2014
Messages
1,088
Reaction score
3,255
Location
somewhere
Okuma Steve Administrator/Founder
Joshua Caldwell Moderator
Buckeyejake Moderator
Goofyone Moderator
Cali Chris Moderator
Austin Sersen is Elio Motors on Facebook
Joel Sheltrown, Elio Motors VP for Government Affairs
Jerome Vassallo Elio VP of Sales, jeromevassallo@yahoo.com
Steve Semansky, Vice President of Supply Chain Management
Chris who is in charge of the IAV motor
Guido who is in charge of production
Chip Stempeck, Elio’s vice president of marketing
Tim Andrews, CMO
Kody Klindt, Project Development Director/Powertrain System for our supplier partner IAV
Brendan Carey, Fleet Sales Division
Chip - problems with order--can get into your account.
Mike - Cooper Tires

That's all I have.:)

So I missed one on here, sorry Cali Chris......put your bio up too :) So there are 5 Mods ....
 

goofyone

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
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Location
Cumming, GA
Goofyone: Okay (Hector) I'll bite, so what is YOUR business? If it's something to do with Hi-Tech Redneck, I'll probably buy it LOL

Oh and Fobo Tire....I bought 5 sets, should I have purchased international shipping (1 or 5 times) since they are shipping from Maylasia?

Steve, Joshua, Jake: Where are your bio's? Don't blame me, Goofyone (Hector) started it. Did I miss anyone, only 4 mods, yes?

Yes you will need the international shipping, looks like it says $60 for the package you bought. Just select the international shipping option and change the $20 to $60. I purchased the two pack which was $30 shipping and then I decided to add the Fobo Bike also. I too am a sucker for new tech especially when it is useful like this is.

LOL, high tech redneck my business may actually be. I design and build trailer mounted solar power systems. We used to have a contract with a cellular phone company to provide solar powered cell phone charging services at special events. Unfortunately this year that whole field has exploded with new businesses who are fighting for the same clients which has driven prices below the level at which I can be profitable so I am in the process of shutting down. I was even able to get rid of my nicer equipment by selling it to more businesses jumping into the market. :rolleyes:

All I have left now are plenty of miscellaneous items, which will likely end up on Ebay, and the very first trailer I built which is basic but still nice. The trailer is simply a 6x12 enclosed trailer with 1 KW worth of solar panels on the roof and 4x 200Ah AGM batteries which weigh 250lbs each. The entire trailer weighs about 1750lbs. So if anyone has a need for something like this let me know as it is for sale. This is essentially a 1 KW solar powered generator.

completed exterior.jpg Interior nearly complete.jpg control center.jpg
 
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Neal

Elio Addict
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Jan 31, 2014
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Wylie, Texas (DFW)
Yes you will need the international shipping, looks like it says $60 for the package you bought. Just select the international shipping option and change the $20 to $60. I purchased the two pack which was $30 shipping and then I decided to add the Fobo Bike also. I too am a sucker for new tech especially when it is useful like this is.

LOL, high tech redneck my business may actually be. I design and build trailer mounted solar power systems. We used to have a contract with a cellular phone company to provide solar powered cell phone charging services at special events. Unfortunately this year that whole field has exploded with new businesses who are fighting for the same clients which has driven prices below the level at which I can be profitable so I am in the process of shutting down. I was even able to get rid of my nicer equipment by selling it to more businesses jumping into the market. :rolleyes:

All I have left now are plenty of miscellaneous items, which will likely end up on Ebay, and the very first trailer I built which is basic but still nice. The trailer is simply a 6x12 enclosed trailer with 1 KW worth of solar panels on the roof and 4x 200Ah AGM batteries which weigh 250lbs each. The entire trailer weighs about 1750lbs. So if anyone has a need for something like this let me know as it is for sale. This is essentially a 1 KW solar powered generator.

View attachment 2778 View attachment 2777 View attachment 2779

Only if I can get a trailer hitch on my Elio! ;)
 

Buckeyejake

Elio Addict
Joined
Dec 1, 2013
Messages
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Location
on the shores of Lake Erie
Here's Buckeye Jake…..

Saw the Elio about two years ago at the Albuquerque Ballon Festival by accident on a vacation to Southwest America. Sat in the vehicle and was hooked. Returned home and put down the $1,000 non-refundable deposit to my wife's chagrin. Found this website when exploring the Elio on the internet. Began posting at the beginning and Steve ask me to become a moderator down the road. My computer skills are a bit lacking but here I am as a moderator. My momma would be proud.

Now, a little personal background. I'm 60 years old, married and have 6 grown children from a blended marriage. All the kids are college graduates and successful in their fields. Guess I did a good job as a parent. The best part is I have 5 grandchildren whom I spoil rotten and then send home. Paybacks are a bitch….right kids.

I own my own sales representative company. I have been my own boss for 24 years. The good, the bad and the ugly. I am
coming to the end of my career. Six more years at best, depending on my health.

Many years ago a opened up a fortune cookie. It read, " A man who knows he has enough is rich." Think about it ….it's very profound.

Life has become a bit more fun. Have enough money, have all my faculties and a little more play time. That's where the Elio fits in, playtime.
I will use it for work and it will pay for itself with gas savings over the next three years. I plan on visiting as many car shows within a surrounding three state area. I am contemplating purchasing another Elio and selling raffle tickets at those events to support a local charity. Will keep you all posted.

Hope to meet you all at some point of time during this Elio journey. Also, if any of you visit Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky Ohio I live close by and would welcome you to visit me at my home.
 
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