Leo's place on the web!husband, father, entrepreneur…

Every year the VH team gathers to fry and smoke turkeys as gifts for their clients. It’s a great time! Great fellowship and team building.

I’ve been using Neighborhood Nerds to get more done. I assign all kinds of tasks to the Nerds. A membership with the Nerds is similar to Fancy Hands but isn’t limited to just virtual tasks. The Nerds can go shopping, drop off dry cleaning, let the dog out, in addition to helping with every kind of consumer tech products and services.

The easiest way to get tasks into the hands of the Nerds? You can call/text 865-622-2422 but I prefer adding a link to my Home Screen on my iPhone. Just save the Help link as a shortcut on your phone.

This week we were joined by Christine (Aunt Chris). We had a great visit, hike, lunch and a beautiful drive in East Tennessee.

The University of Tennessee Volunteers defeat Alabama 52 to 49!

I bred our Flemish Giant, John Travolta, to our CG/New Zealand mix doe, Sandy. Here’s the litter of 7. They are three weeks old.

This air bow is serious about putting bolts on target! $145 on Amazon. This thing is very satisfying to shoot. This is just 10 yards to get the scope adjusted but it’s silly accurate. This one operates on paintball CO2 cartridges. So, it’s not legal in TN for hunting but it’s big brother is! They make a PCP air bow that’s supposedly even more impressive than this Air Javelin. I guess I’ll be ordering one of those soon.

• Bow on Amazon

In May I ordered four Rhode Island Red chicks from tractor supply company. We recycled some pallets into a nice covered roosting area. The chickens prefer roosting on the top step of our deck. This will need to change. I’m now doing more work on their coop to make them feel more safe in it. hopefully we can work out a deal so they begin roosting in their coop. We should get farm fresh eggs every day as soon as they hit five or six months old.

So, when people ask me what I do, I always answer I’m an Automation Engineer. I have an electrical engineering degree from the University of Tennessee and have been building automated solutions for manufacturing clients since 1991! I do wear lots of hats…I own a software company, a technical support company, and do a little real-estate developing but my true love is designing, building, and starting up control systems.

Over the last 16 years, I’ve been doing 4-5 projects a year in my “free time”. Recently, I asked myself what I love to do and I kept coming back to Industrial Automation. So, I’m working hard to get my other companies on autopilot so I can focus most of my effort back on DBR Systems. I’ve also reached out to a buddy of mine about building a world-class systems integrator together. He already has a great start with his packaging company, DasPac! I’ll be joining the team to add engineering and integration to the mix. I’m looking forward to spending more time in the automation world.

You may recognize these two fine looking gentlemen as Jeff and Sam McCamy. Sam invited me to Angel Capital Group back in 2008 and I’ve loved every minute of being involved with this organization. I’ve seen many presentations and had the opportunity to invest in many startups via ACG! ACG is kinda like the TV show, Shark Tank, except there’s no camera and we’re much kinder to the entrepreneurs. Early stage investing is more akin to gambling. Members of ACG are accredited investors, enjoy helping entrepreneurs with their startups, and don’t mind losing money on these VERY risky investments. It’s more about the ride. Instead of being a shareholder in Apple today and hoping for some growth, it’s like you were hanging with Steve Jobs and Woz in the garage and they hit you up for $50k for 25% of the company. It’s like a backstage pass. It’s much cooler than just investing and making money.

So, how did I come to be President of the Knoxville Chapter? Well, I met with the CEO, Eric Dobson, and provided some constructive criticism. Eric responded, “Leo, those are great observations and even better suggestions for making improvements. How would you like to take the role of Chapter President and make sure those items get addressed?”. So, if you don’t like the way I’m running the Chapter, just tell me and maybe you could be the next President.

G’day mate! Well, It’s been a wild few years! I started Neighborhood Nerds with a dream of helping people use their technology to improve their lives. It was slow going at first since the model was foreign and very different from any other Technology companies out there. We are a very different animal…hence, Gizmo (our platypus mascot). We aren’t like other IT companies. Other IT companies use a “break/fix” model. Your stuff breaks and they get paid to come fix it. We use a membership model which allows us to make sure your technology is ALWAYS working for you and you’re always HAPPY!

In just three short years, we have grown to 300+ clients (both home and business) and six Nerds (Linda, Leo, Mark, Tommy, Tyler, and Joshua) in our Sequoyah Hills office. Also, we turned a profit in 2014! 2015 is going to be a great year!

Our plans are to continue growing the Sequoyah Hills family of clients and open additional shops around Knoxville. The next shop will be in West Knoxville near Gettysvue, Whittington Creek, Montgomery Cove, Jefferson Park, or Turkey Creek since we have many Neighbors in these neighborhoods already. Now, more than anything we need Nerds…but…good platypuses are hard to come by. If you know any young, energetic, renaissance type entrepreneurs, please send them our way. We are now hiring our future shop owners. We plan to have 9-10 shops in Knoxville with each serving around 1000 clients (home and business).