Listers,
As some of you may remember from resent postings about the STOA TAC program,
a few had rumored that the committee was trying to expand the program to the
East Coast. Well, I can now say that TAC has SUCCEEDED in it's expansion to at
least the central East Coast.
As far back as SUNI 2, STOA approached TE/AE for support of the program, but
TE/AE pretty much blew the idea off and adopted a "wait and see" position; a
position they appearantly still adher to today.
Earlier this year, a number of Tiger owners from back east contacted me
through the Tiger list and expressed their interest in bringing TAC eastward.
I informed them of the reluctance of their local club to support TAC, but they
insisted that there were enough supporters on the East Coast that I should try
the expansion anyway. After a discussion of the financial roadblocks, I soon
found myself in possession of a round trip ticket to Washington, D.C. to train
a group of Tiger owners for the position of regular inspectors. On the weekend
of Sept. 11-13, I meet with the largest group of trainees to date to receive
TAC training at the home Lance Hoboy in Silver Springs, MD. As a result of
that training session, TAC has thus far added the following 6 people to the
list of qualified TAC inspectors:
Tom Calvert, Severna Park, MD
Lance Hoboy, Silver Spring, MD
Kirk Even, Lexington Park, MD
Lou Abbott, California, MD
Paul Sheahan, Charlotte, NC and
Chris Williams, Boones Mill, VA
Senior Inspector Tom Hall and his wife Bette then flew , at their own expense,
to the TE/AE Tigers United in Solomon's Island, MD on the Oct, 9-12 weekend.
At this event, Tom and his new East Coast inspectors proceeded to add 15 more
cars to the list bringing the new total of authenticated Tigers to 335.
This event marks a very important step forward for the TAC program, for two
reasons. First of all, it's just a big deal spreading the program to the East
Coast. If you asked me a year ago if I thought we would expand this far
eastward, I would have said "No way, Jose". It's not so much that we've TACed
cars on the East Coast, hell, we've done that before. But this time we had
their own people inspecting the cars. For the time being, STOA will still have
to provide a senior inspector, but hopefully, someday, someone will come along
with the necessary experience and knowledge to fill a senior inspector
position. Perhaps by the next TE/AE United, we will have even more inspectors
to the north and south to cover where ever that United might be.
But secondly, and perhaps more important, this expansion eastward has shown
the committee that local club support may not be as important as we originally
thought. Certainly, club support from PTC and the tireless efforts of Larry
Atkisson have made it very easy to expand to the Pacific Northwest. But maybe
with enough TAC supporters in a given area maybe the program can be brought
in. I'm already working on a plan to get back into Southern California where
club support is virtually nil. Maybe we'll start by finding some more
inspectors to assist Mr. Ramon Spontelli of Costa Mesa,CA.
I hope I've answered Mr. Jordan's questions. I also figure the opposition has
heard enough.
In closing, I'd like to thank Lance Hoboy for his financial support and
hospitality in hosting the training, and to Kirk Even for organizing it.
Without your efforts this would never have happened. I would also like to
thank everyone who participated in the training; it had to be almost
unbearable listening to me for 6 hours straight and then having to take that
damn 2 hour test afterwards.
Paul Reisentz
STOA TAC Chairman
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