All new businesses should be christened this way

That seat to the left was mine, they saved it for me. Yesterday, the folks from Alma DDB, an ad agency in Coral Gables, which is moving to Coconut Grove, took their employees on a historical tour of the Grove.

A few months ago, Olimpia Del Boccio, from DDB, contacted me and asked if I would be interested in giving the group a tour. They were proud to be moving to the Grove and they wanted to share the history with their employees. I told Olimpia I would think about it. But before I could think about it, I ran into Olimpia and co-worker Michelle Headley at one of our Mad Men Monday events. I felt that Glenn Terry would be better suited for the tour and I hooked them up. By the way, the DDB Agency was mentioned on a couple of Mad Men episodes, the agency goes back that far (to the 1960s).


What started as a walking tour, ended up on a luxury double decker bus. Alma DDB does it right, they know how to treat their employees. So yesterday, Glenn took to the mic (left) and I hopped aboard and we took a little tour of Coconut Grove. Alberto Fariñas (right) chronicled the whole thing digitally for a presentation to be shown at a company party at a later date.


The tour even stopped at City Hall, since the story of the building being the original Pan Am terminal was part of the tour, and as luck would have it, everyone got off the bus, went into City Hall and was greeted by Mayor Tomas Regalado in the Commission chambers, who gave a little talk. He has a lot in common with the Alma DDB group because they are moving into the SBS building on S. Bayshore Drive and that is where the mayor worked for many years when he did news reports on the radio. The group was thrilled to meet the mayor and he was kind enough to take time out of his busy day to meet the group.


Here is most of the group; there were about 40 on the tour. That's Michelle Headley at far right, Olimpia was next to me taking a photo with her own camera.

After the City Hall stop, we went through the North Grove and then turned back and stopped at the SBS building so that the group could tour their new offices. They finally ended up for happy hour at The Taurus, a true Grove legend.

It's so nice to see people who are into the history of the town where their office is located. We are sure they will be part of many Grove events, they just seem to want to be part of the community. Welcome guys. It was a pleasure meeting you all and thank you for inviting me on the tour.