AREA SCHOOL HOSTED EXPO

By STEPHEN HAMMILL

More than 80 exhibitors and hundreds of visitors gathered last week for the CABA Spring Expo at Carrollwood Day School, 1515 W. Bearss Ave.
The event took place from 3 to 7 p.m. in the school’s main hall. The CABA Spring Business Expo is a meet-and-greet opportunity aimed at the community at-large.

For some exhibitors this was a first chance to see what the business organization is all about.

The Carrollwood Area Business Association, or CABA, began in 1986, as a collective of small-business owners in the area. CABA members meet on a weekly basis at a member’s place of business. The meetings function as a way for members to network with one another.

The expo is in its 10th year. CABA also has plans to hold a winter expo this year. Stephen Welch is a sales manager for Sterling Payment Technologies and a CABA member. He’s on the expo committee this year.

“We’ve about maxed-out our tables for the spring expo,” he said. “We also do a health and fitness one in the fall.”

“This year we have about eight new members in the expo,” said Lisa Demmi, expo-board liaison, and general manager of Chewning Inspection Services Inc. Demmi has been a CABA member for two years now and is on its board of directors.

This is the first year CABA has held its expo at the Carrollwood Day School.

“This is a great space. We wanted to keep it somewhat centrally located in the Carrollwood area,” she said.

“It’s a nice cross-section of the business community,” she added. “We actually had some people join CABA so they could be involved in the expo. We got Verizon to join right before the expo. That’s the good thing about CABA – people stay with us. We grow every year.”

Becky Wanamaker is co-owner of LutzLandOLakes.com, a free business-listing service that joined CABA a month and a half ago.

“We’re an offshoot of the New Tampa Directory,” she said. “The first event I went to after joining was as a guest to the Hope Children’s Home, and I’ve been to several After Fives – it’s a great group.” Wanamaker was referring to CABA After Five networking meetings held every other Wednesday at a member’s place of business.

“This is our 21st expo,” Demmi said. “We’ve been planning it for three months. Everybody put in so much time and so much effort; it makes me feel really good about CABA.”

In order to drum up support for the event, Demmi said in addition to contacting local media outlets, they handed out admission tickets to the community and to CABA members.

“Amongst CABA, they told friends, and their friends told two friends, and then some,” she said. Demmi said they expected close to two thousand people to walk through the doors over the course of the expo.

During the expo’s early stages, current CABA President Lori Rodriguez went from booth to booth, greeting exhibitors and taking the pulse of the event.

“Absolutely, once again, the committee that has put this together has done a wonderful job,” she said. Over the years, as CABA has made a name for itself, its mission has switched from an information effort to more of a recruitment campaign.

“It continues to grow,” Rodriguez said. “Ten years ago we had to do a lot more to reach people; now the people come to us. It continues to be an exciting event for the people that come through. We’re business-to-business oriented and have always stayed true to that value.”

For information about CABA, visit http://www.carrollwoodbusiness.com.