TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

A Businessman Gives Back

ADVERTISEMENT

By JOYCE McKENZIE

jmckenzie@tampatrib.com

Published: December 31, 2008

TEMPLE TERRACE - Angela Chillura Infanti portrays her only sibling, Frank Chillura, as a "one-of-a-kind" brother, wholly devoted to his family and his community.

"Most people won't accomplish in a lifetime what he's accomplished in his 41 years," said the 39-year-old Odessa resident, who since childhood has marveled at her brother's work ethic and his ability to balance business, community responsibilities and family time.

He emigrated with his parents, Stefano "Steve" and Giuseppina "Josephine" Chillura, from Santo Stefano, Sicily, to Ybor City at the age of 2. Unable to speak English and with little money, his father took English classes and landed a job at a dairy, where he soon worked his way up to a supervisory position. His mother was happy in her roll as homemaker.

In 1977, when Frank was 9, the family moved to Temple Terrace. Soon after they settled, he remembers leaving his house Saturday mornings at 7 on his bicycle with the family lawn mower in tow. He went from block to block, knocking on neighbors' doors to ask if they would like their lawns mowed.

"I did like seven or eight houses a day, and I'd walk my ragged butt home with all the money I'd earned stuffed in my socks," Frank said.

He went regularly to the bank to deposit the cash with his dad, the person he credits with teaching him the value of saving money.

"Frank was always working and making money while I was out there having fun," Infanti said.

By age 15, he had saved $14,000, enough to purchase his first piece of rental property near Busch Gardens, adjacent to a similar home the elder Chillura owned.

"We had to put it in my dad's name because I was too young, but every month I got to collect $300 from the renters, a really big deal to me at that age," Chillura said.

Also, while still a teenager, he hired a couple of workers and established MC Lawn Pros, his own lawn maintenance/landscaping business he ran after school and on weekends.

He also purchased an old pickup to transport his equipment, despite being enticed by his friends to buy a "hot" new car he had seen several times in a car lot on Hillsborough Avenue.

Following his high school graduation - and in between staying on top of his yard business - Chillura took real estate, accounting and business law classes at Hillsborough Community College, where he earned an associate's degree. All the while he continued to live with his parents and accumulate more rental properties, which he fixed up at night.

In 1995 Chillura was appointed to the city's code enforcement board, sold his business to a cousin and turned his attention toward dealing in commercial and retail land sales. Toward the end of the decade he renovated a home he purchased in the Theresa Arbor neighborhood for his bride-to-be, Angela, whom he married in 1999.

The following year he was elected to his first four-year term on the Temple Terrace City Council, a post he held for eight years and relinquished in November because of term limits.

During his time in office, Chillura served on the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority's board of directors, where he is proud to say he "shook a lot of things up and now our services are much better;" helped reduce senior citizens' and military veterans' property taxes; and was the driving force behind the city establishing a code enforcement department rather than having it as part of the community development department.

In 2007, Chillura's fellow city council members appointed him chairman of the Temple Terrace River Watch Task Force Board, a role in which he spearheaded efforts to improve the Hillsborough River's low water levels.

Chillura admits he was also the councilman who tended to raise "red flags" on sales agreement issues with Ram Development Co. and Pinnacle Realty Advisors, the once promising developers of the city's $150 million mixed-use redevelopment project at the Bullard Parkway and 56th Street. The two companies bowed out of the project in September.

"If he's going to do something, he gives it 150 percent. The greater the challenge, the more he researches it and studies it," said Infanti. That applies to everything he undertakes, including his recent appointment to the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission, she said.

Chillura's greatest thrill while serving on the council was welcoming his five children into the world. And his only absence in eight years from the council's bi-monthly meetings was marked by the birth of his twin daughters, the couple's youngest offspring.

"He's a great dad and husband - he'll call home and ask what he can pick up at the grocery store or if he can pick up something for dinner," Infanti said. "He loves his family, and it amazes me how he always manages to make time for them."

He credits his ethical standards and his work ethic to his father. Chillura said both he and his parents are living the "American dream."

"We had a dream to come to America - it's a land of opportunity," Steve Chillura said. "I'm very proud of Frank. Just like me, he's worked very hard, and he's made a very honest living."

Reporter Joyce McKenzie can be reached at (813) 865-4849.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT