The CC Virtual Block Party: Meet The Recent Additions To The Growing CC Corps

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– Posted on July 30, 2012

A year ago, I introduced you to the first additions to the CC Corps, our car-crazy cadre of talented Editors and Contributors. Since then, the ranks have swelled, thanks to our lavish compensation packages. So let’s meet and greet the more recent additions to the gang that makes CC go, and is it ever going…

CC continues to grow steadily; some 70,000 Unique Visitors visited us this past month. That’s up more than 400% from this time last year. Some check in daily or regularly; others find us via google searches for a specific car or subject in our growing library of Curbside Classics and Histories.

You might have met some of the CCC before, but here they are. And their full bios, as well as the rest of gang (Jim Cavanaugh, Laurence Jones, David Saunders, and Michael Freeman, are all in the “About” page here.

Tom Klockau: Tom must have just missed our CCC round-up last year, as his first post (Porsche 912) ran exactly one year ago. Tom relieved me at the helm for a couple of months this spring, for which I am very grateful. Tom has gone back to a day job, at his father’s Insurance company, Illinois Casualty Company. But he keeps finding and writing up CCs in and around his home in Rock Island, IL.

Ed Stembridge:  Ed is our Tech Guru as well as a Contributor, and has upgraded and cleaned up the site, even if we aren’t yet quite at warp speed. If he can keep that old baler going, he’ll keep us going.

An industrial designer by education, Ed has worked in product design, “old” and new media development and brand management for businesses ranging in size from his own consultancy (one employee) to the Fortune 50 company (150,000+ employees) where he currently manages product branding for an extensive line of earthmoving machines and related equipment. The father of two grown sons, Ed and his family moved from an Atlanta, Georgia suburb to a small farm in the Mid West in late 2001, where his attempts at small-scale farming regularly provide entertainment to the local “real” farmers.

Tony LaHood (“Imperialist”): If you’ve noticed fewer typos and dangling participles, it’s thanks to Tony, who is reviewing and editing our posts before they go live. He’s a behind-the-scenes asset to CC, and we’re very thankful. Now if I could just get my posts to him consistently before  they go up; I have a bad habit of putting up a post, then editing it afterwards. What’s the hurry?

Tony has worked in advertising and PR for thirty years. He was an advertising copywriter on the Hyundai account back in the early days. After unsuccessfully pitching the tagline, “The relentless pursuit of adequacy”, he went on to work as a creative director and writer on Olds, Land Rover, Mazda and Kia. His non-automotive campaigns have sold everything from consumer electronics to real estate developments to cemetery plots. Tony currently works as a freelance copywriter and voiceover talent, and performs comedy and improv on various Orange County, CA. stages.

Len Peters (“Canucknucklehead”): Len is just wrapping up his turn as COAL-man (Cars Of A Lifetime), and will hopefully find other subjects to share with us.  A businessman, Len resides in Vancouver, B.C. with his three children, little dog and his wife, Annie. Len was born in Quebec but left for the West Coast at the age of 12; “It’s definitely influenced me a lot in the way I grew up, with lots of freaks and hippies,” he has reported to have said.

Len has always been an avid car nut and he possess considerable knowledge due to his taxi and garage experience. In addition, he has worked in dealer service. He has fortunately left the car business and now spends his free time traveling, scuba diving and sampling the hot springs of British Columbia.

Kevin Martin: He’s been regaling us with his photo-essays of Indy, Bonneville and Pikes Peak, and shortly, Kevin will become the next COAL-man here. Now that promises to be a ride.

In his words: After graduating from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), I designed professional broadcast products for CBS Labs in Stamford, CT; Snowmobiles and other recreational products for John Deere at Henry Dreyfuss Assoc in NYC; Amtrak passenger cars beginning with the Amfleet and Bi-level cars in the mid 70s; and corporate and free lance passenger railcar design ever since. On a job for BART in San Francisco in 1980 I took the opportunity to attend the Bondurant School of High-Performance Driving at Sears Point, CA and was the fastest and most consistent in my class. From then on I crewed on various race teams including Bilstein Rabbits but wisely never attempted to campaign a car myself. You can’t do that crap and send both of your kids to private colleges. I currently live in Salt Lake City, UT, but have worked in Dulles, VA for the past ten years where I helped to design and install the Automatic People Mover (APM) at Dulles International Airport. The APM has now been running for two years and I am looking forward to getting back to SLC. when I retire.
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Lee Wilcox: Lee hails from five acres in the heart of Texas (near Houston). He served in Vietnam, has worked as an HVAC contractor and more recently as a Special Ed teacher, where he and his students built an EV trike. Lee has been writing a regular series on motorcycles, as well as other CC posts.

And of course, there’s also our less-frequent Contributors: Ian Williams, Eric Van Buren, Mike George, Richard Bennett, Mike Butts, Ric Wayman; did I forget anyone? Oh right, Alan Petrillo. Probably others too. And feel free to introduce yourself, if we haven’t had the pleasure yet.