Feature Story & Photos By: Larry H. Oskin
Headquarter Honda-Clermont has been celebrating the holiday season with the entire South Lake community, its staff and as many charitable organizations as possible.
Headquarter Honda and Headquarter Mazda recently donated a bountiful array of new toys, art supplies, computers, tablets, blue tooth devices, table games, art kits, bicycles, socks, sweaters and clothes to the Charities Across South Lake Christmas Toy Drive and to the annual Marines’ Toys For Tots projects. Gayle Tomasini noted, “With collective support from our owner, staff, vendors, police and their other dealerships — over $11,000 was set aside to help deserving families this year.” These gifts were piled high for young children, teens and families in need. The Clermont Police, the area Marines and other organizations helped. To best support local businesses, these gifts were all purchased locally at Aldi’s, Hobby Lobby, Ollie’s, Big Lots, Target and more.
Headquarter Honda and their sister Headquarter Mazda dealerships have been supportive of numerous local area charitable programs and non-profit organizations since they first opened in Clermont.
For an end-of-the-year celebration, all staff and employees were invited to a gala award recognition luncheon. President and CEO Jeronimo M. Esteve, III with CFO Judy Farcus Serra were on hand to make presentations. Esteve shares, “We love our people! Whether they are salespeople, janitors, managers or working at any level, we do our best to respect each and every one of them! We all work as a team in a hands-on work ethic. Part of our mission statement ensures that we will preserve and protect our highly motivated professionals as well as our community with pride, respect, optimism and integrity to the highest levels of our industry. We promote from within as we are committed to providing career growth opportunities for our associates.”
This year’s honored Employees of the Year were Hector Lopez from the Headquarter Honda and Nada Addo from Headquarter Mazda.
Esteve noted, “We really do want to help our local area communities with anything and everything possible throughout the year. We are proud to be located here in Clermont. We and our team live here, eat here and do everything here as your neighbors and friends. We don’t give back … to get credit. We do it to provide needed community support. We really do enjoy being quiet heroes to help individuals and groups. There is no ego involved. My name is not on the buildings. We strive to make a difference in people’s lives. As we progress and do better, we will always do even more to support charitable groups. Our goal remains to help share with the organizations and givers. We proudly support over 30 diverse charitable organizations here in the South Lake area.”
Jeronimo Esteve actually started to work for his father back in 1963 at a Puerto Rico dealership as well as one in the US Virgin Islands. It became a full family business as each new generation gets involved to work hard and work their way up. He adds,” We are blessed to have 4 dealerships with almost 500 staff associates. Everyone is well-trained to ensure professional products and services with exceptional quality customer service. Our success relies on teamwork, cooperation and engagement in an enjoyable work environment.” Serra joined Esteve as an office manager and bookkeeper 25 years ago, working hard to climb the corporate ladder. She adds. “Joining this company was the best decision I have ever made in my life!”
Esteve of Headquarter Dealerships owns Clermont Headquarter Honda, Headquarter Mazda and the Sanford Headquarter Honda as well as another Headquarter Honda in Miami. His son Jeronimo J. Esteve of Clermont, IV is Vice President and General Manager of HQ Honda and HQ Mazda. While working closely with their Chief Financial Officer Judy Farcus Serra and Gayle Tomasini as the local Executive Administrator and head of customer relations, they keep all of their community service programs organized. CFO Serra notes, “We try not to ever say no! Anything is possible. We do a lot of matching gifts and matching funds projects for underprivileged children, veterans and schools. We also do quite a bit with stewardships for our veterans and their families.”
Esteve is also very proud that they built the Clermont Headquarter Honda dealership to be a green energy facility. While it was not a Florida requirement and it added tremendous extra investment costs, they operate with solar power, recyclable water and every possible aspect of an environmentally safe environment. Besides being awarded several environmental honors, they earned the Leed Platinum Leadership Award for their building being the very first in the state of Florida. They worked with NASA Engineers to become the largest solar farm in the state at the time of installation. They used all locally resourced green energy products, paints, flooring and building materials.
Jeronimo Esteve adds, “We love our staff and customers! Our clients are all very loyal and great! Honda is a great product! It’s a win-win for us and our community!”
Headquarter Honda, is located at 17700 Florida State Road 50 in Clermont, FL 34711. Call 407-395-7365 or visit: https://www.headquarterhonda.com/ and follow them on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/headquarterhonda.
