Westerville Chamber taps Tom Bernardo ’12 Business Person of Year

The West­er­ville Area Cham­ber of Com­merce intro­duced Tom Bernardo, owner of Giammarco’s Pizza & Pasta, as the 2012 Busi­ness Per­son of the Year. Tom is being rec­og­nized for his com­mit­ment to the thriv­ing West­er­ville area com­mu­nity, per­sonal busi­ness accom­plish­ments and his out­stand­ing com­mu­nity involve­ment. The West­er­ville area is proud to have a fine family-run estab­lish­ment like Giammarco’s Pizza & Pasta.

“I left a long cor­po­rate career and needed to make a deci­sion in life as to what I was going to do. I spent many years in New York, New Jer­sey, Chicago and all over the coun­try, but West­er­ville has always been home,” Bernardo said. “I was born and raised here. Being rec­og­nized by your home town, friends, fam­ily, neigh­bors and the over­all com­mu­nity pro­vide an over­whelm­ing feel­ing of pride and joy that is hard to describe.”

Bernardo has been a valu­able mem­ber of the West­er­ville Area Cham­ber of Com­merce since 1999. Tom has opened his doors to host numer­ous Cham­ber func­tions such as Strate­gic Plan­ning work­shops along with sev­eral Young Pro­fes­sion­als events. In addi­tion to his involve­ment with the Cham­ber, Tom is a found­ing and active mem­ber and for­mer Chair­man of the Genoa Town­ship Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion and cur­rent Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Fran­chise Sales and Devel­op­ment for Har­ris Research, Inc. (Nashville, Ten­nessee). He is also heav­ily involved in the com­mu­nity through the West­er­ville Area Resource Min­istry (WARM) and all West­er­ville City Schools.

“Tom employs over 50 peo­ple and offers many high school and col­lege stu­dents an oppor­tu­nity to gain real-life cus­tomer ser­vice, pro­vid­ing many young adults with their first pay­ing job. Tom also gives back to the com­mu­nity as Giammarco’s spon­sors and sup­ports many sports pro­grams and youth teams,” Rick Rano, RE/MAX Affil­i­ates and Selec­tion Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, said.

Other activ­i­ties Bernardo is involved with include the fol­low­ing: an active coach for the Junior Foot­ball League of West­er­ville and i9 Sports League, mem­ber of the Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Alumni Var­sity Foot­ball Board of Direc­tors and Board Mem­ber for the Parma Pan­thers Foot­ball Team (Parma, Italy).

“Tommy Bernardo is one of the hard­est work­ing peo­ple I know. He has to be, he owns a restau­rant,” David Bian­coni, Owner of Bel Lago Water­front Din­ing, said. “From first-hand expe­ri­ence, Tommy knows how to treat his cus­tomers and employ­ees alike. He is well liked and even more impor­tantly, respected. He is a credit to the West­er­ville Com­mu­nity and I am proud to call Tommy a friend.”

Bernardo lives in West­er­ville with his wife Mar­i­anela, daugh­ters Sab­rina and Saman­tha and sons Lance and Thomas. He is a grad­u­ate of West­er­ville North High School and Cor­nell University.

“Win­ning this award makes my wife and I feel like we were right! West­er­ville and Genoa Town­ship appre­ci­ate and sup­port our dream. That val­i­da­tion is what is most sat­is­fy­ing. It shows that when you base a deci­sion on pro­vid­ing a great expe­ri­ence and great food and give back to the com­mu­nity, peo­ple will sup­port you,” he said . “It proves that you can launch a dream and build a busi­ness on the strength of the com­mu­nity and the sup­port of great neigh­bors. I am very proud to be a part of this com­mu­nity and am very hon­ored for my wife and for the entire Giammarco’s staff to have received this award.

This year’s Busi­ness Per­son of the Year Award final­ists included Con­nie Emer­son, Con­cord Coun­sel­ing Ser­vices; Polly Clav­ijo, Rev­o­lu­tion Group; and Jason Car­pen­ter, Envi­ron­men­tal Pest Management.

Join your Cham­ber in hon­or­ing the Busi­ness Per­son of the Year, Award Final­ists and a 2012 Year in Review at the Annual Din­ner and Busi­ness Per­son of the Year Award Pre­sen­ta­tion on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 22, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton Colum­bus Polaris, 8700 Lyra Drive, Westerville.

The cost to attend the Annual Din­ner and Busi­ness Per­son of the Year Award Pre­sen­ta­tion is $40 per per­son OR $400 for a cor­po­rate table of 10 (cor­po­rate table includes table sig­nage and pro­gram list­ing). The reg­is­tra­tion dead­line is today, Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 17.

Thanks to our spon­sors: Pre­sent­ing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield; Chairman’s Awards, Ohio­Health; and Busi­ness Per­son of the Year, Asso­ci­ated Insur­ance Agencies.

For infor­ma­tion about this event or other ser­vices of the Cham­ber of Com­merce, con­tact the office at 614–882-8917 or visit < www.westervillechamber.com >.

Other upcom­ing Cham­ber events include: Women in Busi­ness Lun­cheon, fea­tur­ing “Bring Your Prin­ci­ples to Work”, with Jane Grote Abell, Chair­man of the Board and Owner of Donatos Pizza, Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Embassy Suites Hotel, 2700 Cor­po­rate Exchange Drive; Busi­ness After Hours, Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Brook­dale Senior Liv­ing, 6377 Cooper Road); Busi­ness After Hours, Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 21 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at HCR Manor­Care Nurs­ing & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter, 140 Old County Line Road); and Cham­ber Uni­ver­sity, fea­tur­ing a Small Busi­ness 101 Panel Dis­cus­sion on Feb­ru­ary 13 from 8:00 to 9:15 a.m. at the Cham­ber Office, 99 Com­merce Park Drive.

The West­er­ville Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pro­vides com­mu­nity lead­er­ship and advo­cacy on behalf of its mem­bers. Com­prised of over 640 indi­vid­u­als and busi­nesses, the Cham­ber has served the busi­ness com­mu­nity for over 40 years.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.