La Gaceta Newspaper

Lisa Moore

Bronx native Lisa Moore dreamed of opening a bagel store as a teenager. For her first job, she worked at a bagel shop and loved it. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be what I build,’” she said. “Then I learned the bakers have to wake up at 3 in the morning and realized, ‘Oh, not for me.’”
Still, Moore loved the hospitality industry, and, thinking she might become a restaurant manager, studied restaurant and hotel management at Westchester Community College.
When she was 24, she met her soon-to-be husband during a July 4th weekend trip to Virginia Beach. He had five more months left serving in the U.S. Navy, and when his military career ended, he briefly moved to New York with her before the couple gave El Paso, Texas a try. “That was a completely different ballgame,” Moore said.
They lasted four months there before relocating again, landing in Tampa, where they’ve spent the last 30 years and raised their two children.
After their move to the area, Moore took a job with Applebee’s on 56th Street. She became the trainer for the store, working with everyone from management to bartenders and waitresses.
Moore wanted a family, though, and knew working in the restaurant industry wouldn’t be ideal for that. “So, I decided to get out of the restaurant business,” she said.
From there, she spent over six years as the restaurant manager for the Museum of Science and Industry. During her time at MOSI, she worked with the food and beverage director to launch its catering program.
Then her infant son fell ill with chronic sinus issues and she left her job for about a year to focus on his health.
When Moore returned to work, she took a job as catering sales manager for what is now ZooTampa at Lowry Park and also ran one of the restaurants at the zoo. “I loved every minute of it,” Moore said. “I got to think out of the box. We did 50 weddings a year.”
By the time she left the zoo, she was doing the work of five people and burned out. “Still, I loved working at the zoo. It was one of my favorite jobs in the world,” she said.
From there, she decided to move into the hotel business, thinking she might be able to get more steady work hours, “on the sales side of things and not the operations side,” she said.
Moore was hired to work in sales for a Clarion Hotel in the Westshore area. An older hotel, it closed and she took a sales manager position at a Clarion on Fowler Avenue. She spent two-and-a-half years there and during that time, moved into a senior sales manager role.
Moore loved the work but decided it was time to move on to something new, landing a sales role in the brand new La Quinta Inn & Suites Tampa North on Fletcher Avenue. “It opened in the recession of 2009 when everyone was struggling and laying off people left and right,” she said. She was only there for about a year when the owner decided to sell the struggling hotel.
Then Moore was approached by the owner of the Fairfield Inn & Suites down the street and became its director of sales for two years. After learning that hotel would be sold, she was recruited to serve as director of sales for the nearby Springhill Suites on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, which had only been open for about a year at that point.
After five-and-a-half years, the hotel’s parent company – Sun Development & Management Corporation out of Indianapolis – tapped her to help with other hotels for the company and named her a regional director of sales.
While she oversaw sales for a number of hotels in Florida for the company and across brands, including Marriotts and Hilton Garden Inns, Moore also handled properties in other states, such as Georgia and New Jersey.
Eventually, the company sold off several of the hotels she oversaw and asked her to relocate to New Jersey, which she turned down. “I was not feeling the cold,” Moore said.
In 2018, she moved over to the Hilton Garden Inn in Wesley Chapel and the nearby Hampton Inn & Suites. It wasn’t long before she was also overseeing sales for a Hilton Garden Inn in Orlando, near the University of South Florida, and was named regional sales director by the parent company, Emerald Hospitality Associates.
It was through this role that Moore was encouraged to become heavily involved in the community, which she found was a natural fit for her. “They’re very big on being out in the community,” she said.
As the Hilton Garden Inn’s community liaison, she joined the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel, serving on the board for six years and taking on the president position from 2024 to 2025. She loved the club’s various service projects and events, including raising thousands of dollars for the Pasco County Fire Rescue and the Pasco Sheriff’s Office.
The funds were raised through various events – clay shooting, breakfast with Santa, and Halloween-themed events. The club gives back to the community in other ways, as well, including hosting annual Veterans Day luncheons at a Pasco County nursing home and partnering with a home for foster children for special outings, such as movies, ice skating, and holidays.
Moore has sat on the board for the New Tampa YMCA for the past four years and currently serves as the vice chair. “I have a passion for giving back and giving back to kids is really good for me,” she said.
She really stepped up for the board over the past year, helping to organize a casino night fundraiser at her hotel for the YMCA. Because of her work, she’s been named the organization’s Volunteer of the Year.
Moore has also been tapped to serve as the board chair for the new YMCA opening in Wesley Chapel this September.
She’s also heavily involved in the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. She’s been an ambassador for the organization for 14 years, sitting on the board for four and serving as the membership chair for three. “What I do as the membership chair is I look for members to join our chamber so we can help with their business,” she said. “I’m a connector. I love to connect people. I love networking.”
Moore was also asked to join the foundation guild for the John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, slated to open in Wesley Chapel in 2027, and has since been named chair. She comes to the hospital with her own personal story to share as her son suffered from chronic sinus issues as a young child, enduring everything from tubes in his ears to having his tonsils and adenoids removed. Eventually, it was a surgery at John Hopkins that cured him, she said.
She also serves as an ambassador for Metropolitan Ministries.
Between work and these various organizations, Moore is constantly on the go. “I’m very busy, but I love it,” she said. “If I wasn’t busy, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

Jane Hernandez

As a University of Tampa graduate, one of Jane Hernandez’s greatest passions is the restoration and preservation of the Henry B. Plant Hall on campus.
For the past 16 years, she’s been a member of The Chiselers, an organization that was founded in 1959 and is dedicated to raising funds – hundreds of thousands of dollars each year – to restore the historic building, and now serves as the group’s president.
Plant Hall was initially built between 1888 and 1891 by railroad magnate Henry B. Plant as the Tampa Bay Hotel. Today, it’s home to classrooms, UT administrative offices and the Henry B. Plant Museum, and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
“That building, while the university is living there, using it, it belongs to the city of Tampa. We all have a lot of love for that building,” she said. “People stop in front of it, take photos outside it. Tour buses pass it. It is a landmark for us living here and you just wouldn’t want to see anything happen to it.”
The organization’s signature annual fundraiser, the Chiselers Market at Plant Hall, kicks off March 14 with presale access with the market open to the public on March 15. Bidding on a companion online auction starts March 8.
When they were young teens, Hernandez’s parents – her father from Detroit, her mother from Knoxville – moved to Tampa, where they met and eventually married. A graduate of Hillsborough County Public Schools, she has spent her entire life living in South Tampa.
Her father was a banker and she worked in banking while studying political science at the University of Tampa. After earning her degree, she worked briefly for Seminole Electric Co-op before returning to banking, taking a job at the Bank of Tampa.
Hernandez spent 28 years with the Bank of Tampa, mostly in employee communications, before retiring in 2022.
She learned about the Chiselers through her work at the bank, which encouraged employees to be involved in the community. A coworker and friend who was a member of the group told her about it. “She said, ‘I think you’d be really interested in this,’” Hernandez said. “So, I started volunteering and felt, yeah, this is a good home for me.”
The organization aligned with her love for the University of Tampa and the city’s rich history. “I love the school and felt passionate about how important that building was – not just to the university, but to the city of Tampa,” she said. “It’s a symbol of the city and what got this city started.”
The Chiselers work closely with the university “to make sure nothing happens to” Plant Hall.
Work on the historic building is “just unending – like any old house,” she added. “The building is ¼-mile long, five stories high and over a hundred years old. It’s got a lot of work that it needs.”
Hernandez anticipates that about $140 to 150 million will be needed to complete all the work that needs to be done in the next 10 to 20 years. “The tough thing is you can’t close the building, even if you could raise all that money at once,” she said. “Projects have to be done in a manner that can keep the building going and working. We do projects that affect one area at a time to keep things going each year.”
Currently, critical foundation work is being completed at Plant Hall. The project is funded by two Hillsborough County grants totaling about $375,000 and additional funds from the Chiselers to bring the total amount to $1 million.
Another major project on the horizon is restoration work to the east veranda, which faces the Hillsborough River. “It’s so spectacular when you drive in and see that front facade,” Hernandez said. “There’s a ton of work there that needs to be done top down from the roof downspouts, which are inadequate and causing problems with intrusion.”
The floor’s decking is also “not pitched correctly and needs to be redone to take care of water intrusion,” she said. “That’s a real huge problem there for the building. We’re trying to solve all those kinds of issues. That’s why the money is as big as it is. We’re trying to get to the root and correct that and keep it going.
Last year’s Chiselers Market raised about $170,000 and the organization hopes to bring in just as much at its upcoming sale. The group collects donated items this year that are available to purchase at the market – everything from furniture and lamps to jewelry, books, and art to kitchenware and China. “We have a lot of silver this year, which is fabulous,” Hernandez said. “A lot of art, too. There’s really great fun things as far as collectibles.”
The online silent auction opens March 8 and people will be able to bid on specific items in the week leading up to in-person sale.
This is the first year the organization is offering a ticketed pre-sale access to the market. Tickets are $25 in advance and $35 at the door and allow people “to come in and shop before the crowds,” she said.
The Chiselers are also introducing a new fundraising event this year – Chiseling a Legacy, a dinner for preservation, on April 11. “It’s brand new. We haven’t done it before,” Hernandez said. “We felt we needed an opportunity to have an event where we could share with donors what is happening (at Plant Hall) and what is still needed and also thank them.”

By Tiffany Razzano

Allison Crume knew how important the access to education was even as a toddler. She credits her parents, who were both educators, for this. Her mother retired as a math teacher after more than 30 years, and her father taught in the school system as well before taking a position with Frito Lay, where he still focused on professional development and training.
“Education has always been a big part of my life,” she said. “When I was little, I would have my mom’s teacher edition books and I’d teach my stuffed animals, making up tests for them and all that stuff. I always understood education should be as accessible as possible.”
After graduating from high school in Warner Robins, Georgia, she went on to earn a bachelor of science in history from Georgia College & State University. She also earned a master’s degree in teaching there.
Crume started her career as a high school teacher in Crawford County, Georgia, where she coached soccer and taught history. “I just really had a great time working with students and started to get interested in what happened after graduation and wanted to learn more about how to support students after high school,” she said.
The school was in a rural area and many of her students “didn’t have as many options.” She began to research various options to share with them. “We were always looking at what are those different pathways, but it wasn’t always clear for the students,” she said.
This is how she decided to pursue her doctorate degree in higher education. When her now husband got a job in Tallahassee, the couple became engaged and she applied to Florida State University, where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy in higher education administration
“I’d always been really working with students not only on academic pursuits but their whole development,” Crume said. But she was also concerned about what they did outside the classroom. “What kind of things were they involved in in the community? Just all the different aspects that could help them be successful.”
At FSU, her dissertation focused on student government as a subculture with a focus on campus engagement and how involvement in the organization could lead to greater success for students. “From there, I became really immersed in higher education” with a primary interest in access and equity, she said.
Crume found that one of the best ways to bring access and equity to more students was through student engagement outside the classroom. Organizations like student government leveled the playing field and engaging with students of other backgrounds allowed them to learn from one another, she found.
After earning her doctorate, she took a position with the Board of Governors, State University System of Florida. She worked with the Division of Academic & Student Affairs doing “the same kind of work I was doing in the classroom,” she said, “just different policies and practices that impacted all public universities across Florida.”
One of her main focuses was on the K-20 initiative, which looked “at students right as they’re coming into VPK all the way through graduation from college,” Crume said.
She also served on the State of Florida College Reach-Out Program Advisory Council, a program for low-income and educationally disadvantaged students.
In 2006, she took a position at FSU as assistant director, later becoming associate director, of the Oglesby Student Union, where she focused on identifying opportunities for campus engagement and ways to connect with students. These initiatives were across various departments, including health and wellness, counseling and mental health, housing, and activities.
During her 15 years at FSU, she held various roles, including director of research and programs, assistant vice president and associate vice president for student affairs, interim director of university housing and childcare. No matter the role, they each were “vehicles for providing access and equity for student success,” she said.
A new opportunity came across Crume’s path during the COVID-19 pandemic and she joined the University of South Florida in Tampa as dean of undergraduate studies and associate vice president for student success in August 2020. “What was so exciting about this … was that it brings together that academic focus and support and student services,” she said. “We’re looking at the whole student. I work with all academic colleges to provide that to students.”
The move to USF was “a full circle” for her, she added. “Even when I think about my work as a high school teacher, talking to students and working with them to identify what their needs are and how to improve supporting faculty and supporting the overall university in a welcoming and positive way (that) allows for that space for success.”
The position taps into her true passion for working closely with students. “The other night I was at a late night breakfast hanging out with students,” Crume said. “And the cycle of a semester is just so exciting and helping them achieve their goals and to be a small part of that and being part of commencement (the) next week. It’s very fulfilling.”
Though she joined the university at the height of the pandemic, the transition was easy as USF “had a strong system in place for collaboration.”
“In some ways, it was a little easier to onboard,” she added. “Meetings were happening and everybody was at the table … (to) solve new ways of doing things. I was thrown into a really collaborative group of people who were all working for the same goals in a student-centered way.”
There are several recent initiatives at USF that she’s especially proud of. The university, long known for its support of veterans, was just named as a Purple Star Campus, a state designation for its support of military families. The university has nearly 1,400 student veterans, one of the largest populations for a state university in Florida.
To earn this designation, USF has named a military liaison, has a student-led program to help veterans with their transition at the university, offers professional development training opportunities on how to better serve military students to staff members, and provides web resources and priority course registration for student veterans.
USF has also been recently designated as a First Generation Campus, a national designation. “We worked hard to get that,” Crume said. The university offers programming, support and resources for first-generation students attending college. It also provides a “space for people to come together and celebrate being first generation,” she added.
The university helps to make the transition for first-generation students a little bit easier. For instance, when applying to and attending college, “certain language” and acronyms they might not be familiar with is used. “We break it down and talk about it. We demystify a lot of those things,” she said. “It’s not basic knowledge for everyone.”
The university also recently opened a new Transfer Center, which focuses on transfer student success. “We have a large population of transfer students at USF and many commuter students, and we didn’t have a dedicated space for them,” Crume said.
Outside USF, she’s also involved in the community, especially in areas that involve her family. She and her husband have three children, one a freshman at USF and the other two attending Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel.
The family attends St. Mark the Evangelist Church, where her kids participated in the youth group and Boy Scout Troop 148. She’s been involved with the scouting group, as well as the marching band at the high school.
Crume also serves as a member of the New Tampa YMCA Board and the Pasco Education Foundation Board, which provides support to K-12 schools and teachers in Pasco County.
Much of her community work intentionally involves students and education, as it relates to her work and her greatest passion. “I want to give back and invest in students, who are our future,” she said.

Bob Gilbertson

Bob Gilbertson knew from an early age exactly what he wanted to do for a living – he wanted to work for the YMCA. And that’s exactly what he went on to do, working to develop YMCA locations across the country.
He was recently honored by the Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA at its annual Community Impact Celebration with its prestigious Red Triangle Award.
Growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee, he spent much of his time after school and during the summer at his local Y. “It’s maybe a little unusual … but I had developed relationships with these counselors and coaches,” Gilbertson said. “I developed this real affection for all the time and things that I did at the YMCA. I thought by the time I was 11, this is what I wanted my life to be about, coaching and teaching at the Y. The Y was always the place that I felt most at home and most supported.”
As a teenager, he was hired as a camp counselor and coach at his local Y, working with youth groups. After high school, he went on to the University of Tennessee, where he worked with the swim team.
After two years at UT, he was ready for something new and moved on to George Williams College in Chicago. The college, which was affiliated with the YMCA, offered an exercise science program that focused on topics such as anatomy, physiology and microbiology, and offered studying of human cadavers and live animal experiments. “It was a unique clinical experience that I couldn’t get in any other places,” he said.
Following his graduation from college in 1974, Gilbertson worked for the YMCA in Frankfort, Kentucky, for two years. There, he coached gymnastics and swimming, and ran other programs. He also continued his interest in exercise science through “exercise testing with an old boxing-style EKG machine.” This was around the time there was a push for running and aerobics. “It was a fascinating time when people were saying to exercise to prevent heart disease,” he said. “It was an exciting time to be part of the whole wellness movement. It was just as the stage of taking off. To incorporate that into the YMCA was an exciting time in terms of using education and the momentum to advance health and fitness.”
From Frankfort, Gilbertson moved on to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he worked with “a bigger community and a bigger Y environment.” He continued to work in moving the wellness movement forward at the facility, including working with a local hospital physician who encouraged his patients in his cardiac rehab to continue their efforts at the local YMCA. “It was one of only a dozen places in the U.S. where people did that and we monitored it,” he said. “The hospital there didn’t have (a gym). This was their community clinic, if you will, at the YMCA.”
Gilbertson came to the Tampa YMCA in 1981, which at the time operated an older YMCA built in 1908 that had a hotel and a gym attached to it. “There hadn’t been a lot done to it since 1908 by the time I got there,” he said.
There were also satellite branches throughout the region. “The foundation of the Y was pretty shaky,” he said.
It was financially difficult to maintain and was only kept afloat because of a benefactor on Sanibel Island. The owner of Bailey’s General Store there owned multiple properties and after his death, left a dozen lots to the Tampa YMCA. Every time the organization needed money, it would sell off one of the properties.
“It’s completely different today,” said Gilbertson, who moved to Tampa as director of operations. “The idea was that I was an executive who would raise money and I would operate the Y. We had centers and the very beginnings of an after-school program, which grew to be quite large. The DNA for a good YMCA was there, but it just wasn’t there yet.”
Two years after moving to Tampa, his boss left and Gilbertson was tapped to take over the organization as CEO. Under his watch, they consolidated properties and before long they went from “losing $75,000 a year to making about $75,000 a year,” he said. “That was the beginning of getting things sort of going.”
During his time in Tampa, the organization “built an amazing board” and grew from serving about 5,000 people a year to more than 130,000 people. It grew into one of the 25 largest YMCA organizations in the country.
Similar to his previous YMCA locations, he also helped develop a cardiac rehab program at the Tampa YMCA and worked with the University of South Florida’s cardiology division.
His move to Florida also brought him several other “exciting opportunities,” including working with elected officials and about 30 other organizations to privatize child welfare and foster care in Tampa, which took about three years of work to accomplish. “At the time, it was viewed that the state was failing those kids,” he said. “Safety and permanency were the two key components.”
Once the program, Hillsborough Kids, launched, he served as its CEO for a period. “It became pretty well known for advancing adoption and the organization has had its ups and downs, but overall, the view of things, I think, is it’s better for kids,” he said. “That experience was absolutely phenomenal and it centered on what is the central mission of the Y, how to reach people who need services. It was an opportunity to do something completely out of our wheelhouse. It was an opportunity to learn and serve.”
Under his watch, the Central City YMCA on Palm Avenue was built. The goal was to bring together people from various sectors of the community at this location. “Our hope was to serve white, Latino and Black , and we also wanted to serve the full spectrum of economics,” Gilbertson said.
He added, “The idea was you would go in and work out one day and be on a treadmill next to a woman in a burka and on your other side you have a person who had been homeless at one point in time or you get a basketball game going up and you have a banker and maybe a young person who is unemployed. We saw equality in the way people treated each other and we just thought it was great and so did a lot of our members.”
The idea was people from various parts of the community would interact with each other at the YMCA. “Interactions they wouldn’t have in the course of their busy day,” he said. “It’s the essence of the best that YMCA can do – the intersection of different neighborhoods, different people, different backgrounds. It felt to me like when we were at our best.”
After several decades, Gilbertson left Florida in 2007 for Seattle, which was about 30 percent bigger than the organization he had been working for in Tampa and he felt had a lot of potential. “My job was to raise money to build new Ys and expand the service that the Y provides there,” he said.
Similar to the Central City YMCA, the new Ys being built in Seattle also brought together an intersection of the community with people of various economic backgrounds, races and cultures all coming together under one roof. “The real mission was to mix economic backgrounds,” Gilbertson said. “The term that we used (for it) was ‘YMCA on the scene.’ What that really meant was that on one side of the neighborhood were maybe people who could afford the YMCA and could afford to volunteer, and the other side was a neighborhood that didn’t have the same economic choices that the other neighborhood had.”
He was especially drawn to efforts made by the Seattle YMCA for emancipated foster kids, those in their late teens and early 20s who had aged out of the foster system. “When they turn 18, the state stops paying foster families and the kids’ belongings are placed in trash bags and it’s like, ok, you’re on your own,” Gilbertson said. “It’s horrible, absolutely horrible.”
In Seattle, the YMCA offers this community various services and support, including job training, education, mental health services and housing for emancipated foster kids. “The system there wasn’t privatized, but this was a step beyond,” he said. “We watched young people really begin to blossom and take off, even though they’ve had a tough life.”
After retiring in 2019, He joined the YMCA World Urban Network, a group of YMCA CEOs from large cities around the world that met to work on strategies to improve Y facilities and programming, for five years. He traveled the world for these meetings, visiting places like Shanghai, China, and Bogota, Colombia.
Now, he’s writing a book “on some of the great people in the YMCA who did things that are meaningful and left legacies,” he said. “I believe history is a really important thing and I felt like the history of some of the things people did could be lost in the next generation of the Y.”
As he reflects on his career with the YMCA, he’s proud of the work he put in for the organization and what he helped to accomplish. “I think people make choices to work in a career that brings them joy and makes them feel like they’re fulfilled in some fashion and so, for me, gosh, I helped and I gave as much as I got,” he said. “It’s been a great organization to work in and have a chance to lead and I can’t think of a better way to have spent my life.”

By Tiffany Razzano

During his more than two decades working in financial services for companies like Washington Mutual and Chase, John Seib was always drawn to educating his clients.
The Portland, Oregon, resident spent much of his career working with large mortgage teams across the country. “One of the things that I always was kind of moved by or broken-hearted by were individuals, young couples, young families who would come in and didn’t qualify for a home and didn’t understand why,” he said. “So, I’d sit down with individuals and try to coach them, help them understand. They don’t know what a credit score is or why they can’t buy a house. They just didn’t understand financial literacy at its base.”
So, Seib was excited by the opportunity to shift gears in recent years and focus on financial literacy among children.
He was an early investor and founder of Tampa-based Electus Global Education Co. and today, serves as the company’s chief revenue officer.
It was his nephew who tapped him to get involved with the then start-up company about eight years ago. “He told me, ‘You might want to take a look at this,’” Seib said.
Not only did he invest in the company, but he joined the advisory board. It wasn’t long before he got more involved in sales for Electus. And about four years ago, he was tapped as the president before becoming CRO. “That’s when I made the decision to really leave the career I had been a part of,” he said.
The company’s early years focused on finding investors, as well as research and development. “All around the idea of financial literacy,” according to Seib. “Could there be a solution? If there was a solution, what would it look like?”
During this time, Electus began developing its Life Hub financial education technology.
Initially, the company thought it might focus on adults, maybe high school students. “But all the research pointed the other way; it pointed to our youth and really hitting those formative years,” Seib said.
He added, “There’s a big difference between behavior modification and behavior formation.”
Modification is “very, very difficult,” he noted. “Once patterns or beliefs are set, it’s difficult to modify behavior.”
They realized they’d have more of an impact if they focused on forming “behaviors from the beginning, so you don’t have to go back and modify later,” Seib said.
Life Hub focuses on providing experiential learning through an app for youth ages 7 to 18. It teaches the broader philosophy of financial literacy, as well as entrepreneurship, career development and life skills. “Yes, it’s financial literacy, but to really make change and impact, it has to be more,” he said. “The solution would have to go beyond that.”
Through the Life Hub app, kids are paid to complete educational tasks on the platform. “Kids get excited when they’re earning money,” according to Seib. We’re not asking them to wash windows or anything. But they complete these tasks, these lessons, and once they’re completed, then they get paid real money deposited on a Visa card.
Most of the tasks pay between $1 and $3 and take anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes to complete. The budget for each task is set by the organization, often a nonprofit, that is utilizing the technology for the children they serve.
The tasks are designed to get students thinking about real-life financial scenarios. For instance, in one task, they’re asked to “buy a puppy” by a virtual pet store. They need to consider how much it costs to buy their pet food, take it to the vet and buy any other necessities for it. “The impact is when you understand the difference between what you pay for something and what it costs,” he said. “It’s a life principle.”
These virtual tasks get children participating in the program to think about their spending and saving. “The first foundation of making a chance is understanding and learning about money,” Seib said. “The other skills follow once they understand earning. That’s when changes to habits and beliefs and patterns happen.”
Electus launched its Life Hub technology two years ago in Tampa through partnerships with the likes of Big Brothers Big Sisters Suncoast and a private school, Academy Prep. “We launched it in a very, very controlled environment,” he said. “It’s brand new technology and a brand new concept. We wanted to feel out what was possible.”
Now, the company is growing rapidly, expanding its partnerships. They’re getting ready to work with Lutheran Services Florida and Friends of the Children in the Tampa Bay area, and even nationally, working with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Chicago, and Friends of the Children in the San Francisco area. “We’re continually expanding not only in Florida but across the country,” Seib said.
While it might be challenging to get the Life Hub technology into public schools, it’s “perfect” for other educational spaces. “The areas that we’re really excited about are micro schools and home schools and even private and charter schools,” he said.
Within the next few weeks, Electus will move into the direct-to-consumer market, offering the Life Hub platform to individual families.
There are more than 1,600 tasks available on Life Hub and customization is available for each school, organization and student using the technology.
While the “sweet spot” for the technology is those ages 7 to 18, Electus is also exploring working with children as young as 4 and moving into universities and colleges.
The technology can be beneficial for a wide range of youth, Seib added. “Schools don’t teach financial literacy of entrepreneurship or career development … I think that the key is that what we’re doing changes the trajectory and it breaks generational habits and patterns, and I think that we’re changing the generation that is coming up. It’s what really drives all of us every day.”

Roni-Kay Elser

Roni-Kay Elser was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was just six weeks old after experiencing a grand mal seizure that was sparked by a high fever. “I’ve known nothing else ever since,” she said.
The disorder runs in her family. “There’s a genetic line,” according to the West Palm Beach native. “My great grandmother, back in the day, had what they called ‘fits.’”
She didn’t let it stop her, though. He had two brother’s and her father was into sports, so she was an active youth who participated in gymnastics, figure skating, swimming and other activities. “I taught myself growing up with it and I could sense them coming on,” she said. “I’d get somebody or sit down. Ninety percent of the time, I had an aura and felt them coming on.”
In 1991, when Elser was in junior high school, her family moved to Polk County and she graduated from Bartow High School.
Since then, she’s enjoyed a varied career. Initially, she was interested in journalism. “I loved stories and wanted to get behind the scenes,” she said.
She’s worked in accounting, as well as environmental permitting and engraving.
But one of her early jobs was in the medical field. Because of her epilepsy, she was frequently at medical appointments. At one point, one of her doctors told her, “You can relate and you explain this better than I did to a patient and I didn’t have to question it,” she said. He hired her to do secretarial work in his office and she eventually became office manager.
After her divorce, Elser switched gears and began working for Hillsborough County Public Schools so she could be on the same daily schedule as her children. She was hired as a production coordinator for a school kitchen.
Today, she’s a student nutrition manager for two schools – Brandon High School and Wimauma Elementary School.
She’s also an activist in the epilepsy community. Even as a child, she was a poster child for the Epilepsy Foundation, speaking to reporters and at events to share her story, and attended a camp in the Everglades. “I always wanted to make people aware that we weren’t the only ones out there. There are other people out there,” she said.
By the time she was an adult, Elser was having eight to 10 seizures a day. The most she ever had in one day was 108. “It was so up and down,” she said. “I’d have months with them and a year without. There was such a fluctuation. And throughout my life, it was a rollercoaster of medication, trials and errors, and what have you.”
A pivotal moment came in January 2008. While driving on Interstate 75, she had a seizure behind the wheel. “Luckily, I got my friend’s attention or I wouldn’t be here today,” she said. “I said, ‘Enough’s enough. Something has to happen.’”
After some research, Elser learned that Tampa General Hospital was seeking qualified candidates for a new brain surgery. “It was high risk at the time,” she said.
Doctors concluded that all of her epilepsy activity was happening on the left side of her brain and gave her the green light for a temporal lobectomy on the left side of her brain. She was warned of some side effects, but she’s felt very few after the surgery and she hasn’t needed any medication since.
This success inspired her to found the Seize the Moment foundation. “I wanted to get the word out there,” Elser said.
The organization works closely with patients and educates the public about epilepsy and the various treatment options available to them. She and her team also assist with new patient consultations for TGH and she walks people through her experiences with surgery.
Seize the Moment also raises money to assist with medical expenses, such as copays, and also research and development in epilepsy. This is set up through a fund in collaboration with TGH and the University of South Florida physicians group.
For the last five years, Elser’s primary fundraisers have been sporting events – bowling outings and professional hockey, football, and baseball games – and a barbecue competition, Que for the Cure.
She launched the competition during the COVID-19 pandemic, and though she’s still building it up, she’s raised about $256,000 for the cause through all her events.
The next barbecue fundraiser, Que for the Cure, takes place Aug. 23 and 24 in Riverview. This year, 70 barbecue teams will compete in the event, which is also still seeking sponsors.
The event is inspired by her husband, a barbecue professional who owns a shop and makes and manufactures sauces and rubs. In fact, he’s even created two rubs and once sauce to sell as a fundraiser for Seize the Moment. They’re available at the upcoming barbecue competition.
Elser’s goal is to reach as many people as she can, whether it’s sponsoring patients or educating the community.
“(Epilepsy is) more common than you think. It’s more common than 90 percent of neurological disorders (like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis) but people can recognize them more than epilepsy,” she said.
In fact, one in 100 people have epilepsy, she added. “That’s about 67 million people worldwide. I just want to help as many people as possible and help the doctors who are helping them.”