Featured Members Bill & Cathy Winkler
August 2014
Bill and Cathy live in sunny Sarasota, Florida. Cathy is an Occupational Therapist. She worked for 43 years at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, most of them in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit [NICU] caring for at risk newborns. She recently retired and is now working part-time with Florida’s Early Steps Intervention Program where she evaluates kids with an array of disabilities from birth to age 3. Her hobby of passion is Hand Bell Ringing and she is a member of a hand bell choir. She also enjoys photography.
Bill is a manufacturer’s representative for a New Jersey based company selling coated and laminated fabrics primarily used for healthcare and industrial applications. His territory includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Western North Carolina, and Eastern Tennessee. He has several customers in the Atlanta area and joining the Allanté Atlanta Club is a good fit as he can combine his sales calls with some of the club’s weekend trips. He and Cathy attended the Motorama weekend event in April, are attending the Fall Cruise 2014 in October and hope to participate in the Biltmore House Christmas trip.
Living in Florida, you either play golf and/or go fishing. Bill does neither and he wanted to find a hobby as he is approaching retirement. Always wanting to own an Allanté, Bill found his 1993 Allanté Pace Car in 2011 with only 15,000 miles on the odometer. Amazingly, it was right in Sarasota. It needed a little electrical and mechanical work, but thanks to Dick Hussey and Johnny Monzo everything is back to original operating condition.
It is great fun to drive, but the most fun about owning this car is that Bill and Cathy have already attended many meets and events and have met a great group of other Allanté aficionados. The car has won several Best of Show awards in Florida and South Carolina, but the nicest award was when it tied for 1st Place Primary with Russell Vopelak’s Polo Green Allanté at the Cadillac & LaSalle Grand National Meet in St. Augustine, Florida in 2012. Bill plans to take the Pace Car to Milwaukee [his hometown] for the Grand National Meet in June 2015 and enter it in the CLC Senior competition. More than anything, the Allanté has given the Winklers the ability to meet many wonderful people.
