By Martie Thompson
editor@floridanewsline.com
Vincent Terlizzi is well known around St. Joseph’s Catholic Church as director of the church’s popular monthly Bingo games. Born in Staten Island, NY, he initially considered becoming a doctor. He graduated from Staten Island Community College and began his medical career as an EMT stationed in the Bronx. He went on to work at the public health hospital in Staten Island before being lured away by what would become a successful career in the car business. After 29 years working at a dealership in New Jersey, he and his wife Eileen had the opportunity to move to Clearwater for a similar job. A job offer from Coggin Nissan brought the Terlizzi family to Jacksonville, where they have remained despite Vincent being out of the car business now for a number of years. He has worked at some other businesses, but is passionate about serving his church with the Bingo event and also at the Christmas tree lot. He and his wife Eileen have two grown children, Patricia and Vincent, Jr.
Q: How did you get into the car business?
A: I was working at the hospital when I bought a car from Autoland in Springfield, NJ. They had a referral program and I referred so many people to them that the owner asked me to work for him. I wasn’t sure about it, so I took my two weeks vacation from the hospital and tried out working full time at the dealership. In those two weeks I made the same amount of money that I would have made in three months at the hospital. So I went back to the hospital and gave my two-week notice. I soon became the youngest finance department director in the car business in New Jersey.
Q: What do you think made you so successful?
A: Customer service is so important. We never had any complaints in our department. I always found a way to close the deal. Also, I liked to hire young salespeople and mentor them. Some of them own dealerships today and many still keep in touch with me.
Q: How did you meet your wife?
A: Eileen also worked in the car business, for a car credit company. One time, I was trying to get a particular bonus and needed to have three applications processed by her before midnight. One of them had an issue and, being diligent, she wouldn’t process it. I went over her head and called her boss and talked him into accepting the contract, which was for a conversion van for a doctor’s family. I got my bonus. A couple of days later I asked her to lunch to apologize for going over her head to her boss. That’s all it took; I married her in 1988. Although I did have to call her boss back after lunch and tell him he needed to take her off my account since now that we were dating it would be a conflict of interest.
Q: How did you end up in Florida?
A: Unfortunately, the owner of Autoland eventually passed away. The new managing team fired a lot of the salespeople and we went from selling 1,000 cars a month to 600 cars a month in just two months. They wanted me to stay and I did for a little while, but if the salespeople weren’t selling cars, I didn’t have as much opportunity for work. So I moved around a bit, went to Clearwater and eventually came here to Jacksonville.
Q: What is it that you enjoy about Bingo?
A: I actually volunteered at Bingo back at my church in New York. I don’t like to play Bingo, but I like to manage the event. When we moved here, I asked the priest at St. Joseph’s if we could start Bingo. He said no, but eventually we got a new priest and he approved it. We had our first event in 2019 with about 60 people. In November 2024, we had 280 people, but our biggest event was last July when we had attendance of 360. All proceeds go to St. Joseph’s, some to the capital campaign. But all of us who work there are volunteers. It’s the same with the Christmas tree lot. In the early summer, we plan to have a special (additional) Bingo event to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. So stay tuned for more details!
[Editor’s Note: Bingo is hosted monthly at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in the Cody Center at 4152 Loretto Road. Contact vaterlizzi@gmail.com for dates and more information.]
Photo courtesy Vincent Terlizzi
Vincent and Eileen Terlizzi
