);
Connect with us

Community

Looking Up: Two Peachtree Corners residents show enthusiasm for things that fly

Published

on

A miniature rocket takes to the sky during a Southern Area Rocketry club launch day. Photos by Joe Earle.

One hot Saturday in July, a cloudless sky burned deep blue above an isolated field hidden among the woods behind a private high school in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. About 20 cars, pickups or SUVs lined the edge of the grassy field and families gathered beneath tents or tarps they’d pitched beside their vehicles, like tailgaters at a football game. In the middle of the field, a pair of model rockets sat side by side on launch pads, waiting the electronic command to blast skyward.

One belonged to Maddie Cain, a 9-year-old from Peachtree Corners who enjoys flying rockets with her dad. She and Nicolas Ruthruff, a 7-year-old friend from Acworth, planned to launch their rockets side-by-side in a “drag race,” a competition to see how well each rocket performed. The winner would be the last rocket to hit ground. Jorge Blanco, president of the Southern Area Rocketry club (SoAR), stood in the shadow beneath a tarp next to the launch area. Blanco counted down from five to zero and the rockets zipped into the sky. After just a few seconds, they headed back to earth. Nicholas’ rocket won. The two rocket racers ran across the mowed grass to collect their models so they could fly another day. “Good race,” Maddie said.

Maddie Cain readies one of her rockets for launch.

Maddie learned about model rocketry from her dad, David Cain. Cain, a 61-year-old software interface architect, first flew model rockets as a boy who was, as he put it, “growing up in the Space Age.” He moved on to other interests as a teenager, he said, but picked up the hobby again a few years ago as a common interest with his children, Maddie and her 12-year-old brother Jim. This year, Cain took over as vice president of the 400-member SoAR.

Maddie with her dad David Cain
Maddie and her dad, David Cain, display miniature rockets they’ve built and plan to fly, including a Space-X model that David ordered from the company.

These days, he and another Peachtree Corners resident, Moreno Aguiari, are working to help introduce metro Atlantans to machines that fly.

New kind of aviation museum

While Cain engages in model rocketry, Aguiari, a 44-year-old commercial pilot and publisher of a magazine about vintage warplanes, wants to help create a new museum and education center built around Georgia’s aviation history and industry. The new Atlanta Air and Space Museum is proposed for 18 acres on the eastern side of the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, the county-owned airport in Chamblee usually referred to by its call letters, PDK. The property, once used for a runway but now abandoned, offers a close view of PDK’s working runways and airport facilities.

Moreno Aguiari stands on the abandoned runway at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport that he hopes will be the site of a Georgia aviation and space museum and education campus. The site offers a view of the planes that land and take off regularly from PDK, which is behind him.

Aguiari is a founder and board member of the Inspire Aviation Foundation, a nonprofit created about three years ago to create the museum. “The purpose of this museum would be to acquire, restore and conserve historic aircraft, spacecraft, technology and related artifacts, while creating innovative visitor experiences that are educational and entertaining,” the foundation said in a press release.

Aguiari puts it a bit more simply. The museum’s proponents, he said, don’t want simply to create another building full of old airplanes, like plenty of other aviation museums scattered around the country. “We are not going to build your typical box full of planes,” Aguiari said as he sat in a conference room at PDK once recent afternoon. “That’s an old concept of a museum.”

Instead, they see exhibits that are interactive and engaging to young people. They want the DeKalb School System and perhaps even Georgia Tech to be involved with the aviation campus to create a place where students can learn about aerospace careers and flying.

The foundation wants to create a place “designed to build aspiration for a life in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM),” it said in its press release. “But the platform will go further than aspirations to nurture an interest in aviation throughout someone’s entire life. The [foundation] wants to offer a tangible path from childhood all the way through an aerospace career and beyond.”

Aguiari realized the PDK museum should be different when he was taking his own children to see other aviation museums. He liked looking at the old planes, he said, but his kids soon were bored. “My 5- and 6-year-old kids were telling me, ‘Dad, can we go someplace else? Nothing moves here.’”

Fellow foundation board member Latessa Meader, a C-130 pilot in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, got excited about and signed on with the project last year because of its educational components. She’s a former high school math teacher who says she became an aviation mechanic and then a pilot because she thought the most interesting teachers were those who had done other things during their lives.

“We don’t want static airplanes with placards in front of them,” she said. “All of us have a passion for aviation and we want to inspire that in students from age 1 to 100.”

She said she wants the project to showcase careers in aviation and aerospace and show students how to pursue jobs as engineers, air traffic controllers, mechanics or baggage handlers. “Anything you enjoy doing can be [related to aviation],” she said. “One of my long-term goals in this is to capture their passions.”

The museum would tell the story of aviation in Georgia. Georgians have built airplanes at Lockheed Martin and Gulfstream, flown them for Delta Air Lines and operated the busiest airport in the world. “Georgia has an incredible aviation history [stretching back] almost 120 years,” Aguiari said.

Georgia’s aviation heritage

Georgians were building and flying airplanes soon after the Wright brothers showed it was possible. One of the nation’s aviation pioneers was Ben Epps of Athens, whose descendants made flying a family tradition that continues. His youngest son, Pat Epps, started Epps Aviation, the fixed based operator still in business at PDK.

The land that would become PDK was part of the site of Camp Gordon, a World War I army training base. The property was sold at auction after the war to a private owner, and then in the 1920s and early 1930s, aviation enthusiasts thought the land would make a good airport, according to the PDK webpage. In 1940, DeKalb County bought the land and dirt runways and opened it in 1941, the webpage says.

During World War II, the property was home to a U.S. Naval Air Station. “Many young men, not only from Georgia but from all over the United States, began their flying careers during the next few years, while the Navy was using the airport for pilot training,” the PDK webpage says.

After the war, the Navy continued to operate the airport as a Naval Air Station until a new facility that could handle jets opened at Dobbins Air Force Base in Cobb County. PDK returned to full civilian use in 1959.

One of the first collections the aviation museum has received is composed of memorabilia from retirees of the Naval Air Station. The collection includes photographs, logbooks, newspaper clippings and other artifacts that had been displayed during annual meetings of the retirees. The foundation is having the items photographed so they can be preserved digitally, Aguiari said. With the items, the museum can showcase the air station’s history so “the guys who served here will not be forgotten.”

Efforts to pull together the aviation museum and to develop the campus are expected to take at least three to five years, Meader said. The foundation is conducting a feasibility study for the project and for fundraising for the millions of dollars needed for the project, Aguiari said. He remains hopeful.

“I’m just a regular Joe with a big vision,” Aguiari said. “It’s not like we have millionaires or big companies behind it. It’s just a bunch of regular guys trying to build something incredible.”

Soaring high

David Cain pursues a different vision. He still regularly fires small kit rockets similar to ones his daughter Maddie and Jim build and fly, but he’s also looking up to see just how high some of his models can soar and survive.

SoAR organizes launch days for small rockets every month. (The launches are open to anyone who wants to fly rockets, not just members). But its members also take part, a few times a year, in high altitude flights from fields in south Georgia, Alabama or other places far from the flight paths of airplanes. Cain has taken part in a few of those outings. He said his collection now includes three high-powered rockets, three middle-level ones and seven smaller ones. His personal best flight went up about a mile, he said.

Still Cain likes flying rockets, no matter what size they are. After all, not all launches work. Some rockets sit dead on the launchpad. Others blow up or reach only a few feet before heading back to ground. Others end up in the trees surrounding the range and can’t be recovered.

“I have never lost the thrill of seeing my rocket go up there,” he said. …“It is a challenge. It’s the joy of watching it fly.”

The hobby also allows him to indulge other passions. He likes to operate a 3-D printer to make things, he said, so now he creates his own rocket parts. At the range in July, he flew a model of the Space-X rocket that he had built from a kit he bought from Space-X, he said. The largest rocket he’s built, he said, stood about six feet tall “…and looked like a length of black hose. I have gotten to a point that my teenage self would not recognize the rockets I do now.”

These days, flying rockets also connects him with his kids. “There’s not just one reason I enjoy it,” Cain said. “I discovered when I did it with my boy that I still enjoyed it. I just hadn’t done it in a while. As a hobby, it allows me to integrate my different interests…. It’s a great way to spend time with the kids and to give them experience building things with their hands.”

Cain said building and flying their rockets gives rocketeers the feeling of personal satisfaction and achievement that video gamers feel when they finally conquer a difficult level in a game and “level up.” “Rocketry delivers a similar kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a ‘level-up’ experience when you do something like fly your rocket to 5,700 feet and then then get your rocket back.”

Maddie sees that, too. “I’m enjoying myself pretty much,” she said after a few launches on that hot Saturday in July. “Today, there is a breeze going and there are kids here. … The main reason I’m here is to hang out with my dad and have fun flying rockets.

“It’s kind of cool to watch your rocket go up and realize, ‘Hey! I built this thing and it’s working!’”

Find Out More

Learn more about rocketry and the museum project at:
Atlanta Air & Space Museum — atlantaairandspacemuseum.org
SoAR Rocketry —soarrocketry.org

Continue Reading

Community

PCBA Accepting Scholarship Applications for Class of 2025 Seniors

Published

on

Peachtree Corners Business Association log with dark green tree on a light green background and PCBA in white type.

Click here for the current scholarship application for eligible graduating seniors.

Continue Reading

Community

Building Community Through a Love of Cars

Published

on

A smiling kid with blonde hair giving a thumbs up in front of an expensive sports car with it's driver door up.

If you drive a ‘Little Deuce Coup,’ a ‘Little Red Corvette’ or nothing at all, the Ride Lounge in Peachtree Corners may be the club for you.

If you’re someone who’s so fascinated with automobiles that casual conversations often turn into treatises about torque, transmission overdrive, throttle linkage and tread squirm, the Ride Lounge, set to open this year in Peachtree Corners, might be your utopia.

Founders Dave Codrea and Josh Friedensohn have envisioned the spot as a unique car storage facility and social club designed for car enthusiasts and their families.

Once complete, the 18,000-square-foot building will have indoor storage for about 65 cars as well as lounge areas, a conference room/presentation area for members to do group events, a car detailing area and a bar.

“There will be plenty of room for social events and stuff,” said Codrea.

Pre-opening fundraiser

Even though the establishment’s interior wasn’t completed at the time, the guys kicked off the first weekend in February with the first charity fundraiser of many to come. Pedal Fest took place on Saturday, February 1, with proceeds going to the Gwinnett County Public Schools Foundation.

A group of kids with parents and spectators taking part in a trike race in a warehouse parking lot. Pedal Fest at Ride Lounge Car Club.
Pedal Fest, photo courtesy of Ride Lounge

Teams of three competed in pedal-powered drift trike races around a track set up in the parking lot.

“This is the kind of family-friendly stuff we like to do,” said Codrea. “We’ll probably have about one event a week — mostly related to different car events.”

The concept behind the Ride Lounge is more than just your old man’s garage. According to design firm Archie Bolden, the club will have “strategically integrated focal lighting throughout to enhance specific areas and create captivating visual focal points that invite visitors to explore highlighted zones or admire showcased feature cars.”

The look is described as masculine luxe with industrial accents.

Just a couple of gearheads

Codrea and Friedensohn don’t have anything to do with autos in their day jobs. They are partners in Greenleaf, a real estate company that buys, rehabilitates and manages long-term low-income residential properties and small business commercial properties to provide advancement opportunities for its residents, tenants, investors and communities. 

Two men standing with bikes in a darkened warehouse space with their arms crossed in front of them. From Ride Lounge Car Club.
photo courtesy of Ride Lounge

“I started getting into cars when I was about 13 or 14 years old and as a little boy growing up with Hot Wheels,” Codrea said. “I got my first car, and I always enjoyed working on it. I took the whole engine apart and put in a turbo system. I’ve always loved cars.”

And he’s come across other “gearheads” who like to talk about cars, hang out around cars and work on cars as well.

So why a car club?

“You can do whatever you want to do with cars and it doesn’t matter what kind of car you have as long as it’s something you’re passionate about and like talking about it with other car people,” he said. “It’s a really good way to bring people together.”

Why here?

“That’s easy. I live in Peachtree Corners and I like it,” he said.

Building community

Codrea added that there’s so much diversity and growth that it’s kind of a no-brainer that there are many people who’d gravitate to the concept.

“Atlanta is a big city, but that also means there’s all sorts of interest in a lot of little segments,” he said. “You know what’s out there in cars and there’s definitely interest. As the area grows, we’re trying to bring people that like cars and their kids and families together.”

A handmade sign and white, red, black and grey balloons. The sign reads 'Race Starts Here' and is located in a warehouse parking lot with grass and trees in the background. From Ride Lounge car club.
photo courtesy of Ride Lounge

The storage spaces will allow owners to keep their prize possessions out of the elements or out the home garage in an environmentally-controlled area. But owning a car is not a  requirement for membership in the club. There’s a level for just communing with like-minded individuals.

With so many “reality” shows based on restoration and enhancement, there’s no doubt that the interest is there. There’s a big screen ready for 24 hours of Le Mans, F1 races and anything else with a motor.

It looks like those with a passion for automotive performance have found their tribe.

To learn more about Ride Lounge or for early member access, visit ride-lounge.com.

Continue Reading

Business

Pest Control Without Harsh Chemicals

Published

on

Two men and one woman standing next to a blue SUV with company logo on it and holding a sign for Geo Mosquito.

Local small business owner has found a way to keep mosquitos at bay with natural remedies

Geoff Krstovic, a former firefighter, transitioned into the mosquito control business after a divorce, driven by the desire for flexible work.

“Nobody ever thinks they’re going to be into bugs and chemistry when they grow up,” he said. “It’s not like, ‘I want to be a firefighter. I want to be an astronaut.’ Nobody thinks that they want to go out there whacking bugs or says, ‘I want to be in pest control.’”

But as he progressed in his new career, Krstovic took an interest in how to get rid of pests without using harsh, man-made chemicals.

“The more certifications, the more promotions and everything that I got, [and] the more entomology classes I started taking, … I really started to realize what we were putting out into the environment,” he said.

Pest control technician from Geo Mosquito spraying a customer's yard.
Krstovic treating a customer’s yard. The spraying protocol is customized to each property, resulting in more effective mosquito control.

“I spend 90% of my time outside, and I see so much wildlife. So, when I would see a deer eating a leaf or a rabbit run out of bushes that I just treated, it really made me start to think about the effects of what we were doing to them.”

Not to mention pollinators like bees and butterflies.

“When I [would finish a treatment], I’d look back at the yard and everything that I’d seen flying around was just gone,” he said.

As a parent and a pet owner, he knew there had to be a better way to get rid of pests but still safeguard ourselves and the animals around us.

With a growing concern for the environmental impact, he developed a natural mosquito treatment system. The company he was working for wasn’t interested in his new product, so he started his own business.

Road to pest control

Krstovic graduated from Georgia State with a major in English. He joked that many of his contemporaries in the field have similar backgrounds.

“There’s an ongoing joke in the pest community where it’s like … what do you go to college [for] to be a pest [control] owner? Well, you major in liberal arts, English or writers’ composition,” he said.

Large orange and black butterfly resting on a pink flower bush with green leaves in a backyard garden.
Geo Mosquito protects vital plants and pollinators with eco-friendly mosquito control.

“A lot of the other owners I met had the same degrees. A big part of it is that creativity aspect, and in pest control, you’re allowed to think outside the box, and you’re allowed to adjust and adapt to what you’re seeing and use different methods.”

That desire to do things differently led him to find a way to help keep people safe from West Nile, Zika virus and Eastern equine encephalitis while they enjoyed time outdoors.

With a lot of research and a little help from relatives with backgrounds in chemistry and engineering, he came up with a formulation based on using essential oils.

The dangers of mosquitos

“After you meet your first client that tells you about their experience just walking to a mailbox and they get West Nile, it changes your perspective 100%,” Krstovic said, “because you’re not just out there killing bugs, you’re out there protecting people and their families.”

Mosquitos are often called the most dangerous animal on earth, with the diseases they spread killing over a million people annually according to statistics from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control.

While the more serious mosquito diseases don’t pose the greatest risk to most communities, there are common ailments that can show up in people and pets, including bites that get infected and heartworm in dogs.

Reaching out to the community

Though people were a little skeptical about Krstovic’s natural pest control methods at first, Erin Rhatigan decided to give it a try.

“Geoff cold-called our house in 2021 and revealed that he actually grew up in the house next door,” she said. “He really wanted to return to his roots and offer his services.”

Rhatigan has three young children, and with her home being situated on the Chattahoochee River, the outdoor areas are beautiful, but also plagued by a lot of mosquitos.

“We’re very focused on spending time outside, and our kids are very, very active, so they’re outside a lot,” she said.

But Rhatigan and her kids are also very sensitive to mosquito bites, and the spraying services she tried year after year weren’t satisfactory.

“I had gone through every franchise. I had used the large companies every season. I was switching because it seemed like it would be effective at the beginning, and then it would lose effectiveness,” she said.

She was also concerned about the toxicity of the chemicals being used.

“I felt like using toxic chemicals on our property was not only bad for our family, but because we are on the river, we’re kind of a steward to the environment as well, … so when he mentioned that the product that he uses to control the mosquitoes was eco-friendly, I was happy to try it,” she shared.

Local solution gets a local investor

The treatment was so effective that Rhatigan isn’t just a customer, she and her husband decided to invest in the business.

A woman and two men sitting at a kitchen table with snacks, drinks and notebooks discussing plans for business expansion.
From left: Erin Rhatigan, Geoff Krstovic and Nathan Rhatigan mapping out 2025 expansion plans.

“It was better than anything I had used for the previous 10 years,” she said. “The amazing thing is that when he sprays the property, you have this effervescence of the essential oils in the air.”

She recommended Geo Mosquito to everyone who’d listen to her, and eventually Krstovic took over maintaining the facilities at Rhatigan’s community pool.

“[What he was doing] kind of piqued my husband’s and my interest because we were looking for a small business to invest in locally,” she said. “I’m now home with the kids, but I have a long career in sales, and my husband is in sales as well.”

Within a year, the couple became active investors.

“We love the origin story of this relationship because it’s reflective of how friendly and supportive the local business community is in Peachtree Corners,” she said.

Caring about the work

Krstovic attributes his success to caring about the work, attention to detail and understanding client needs. He doesn’t just spray the yard and leave; he has a system of mapping out problem areas and educating clients about prevention.

A pest control technician from Geo Mosquito talks to a woman wearing a red top and black pants on the steps leading up to her home's front door.
Krstovic with Geo Mosquito customer discussing potential problem areas on the property.

“We’re looking at anything that could hold a water source and eliminating that, asking our clients what time of the day they’re getting eaten up, what part of their body and what part of their yard,” he said.

“That helps us figure out the species of mosquito that’s attacking them, so we know where to target, because different species have different nesting sites.”

Growing the business

Geo Mosquito has begun working with Vox-pop-uli to upgrade their logo, website and promotional materials.

“Geoff is a typical entrepreneur — protective of what he’s doing,” Rhatigan said. “So going through the steps of changing the logo, coming up with a new tagline, starting to do some marketing, is both exciting and a little scary.”

But the team at Vox-pop-uli has been a tremendous resource — helping them go at their own pace.

“This first year of investment was about seeing what the market interest is and expanding brand awareness,” said Rhatigan. “Vox-pop-uli offers so many services, it’s daunting for an emerging company to manage so many different contractors: creative, graphic design, printing, mailing. But they have a great, responsive organization that has been very helpful.”

Next steps

With a proprietary formulation for the mosquito abatement, Geo Mosquito wants to bottle the solution and sell it nationally.

Additionally, in 2025, the company plans to expand into ecofriendly pest control services for inside the home. They are also interested in working with local municipalities, churches and schools to expand their mosquito control services.

The Local Thread: This business profile series is proudly supported by Vox-pop-uli, championing local stories and the communities we serve.

This article is also available in the print and digital edition of the Jan/Feb issue of Southwest Gwinnett magazine.

Photos courtesy of Geo Mosquito.

Continue Reading

Read the Digital Edition

Subscribe

Peachtree Corners Life

Topics and Categories

Trending

Copyright © 2024 Mighty Rockets LLC, powered by WordPress.

Get Weekly Updates!

Get Weekly Updates!

Don't miss out on the latest news, updates, and stories about Peachtree Corners.

Check out our podcasts: Peachtree Corners Life, Capitalist Sage and the Ed Hour

You have Successfully Subscribed!