The Palm Beach GCSA chapter in Florida boasts four Certified Turf Equipment Managers: from left, Jonathan Watson, Orlando Acevedo III, Haas Mengloi and Chris Johnson Jr. Photo by Paul Piasecki
The British Invasion 60 years ago featured the rock and roll band the Beatles launching a legendary presence in America. Now, in 2024 in Florida, the Palm Beach GCSA Chapter has its own Fab Four thing to set the trend.
It’s not John, Paul, George and Ringo. Instead, it’s Jonathan, Orlando, Chris and Haas. Jonathan Watson, Orlando Acevedo III, Chris Johnson Jr. and Haas Mengloi made Palm Beach the first of the 95 GCSAA chapters to have four Certified Turf
Equipment Managers on board. They achieved the distinction over an eight-month span from June 2023 to January 2024. Overall, GCSAA has 36 CTEMs since the inception of the program in May 2022.
Why the Palm Beach chapter has flourished isn’t a stunner to Acevedo, a four-year GCSAA member at Indian Creek Country Club in Indian Creek Village. “South Florida just breeds those hard-working people. Everybody here knows each other. Our
area is just a different animal. Everybody wants to be the best,” he says.
If anything, the Palm Beach chapter is tight. When GCM asked if the foursome could gather for a portrait image, Mengloi arranged it in a matter of hours for a following-day photo shoot. Mengloi is a native of Guam who is at The Jack Nicklaus-founded Bear’s
Club in Jupiter. Originally a boat mechanic who once aspired to be a grade-school teacher, Mengloi worked at a Florida marina before being laid off. His neighbor suggested a career in golf. “He said, ‘You work on motors. You do that, you
can work on a golf course.’ I got a job at Boca West (Country Club in Boca Raton) and have been at this profession over 35 years,” says Mengloi, a four-year GCSAA member.
Mengloi led the charge two decades ago to hold local equipment manager meetings — the Palm Beach Turf Equipment Association — which forged an atmosphere of camaraderie. Later, it transformed to the Southeast Florida Turf Equipment Managers
and Technicians Group. Mengloi continues to lend his experience and expertise to those who want to do what he does, including becoming a CTEM. “I trained a lot of assistants to become EMs. Once me and others started doing it, it gave me the
biggest sense of satisfaction, knowing that what I learned is true, a proven fact, not something I heard 30 years ago,” he says.
Equipment managers in South Florida hold seminars, such as this one being led by Toro’s Scott Papania on industry technologies. Photo courtesy of Haas Mengloi
Mengloi is the most recent CTEM in the Palm Beach chapter. The first was Watson. A South Carolina native now at Wycliffe Golf & Country Club in Wellington, it took a while for Watson to discover this industry. “I’d been an automotive technician,
restaurant waiter, kind of bouncing around,” says Watson, six-year association member. “I was waiting tables when a friend said for me to come to the golf course (West Palm Beach Golf Course) and try it out.”
That tryout resulted in quite a career so far. Watson started three years ago at Wycliffe, quickly advanced to equipment manager, and is all-in. Earning CTEM status has accelerated his desire to help others. “It (CTEM) got the ball rolling for me
to get others involved,” he says, “got me to network even more, help others get certified. It (CTEM) was a personal and professional goal. No other certification I know of like it has the total package. It just shows to my bosses and others
that I know what I’m talking about and know what I’m doing.”
As for Johnson, well, he had an idea what he wanted to do. After initially working in construction, he eventually found his place in this industry. Johnson, a six-year GCSAA member, is the CTEM at Jupiter Island Club in Hobe Sound. He’s also the
son of an equipment manager. The son once considered becoming a superintendent and even secured a spray tech license. Johnson chose the equipment manager route and thought it was a big deal to complete GCSAA’s Equipment Management Certificate
Program (EMCP) Level 1 and Level 2. But climbing to the top at CTEM was something else. Something special. And a guaranteed spot at the CTEM breakfast at the GCSAA Conference and Trade Show. “I was happy to achieve Levels 1 and 2,” Johnson
says, “but it means even more to become a CTEM. And it should.”
Acevedo, meanwhile, is the son of a well-known equipment manager in the region, Orlando Acevedo at Grey Oaks Country Club in Naples. The father used to take the son to work with him, which led the younger Acevedo to later catch on at Boca West in 2017.
“I was the grease guy. Literally, all day checking machines, checking oil, greasing machines and make them look pretty,” he says. “Hardest I ever worked.”
Besides his father, Acevedo calls Juan Gutierrez, GCSAA Class A maintenance director at Grey Oaks and 28-year association member, a key reason he progressed. And he did it quickly. Acevedo is 25. “All I did was grind reels. We had over 200 cutting
units. He taught me attention to detail,” says Acevedo, who now counts Aaron Barnett — the Class A member in his current job at Indian Creek — as a figure who expects a high standard of quality in the work they do there. “Everything
that I’ve done in my career led up to this, to be a CTEM.”
Acevedo and the other three members of the Fab Four have been noticed by others, such as Ralph Dain, GCSAA’s field staff representative for Florida. He noted a meeting last year organized by Mengloi and Johnson at Jupiter Island, which 85 people
attended. “I find them all to be great local ambassadors for the CTEM program, and they are good human beings as well,” Dain says. “I love the way they uplift the profession and one another. Leadership is a quality they all share.”
Florida has six of the 36 individuals who have become CTEMs so far — the most of any state. As for being part of the Fab Four, Acevedo is more focused on simply being part of an equipment manager community that wants to be Fab-ulous. “Being
a good mechanic only takes you so far,” says Acevedo. “I want to advance our profession as equipment managers, and becoming a CTEM adds legitimacy to who we are, how we do things, to do our best and be the best.”
Howard Richman is GCM's associate editor