Local insurance specialist and Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commer John Kneisly joined Nestor to discussed various community events and initiatives, including the 5K Run, Walk, and Doggy Dash on September 22, which supports Reed’s Rescue, a dog rescue organization. Learn more here.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
chamber, years, baltimore, oysters, nicely, dogs, area, people, 5k, friends, bit, john, month, talked, connect, rescue, reed, market, bay, couple
SPEAKERS
John Kneisly, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, dass, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We have our eating 26 oysters in 26 days this month. We’re doing it all with our partners at Liberty, pure solutions. They keep our water clean. They’re a well water specialist, as well as pretty good plumbers too, as I learned, one of my my sink burst a couple months ago. Appreciation for them and the oyster recovery partnership talking about how the oysters oxygenate the bay, clean up the bay, we get to have better crab cakes, and we get to take the Maryland crab cake tour on the road with our friends at the Maryland lottery has some Raven scratch offs, including the Gold Rush sevens, doublers, Cocos State Fair, Coopers on Friday the 13th, we’re going to be doing Coopers down in Fells Point for the oyster festival all weekend, and Fells Point next weekend. And we’re also going to be doing the bno Railroad Museum oyster fest for the oyster recovery partnership on the 26th of the month. And I’m all over the state. I’m going to be footballing, baseballing, Luke’s doing stuff, but there’s so many things going on in the community, and I usually, Beth usually comes on and she’s had a tragedy. Love you, Beth, hope you get better, hope everybody’s doing okay on the Baltimore chamber commerce does thing every year, and I always bring someone on. And this year they brought us, when they said, Karen sent me. Know she like John nicely, you have to pronounce it. It’s, K, N, e, i, s, l, y, no, and I, I’m like, I’m already first connected with that guy. That guy sells insurance. You’re in Baltimore, and there’s also, well, you know, if you sell insurance in Baltimore, you’re a business owner, and I’m a business owner. You like to be a part of things like the Greater Baltimore chamber commerce, right? And I, you know, and I’ve talked to lots of folks about this and how it works, and especially during my couple Super Bowl week. But it’s, it takes local people like you to sort of lift it up and say, Hey, we’re doing this cool thing, this 5k and doggy dash in a couple of weeks. Come on out. I mean, there’s nothing better than community. It’s why I do Baltimore positive. So how are we first linked? Have you met me someplace
John Kneisly 01:54
I did, so I was actually going to talk a little bit about that with the with the whole chamber mission and what we do. So how you and I first met was two years ago at the Owings Mills Marriott grand opening. Ah, remember
02:11
that was, thank you, John. That was,
02:14
yeah, no, that was, that was put on by, you know, by the Davis brown Corporation, members of the chamber. And, you know, some of them are, are board members, by the way, whoever
Nestor Aparicio 02:24
the band was that night. I need to know who the band, the band was great that night. I kind
02:30
of need to know too, because I’m a second floor man, my wife and
Nestor Aparicio 02:33
I were out there, you know, making it work. You know,
02:36
I had a good time. Oh, yeah. Um, no, I’m part of another organization that does music stuff, and each year we have a bunch of bands, and I’m going to be in charge of finding some bands for for that next year. So I need to start getting connected to more bands, man. So bring me
Nestor Aparicio 02:51
your budget. I’ll take care of my friends, you know. So, you know, at the end of
02:56
the night, I ran into you, and we were just kind of chatting it up, and I talked a little bit about, you know, all the different organizations that I’m a part of
Nestor Aparicio 03:03
so well, that’s nice. I remember, it’s two floors. It’s a big, grand opening. I actually had a lunch or a breakfast with Eric, the Costa they’re not long thereafter that I’m writing about this week. So there’s a little tease for everybody to my dear Eric, the Costa letter for you with the your work, and meeting me two years ago, and in the community, it’s things like not just fundraising, but things that bring the community together, you know. And I talked to all the Chamber of Commerces about this. I talked to anybody in tourism. And, you know, I was in Ocean City a couple weeks ago. I’m going to be back down there in a couple next weeks, talking about oysters and how they oxygenated, and how they’re such a unique thing that we do here. But the one thing that chambers do is bring people together, we’d say bricks and mortar, right? Like old businesses that are hyper local and really the most important part of our community, they’re the sort of the they’re the bricks and mortar of our community,
03:59
really, yeah, and that’s really how the chamber got its start. You know, back in the, you know, mid 70s, just after the OPEC oil crisis, the Pikesville chamber opened up with a few main street businesses. And the whole goal was just to make sure that people knew how great Pikesville was. And at that time, the main street was really a super thriving community, a place where people were coming to, you know, actually get some fancier things. And then over time, the Chamber continued to grow and evolve, make it through some other, you know, some other crisis.com, crisis, the pandemic, and grow and evolve and do some different things over the years. And, yeah, that’s exactly what we want to do, is bring, you know, not only bricks and mortar, but there’s this whole new avenue of just internet based businesses, you know, and entrepreneurs that do a lot of stuff just kind of from their home, like, there’s, we had this one program called the chamber champions program. And where, you know, where you what you do is, like, some people will go. In and they’ll say, hey, I really want to be a part of the chamber. This is why. And they can actually win a free membership. One of the people that won a free membership, they’re stationed out in the Eastern Shore, so, you know, we would meet them every now and then, but a lot of times, you know, they were just doing stuff, you know, via zoom and stuff during the pandemic. So the goal is, the goal is to connect people, but it’s really just to continue to make sure that the community and Greater Baltimore knows how fast the Reisterstown Road corridor, as I like to call it, really is growing, and that’s from, you know, the tip of the city, all the way up to, you know, racist town, and it’s really starting to encompass a lot of Randallstown too,
Nestor Aparicio 05:44
man, I can’t think of how, you know, I’m an East Side guy, right? And my grandfather lived, um, right, off of Liberty Road, Randallstown high school area, um. And so as as a boy, I had to drive across town. You mentioned Main Street, Pikeville. There wasn’t a time we went out that way. We didn’t stop at the deli, because you can get those sandwiches in Dundalk or Essex, right? And, you know, get the food and up and down that area, all of, I mean, I had a girlfriend that lived in that area for years, for 10 years. You know, breakfast is over there, dinners over there, all of that to see a lifetime of transition and whatever flight happened that went north and west, but and other things that sort of come back and say, what’s going to be at, you know, subbrook Lane, or what’s going to be just outside the Beltway where, like, Ruth Chris is, and it just all the way up there, all the businesses that have happened, there’s, there’s nothing that holds the glue to get and I think we’ve learned this during the covid Right? I mean, Chambers of Commerce like, even more important four years ago to say, what do we have when we don’t have anything we can’t leave the house? It’s about, let’s take care of all the local businesses on our block.
06:49
Well, the influx of information that people are just bombarded with every single day sometimes makes it impossible to really know where, where to go for certain things, right? Like, let’s say, for example, you want to know where to get printing done, right? You could go on and you could Google, and you could read Google. You could spend an hour, maybe two hours, just researching where to get your brochure printed. Or you could go to Greater Baltimore chamber.org, you could go right on to our website. You could look at our members. You can see who our members are. That adds a lot of credibility, that you got all their contact information right there and the right remember, and
Nestor Aparicio 07:33
you get to know them. You’re not mailing it off to, you know, do we know them? And how.com and mail my, you know, I it’s the same thing with all my businesses are local, right? I’m an am radio station in Towson, right? So, like the Walmarts and the, you know, the cost goes there. That’s not the heart of the country. Quite frankly, that’s not even a political statement. They’re not the heart of the community in the way that their TV commercials may want you to think they are at a Bentonville, Arkansas, um, that’s a little bit different than, let’s say, getting your printing done a strategic factory. But Keith Miller right out knowings Mills, and he’s got strategic fest coming a couple weeks, like knowing these people, when people call me, and it’s one benefit of me, having lived here my whole life and being a local person, is, oh, I know a guy, I know a gal, I know them. I got it, I got a guy, I got a girl for that, I got a I got a friend for that. And that’s really the advocacy and the trust and the it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s how we keep the community going. It’s, you know, that that is, that that is, that’s what’s made Baltimore great for 250, years, honestly. So
08:39
funny, funny funny, kind of funny story, and I think it’s a little bit relevant to what we’re talking about, because it just happened to me last night. You know, as the Chairman, I get a lot of different things that kind of come my way every now and then. And so, as you might know, we have a farmer’s market, and the farmer’s market, hold
Nestor Aparicio 08:54
on, hold on. My wife needs to hear about this. Where’s your farmer’s market?
08:58
So the farmer’s market’s on Tuesday, Tuesdays at Pomona square, and it runs from two to six, and it runs from May until October. So you’ve got
09:07
Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday two to six. Okay, alright, that’s good. Tell her. Tell her to come on. I
Nestor Aparicio 09:11
know where Pomona is. Do you have any Fuddruckers burgers I had in Pomona square back in the day? Stop, come on,
09:17
ness, man, you and I, this is we’re going to not talk about the 5k because we’re just going to keep talking about random stories. That was the very first flood records burger I ever had, because my grandmother, my dad’s mother’s, like, buried at the cemetery across the street. And like, right after her funeral, my dad and I went to that FUD records when it was there. And like, every time I go back and visit, I always think to myself like and that was such a great memory of my dad. So, man, we’re totally off. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 09:45
I mean, listen that corridor I camped out for every concert ticket at rochestertown Road Plaza in 1981 8283 for sticks, David Bowie, the who the stones, like all of that stuff. So that whole area for me is not. Foreign to me, and knowing every business where I ever got a sandwich, a carbo ice cream, a bagel a sandwich, bonded jewelry and my friend Jack Brown was my sponsor. I mean rechtstown Road Plaza and above their seven mile lane. Pikesville auto was my first sponsor. 1992 so, like, I’m down with what you’re selling, but let’s get to where we’re going here with the
10:26
well, just, just how it worked out, right? So, like I said, so we’re at the fight. We, you know, we have the
Nestor Aparicio 10:31
farmers market. I interrupted the farmers market. We
10:34
have this farmers market,
Nestor Aparicio 10:35
watermelon on my money.
10:38
We have, so we have, you know, we have a, we have a security company that works there, and they’re a member of the of the of the chamber. And you know, I get a call yesterday night from the security guy that’s at the farmer’s market. He’s been our security guy for the last, you know, couple of years, and I’ve actually never met him in person, or so I thought, until he called me last night, just to, you know, kind of give me an update on the market. And was like, Hey, I was looking at your last name nicely. That’s a unique last name. My, you know, my cousin is married to a nicely so it turns out that our market manager did not know this until last night. Our market manager is, it’s kind of a is my sister’s husband’s cousin’s husband, so I’ve met him at multiple family events. I just had no idea small to more love stories. What it is, you know, like, so it’s just kind of cool how, like, you can suddenly get connected through the chamber, right through family. Like, there’s just so many different connections up in this area. So that happened to me last night. It’s just kind of funny. Like, when you call when he called me, he’s like, Hey, I’m the, you know, security guy at the market, but I’m also related to Tammy. I was like, Oh, well,
Nestor Aparicio 11:49
you know, in an Amazon world, you know, I would say everything is local, right? Everything is local. John, nicely, is here. He is a local insurance executive here in the Baltimore area, and he’s joining us here on behalf the Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commerce. Greater Baltimore chamber.org is the way to happen. Make this happen. All right, so we the whole reason we’re supposed to get together, one to catch up, hang out. They certainly did talk about the chamber. But on Sunday, September 22 which is a very special day, it’s my son’s 40th birthday at Garrison for school in Owings Mills, they’re having the 2024 heads and tails, 5k run, walk and doggy Dash. And I must admit right now that you know, I did get my cat from your area up on the Nicodemus road with our friends at be more humane and Baltimore Humane Society. Now, seven years ago, our lovely Nala, but she’s, she’s not a doggy, she’s kitty, and she didn’t do walks. So, I mean, part of this is like dogs and people and and you guys been doing this for a number of years as well, and getting this thing back out on the street. It is a, let’s see the 22nd let me see, because I you know, everything in my life, especially as the Ravens threw me out. So Raven Game Day Four o’clock. The Ravens play that day. I got plenty of time I could do that, right? Hey, what time you guys doing this thing?
13:06
I believe the race starts at at 8am Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 13:09
well, come on now, that’s gotta get up nice and early in case it’s hot that day, right? Well,
13:14
most, I mean, look, most races usually start in the morning because, you know, like you said, if it gets hot, something like that, runners like to run when it’s cool.
Nestor Aparicio 13:21
Doggy dash, 10 to 11. Run and walk. Nine to 1111. Meet up and registration from eight to nine. And the doggy dash is 10 to 11, and that’s ages 12 and under. Come on out. We’re going to have kids, we’re going to have dogs, we’re going to have racing and what? What this? You know, it’s 15 bucks, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, whatever. Tell me where all this money goes in the funding. What you guys really do at the Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commerce. John, so
13:53
part of this is going towards reach rescue, which helps, you know, which also helps dogs. It’s the same charity that we worked with last year. It also goes back towards, you know, running some of the Chamber’s programming, right? We talk a lot about how the chamber connects people and what they do, and so part of our fundraising obviously keeps the chamber moving forward. It allows us to bring in speakers for our chamber leaders breakfast, like we had the guy that created the charmery chambers leaders breakfast, we’ve got the guy that created wild Bay kombucha, who’s going to come in and speak with us. So we’ve got, you know, all these different leaders coming in to speak to people, and you can come to those events. Helps us create our power lunch. It helps us create additional programming, like we’re building out a new young professionals group, and then we’re also updating our website to connect people even more that may not be able to physically come out to events. We talked a little bit about that earlier. You know, sometimes people at, you know, 12 o’clock still have to be at their desk. They can’t come. Out to a power lunch. So how can you connect? So we’re trying to build, like, some forums, some things within our website, so that people can still connect, even if they’re not physically in front of someone.
Nestor Aparicio 15:10
John, you know, I think, more than anything, getting people together and bringing people out, I hope you get good weather, more than anything, you know, like, I just hope you get the right weather. And I guess for anything else, people go up to the website, you guys, you’ve had tasting events. You throw these big parties a couple times a year. How many of these sort of little Super Bowls do you do? You try to do one a season?
15:32
So we’re trying to do three a year. Three. Okay, so the three, the three that we are looking at right now is our annual meeting, which will be coming up in late, late November, early December, the farmers market, and then the 5k we had the taste of Pikesville. If you remember that a couple years back, you kind of mentioned that,
Nestor Aparicio 15:52
and that’s some good friends. There still friends I had that was,
15:55
you know, there’s always the possibility that that comes back, but covid kind of put that behind us for a little bit. And so we went with a different direction. So
Nestor Aparicio 16:05
all right, well, I gotta do this because what, you know, John nice, he’s on and you said, We’re doing this for Reed’s rescue. And I’m like, is that Ed Reed? No, that nothing we add on. Reed’s rescue is a non profit volunteer dog rescue organization serving the northern Baltimore County area, dedicated to rescuing dogs of senior age or deemed to be terminally ill from area shelters, dogs given up by their owners because of difficult circumstances and those in danger of decompensating, decompensating in the shelter environment. We encourage race participants to fundraise on behalf of Reed’s rescue and even consider adopting a dog in need. Well, that’s a beautiful, noble, awesome thing. I’m going to be eating an oyster that day, because I’m eating an oyster every day, this month, every day, and the oysters, 26 days, 26 oysters. 26 doing for oyster recovery partnership, because I want people to understand how important the bay is, and understand that we love these crab cakes, that the oysters. Damian fatally taught me this, the oysters are what oxygenates the bay. And then, of course, we get liberty, pure solutions, another great northern Baltimore County group that we work with here, Doug Workman, and what they do is they keep my water clean here, so we have water clean. I get fresh water for my coffee, and everything I do around here, showers, the whole deal for my well water, and the Bay gets clean water because we learn a little bit more about oysters and oyster recovery and when, when those places have those shells and they say, don’t put the shells in the trash, put them in a separate bag. Bingo. That’s what I’m looking to promote in this month, including Reed’s rescue and a beautiful dog there as well. Um, John, last thing for you because, because your pronunciation is nicely, I’m sure I said this to you because I probably had a couple of drinks that night, although I probably wasn’t drinking that night because my wife, I was probably drinking because she usually drinks and I usually drive. Does that make sense? Yeah, usually, yeah, usually, and so. But I would say to you, have you seen Guys and Dolls?
17:58
Not seen Guys and Dolls? No. Why? Primary
Nestor Aparicio 18:00
characters nicely, nicely.
18:03
Oh, oh, okay, yeah, all right. So, yeah, heard that at some point. But, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 18:08
yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I got a great film. Watch it on a big screen, and colorization, Paul, woman’s eyes are blue. Oh, it’ll be, you know, they run off to Cuba and save the souls, and they bet on the track is what they do. It’s Guys and Dolls. It’s, it’s a they’re singing. There’s dancing. Come on, you know, I
18:26
like that. All right, my sit. My 14 year old is super into theater. She loves musicals. She’ll get a kick out of it. Oh, I
Nestor Aparicio 18:33
want to make sure I got, I got, nicely, nicely, nicely, nicely. Johnson is the character from Guys and Dolls. There it is, right there. Nicely, nicely Johnson. And I think it was because it’s nicely done. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. I get that a lot Nice. Sit down. You’re rocking the boat. People said, Sit down. Sit down. You’re rocking the boat. There it is. I am Nestor. He’s nicely it was nicely done, by the way, too. John nicely from the Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commerce, get out support the dogs on my kids 40th birthday on the 22nd go out, walk, run, eat, drink, get some oysters and come see me this month on the Maryland crab cake to hear Baltimore positive you.
