PINELLAS DRIVING SCHOOL - Key Persons
Jim comes to us with over 30 years of experience as a public school teacher in Michigan. He taught physical education, health, and driver's education. He was also very active coaching a variety of sports, including high school football.
Jim currently lives with his wife in Treasure Island, FL. They have two adult sons, and 2 grand-daughters.
In his spare time, he is an avid bicycler and motorcyclist, and enjoys watching sports, especially football.
Jim has retired as a school teacher, but missed both teaching and coaching. This job is perfect for him, and we're glad to have him!
Loren's passion for driving dates back to his youth. Like many teen drivers, he made his share of expensive mistakes, and learned from them. One of his goals is to thoroughly teach new drivers so that they can AVOID such mistakes! He understands the physics and psychology of driving, and tries to teach on a deeper level. The more you understand what the car is doing and how your brain relates to what the car is doing, the better you'll be at driving!
He has been teaching driving since the late 1990's, and has been a Florida State Certified Driving Instructor off and on since 2006 and has taught behind-the-wheel driving for two of the major driving schools in the area. Most recently, he's been teaching driving consistently since 2015 and started Pinellas Driving School with Steve Frank in 2017.
Loren's history includes 8 years of military service, a degree in electronics, years of work in the electronics and information industries, and even a little work in commercial graphics and website design. Hobbies are primarily amateur motorsports and tinkering with cars and computers. He also plays ukulele, and does some bicycling.
He is married with an adult son, and shares his home with his wife, two cats… and three cars.
Steve also has a great passion for driving dating back to his teen years. As a 30+ year resident of the Tampa Bay area, he really knows his way around and is familiar with the rich history of Pinellas County.
He started teaching people about driving in the mid 2000's, and became a State Certified Driving Instructor when he and Loren Williams started Pinellas Driving School in 2017. Having absorbed some of Loren's driving instruction wisdom in addition to his own experience, he has become an outstanding driving instructor!
He brings with him a strong background in psychology, with over 25 years as a psychologist specializing in helping folks recover from brain injury. This is part of what makes him extremely compassionate of not just his students, but other drivers on the road. He's good at teaching his students that "it's not all about you."
Steve shares Loren's hobbies of amateur motorsports and sports cars. In fact, it is how the two of them met, and they also share ownership in a motorsports club!
Steve has a daughter in college, and keeps busy juggling time between this driving school and his psychology practice.