PEPE DELFINO RECIPIENT OF TERRY JACKSON MEMORIAL AWARD 2011
 

Jose “Pepe” Delfino, a founding member of SAMA and the Media & Internet Director for the organization, is the third recipient of the Terry Jackson Memorial Award.

The award named for the late auto journalist recognizes a member for outstanding service to SAMA and for contributions to the auto industry in South Florida. The announcement was made at the annual SAMA luncheon at the South Florida International Auto Show in Miami Beach.

“Pepe’s work on the website has been invaluable in promoting the success and awareness of our organization throughout the country,” President Paul Borden said. “Pepe created and designed the website and has continued to keep it updated with news, reviews, and other features all on his own time and without remuneration of any kind.

“I have heard comment after comment from people in the industry about the high quality of our website and how it is the best by far of any media organization.

“Pepe deserves all the credit.”

Since coming to Miami in 1990. Pepe has operated his own business, Dolphin Intertrade Corp., dedicated to computers and information systems, Internet, Electronic Commerce, web design and electronic publishing. He also is publisher and editor of AutoMundoFlorida.com in partnership with Jorge Koechlin.

A native of Peru, he was the founder and first president of the San Isidro Automovil Club in Lima and raced several Peruvian rallies championships from 1969 to 1973, winning the Clausura Rallye in 1972 and the First Rally de la Selva in 1972.

In the late 1970s, he emigrated with his family to Canada and in the 1980s moved to Chicago, where he worked in Chicago as a new car sales manager at two Ford dealers.

Since moving to Miami, he has served as an officer in several professional organizations.

He and his wife Gaby just became grandparents for the seventh time when their daughter Giuliana Delfino Levin (also a SAMA member) gave birth to a daughter, Penelope.

The Terry Jackson Award is named for the late auto journalist who was a nationally known figure and also a founding member of SAMA. He succumbed to cancer in January 2009.

Previous recipients of the award are Marcello Serrato, president and founder of Prestige Auto, and Rick Baker, president of the South Florida Automobile Dealers Association.