Apple Electric wins Business of the Year

As happens every year around Christmas time, the lights were shining on Apple Electric.

The Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce presented its Business of the Year Award to Apple Electric owners Steve and Lisa Prestipino.

Chris Weeks of Becker Morgan Group presented the award, giving a history of Apple Electric. Weeks said the Prestipinos started the business in 1990 after the birth of their first child, Dominic.

The Prestipinos – Lisa from Baltimore, Steve from Washington, D.C. – came to Rehoboth because they believed Rehoboth was a good place to raise a family.

The young family was taken in and mentored by veteran Rehoboth businessmen, such as Denard Quillen of Quillen’s Hardware, who advised the Prestipinos to join the chamber.

One of the first things the Prestipinos did when they joined was put an ad in the back of the chamber newsletter. Today, Steve Prestipino appears on billboards throughout the region.

Apple Electric is also well-known for its Christmas lights, a light show that would make Pink Floyd blush.

“In true small business fashion, the beginning of the Christmas lights grew out of necessity. You see, at the time, zoning restricted their signage on that particular piece of property. And so they put their heads together, and Lisa said, ‘Lets draw attention to the business with the Christmas lights.”

“In fact, employing this Clark W. Griswold method of marketing, they even blew one of the transformers near the property,” Weeks said.

Naturally, the Prestipinos came to the stage to the sounds of Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life,” to which Steve Prestipino said, “I thought it was going to be a Christmas song?”

“Lisa and I are very humbled tonight,” Steve Prestipino said. “In a small town, if you live your life and run a business ethically and morally, you will reap the benefits. I’d just like to say thanks.”