By Michele Gillis, Staff Writer
If you go to a real estate event and see a petite man donning a costume and chatting it up with everyone in the room, it's probably Taulant Marra of AmeriPro Inspection Corp.
Marra has immersed himself in the real estate community over the past two years and you'd be hard pressed not to find him at almost every real estate professional or social there is.
"I just involved myself in everything," Marra said. "I don't want to say no to anything, so I go everywhere."
Marra attends Women's Council of Realtors, Northeast Florida Builders Association, Amelia Island/Nassau County Association of Realtors and events for the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors and its councils. He also goes to Realtors' offices marketing AmeriPro.
"All the brokers know me," said Marra, who uses social media to his advantage. "It's gotten to the point where the brokers wait for me to do something. ... They look at my Facebook page to see what is going on. It feels like everyone is watching."
In the past year, he's dressed up as a leprechaun, "Mildred the Lunch Lady" and as an elf.
He went to the NEFAR Beaches Council Halloween party's Chili Cook-off as "Mildred the Lunch Lady" to serve chili and he won the best costume award.
The next day, he came up with an idea to wear the costume to a few Realtor offices while handing out Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
Lorri Reynolds of Watson Realty didn't even recognize him when he approached her at her office. She even asked, "Can I help you ma'am?" before realizing it was Marra.
The unexpected came during a sales meeting so Reynolds was caught off guard.
"I didn't know it was him until I got almost right next to him and he smiled that familiar, 'It's me' look and then handed me some goodies for the sales associates," she said. "But that's Taulant. Full of surprises."
Reynolds said Marra is pure joy in motion to be around.
"He represents his company and product well and my office uses AmiPro's services, in large part, because of him," said Reynolds.
He took photos with many of the brokers he visited that day and posted them on Facebook.
"It's exposure, it's positive and people love it," said Marra. "People get excited when I dress up. If I can dress up like that and make someone's day, it's worth it."
Though he is only 5-foot-6, Marra said he doesn't let that get in his way.
"I feel like I am 7 feet tall," he said.
His history before AmeriPro is quite interesting. He and his family came to America from Albania via a lottery system when he was 10.
In 1998, his country was in unrest due to the Albanian rebellion and his father proved to be a worthy candidate to come to America. Marra lived with his parents and sister in Ohio until he was 16, when the family relocated to Jacksonville because the weather was better for his father's health.
Marra became an American citizen when his mother became one in 2004. After graduating from Mandarin High School, he first worked in collections, then at his uncle's flooring company, where he laid tile and helped build the company through marketing.
Though Marra has no formal marketing training, he is a natural at it.
You wouldn't know it by speaking with him, but he didn't even speak English when he moved here. But, he picked it up easily and has become quite the social butterfly.
"The Realtors here in Jacksonville have shown me so much love and support. I owe them so much," he said. "If there's anything I need, I can always go to them for advice or help. I want to tell them I want them to know how thankful I am for not only allowing but accepting a young guy like myself to be a part of their part of the family."
He joined AmeriPro almost three years ago. The owner, Michael Rowan, had posted an ad for a customer service representative on Craigslist and Marra's mother answered the ad for her son.
"She wanted me to do something different with my life, so she applied for me," said Marra. "I went in for the interview, just to make her happy and next thing you know I talked with Michael and we ended up knowing a lot of the same people and really hit it off."
Rowan took Marra on the road with him to conferences and tradeshows so he could learn about the company. He started recruiting inspectors and helped with training.
Marra's job is to be a middle man between the inspectors and the Realtors and he takes his job very seriously.
He is in charge of scheduling the inspectors and he can schedule an inspection one day and have the report ready the next. He said he gets a lot of calls for emergency inspections because he can move his inspector's schedules around to help if someone needs it.
He goes back to visit family in Albania several times a year. He also enjoys traveling to other countries on vacation. His next trip will be to visit family in London.
Marra's uncle is a sculptor and Marra helps him find companies looking for exotic sculptures. "In addition to helping him, I am learning to be a sculptor as well," he said.
Rowan said Marra comes from great stock, calling his family members "hardworking, sincere and honest people."
"And the apple has not fallen far from the tree in his case," said Rowan. "He holds many titles with me — friend, work partner, sometimes social partner and someone who simply steps up every time with and without being asked."
Marra is sometimes referred to as the Tasmanian devil – because he moves so fast and leaves a trail behind him.
"But none of it is bad," Rowan said.