Five Questions With Pro Karate Center

Business name: 

Owners: Dean and June Lavas

In business since? 1975

How long have you lived in the area?

Since 1988, when the Lavases moved to Florida from New York, where Dean had taken karate starting at age 16. The couple purchased their current facility, at 843 County Road 1, 10 years ago. 

What do you love about living and working in Palm Harbor?

"It's a community town," Dean says. "Everyone chips in to help one another. We've made a lot of friends here."

Palm Harbor's neighborly atmosphere is a good fit for Pro Karate, Dean says. "We treat everybody like family," he said.

And in some cases, his customers are family. He pointed out one sensei, a black belt, whose father was also a black belt. Now the sensei's son is training at Pro Karate, too.  

What do you wish everyone who came into your shop knew about you?

"We don't teach kids to fight," Dean says. "Karate is a way of life — treating people well, respect. The self defense is just a byproduct.

"In our day and age, kids are always looking for instant gratification," he says. "This is not that."

But the lack of instant gratification is far from a turnoff, he says: "The kids love it. We teach them all about respect and manners."

Pro Karate sends letters to school teachers when a student is succeeding in karate class, so they can join in celebrating the child's accomplishments. The center also sponsors a family picnic in the spring to incoporate relatives, and the instructors will take a group of students to perform a public karate demo at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg in June.

Can you tell us about a time when you went above and beyond to provide great customer service?

"There are kids that need a little extra," Dean says.

He teaches private lessons for special-needs children on his own time, and he also spends a lot of time mentoring kids who might need one-on-one attention.

"But we do that with every student," he's quick to say of the more than 350 students at the dojo. "It's not just one individual."