In this episode of DriveTime, Pete Proimos, founder of the Filotimo Foundation, discusses his former aftermarket career at AP Emissions Technologies and the next facet of his life that supports cystic fibrosis.

After Pete finished college, briefly attended law school and quickly realized that career wasn’t for him, his father Vange advised him to work in the company’s distribution center. Pete worked his way up through the ranks, spending a year and a half working through every single department, and eventually landed in sales where he held various roles.

Pete then took his tools and war chest and moved it to another phase of his life, when he founded the Filotimo Foundation for cystic fibrosis support. Pete shares that he was born with cystic fibrosis, which is a genetically inherited disease. He describes the issues of living with cystic fibrosis, medical advancements that have increased life expectancy, and how his foundation was formed to help and support a patient set of 40,000 adults in the U.S. who are living longer with cystic fibrosis, and who now have to figure out how they’re going to survive as adults in society.

The Filotimo Foundation is hosting a gala fundraising event on May 16, 2025, to help create awareness of and support for the disease. The event will raise money for both hardship support and fertility support for cystic fibrosis patients. Every dollar raised is a dollar that goes straight toward those patients, Pete said, such that $2,000 can get one cystic fibrosis patient full hardship support for an entire year.

To learn more about Pete and his foundation, be sure to watch the video above.

To donate, log onto: https://filotimofoundation.org/donate/

Episode Overview:
• Pete describes how he got his start in the automotive aftermarket and provides an overview of his former role at AP Emissions (1:14 )
• Pete shares his personal story and how it fostered the creation of a foundation, the Filotimo Foundation, in support of cystic fibrosis (6:48 )
• The purpose of the Filotimo Foundation (12:58 )
• Details about the upcoming Gala event, and how the industry can support the Foundation (17:10 )
• Lightning Round (21:12 ).