Detail Page
News Story
Alumni Blog February 2021- Tony Di Fatta '02
My introduction to business came at an early age when my father “slapped” me on the head and said, “Go start a business.” He ran the popular downtown Baltimore night club, the Baja Beach Club, which operated for 17 years...
and I was able to join him for several of those years until it closed in 2008. I took out the trash, tended bar and managed the kitchen - I learned every aspect of the business before eventually becoming the owner of the club. I also had the opportunity to invest in my father’s chain of pizza and sub shops called A Slice of Italy Pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
When I started working at the club for my dad, I was still a student at Calvert Hall. It was at The Hall that I took my first business and accounting class, which was taught by Mrs. Brown. Her class introduced me to the skills I would need to successfully run the financial side of any business. I was able to take this valuable experience and eventually apply it to my accounting studies at Towson University. I graduated from Towson in 2006 after completing 150 accounting credits in four years - all while managing and bartending at the Baja Beach Club three nights a week. A year after graduation, I became a Certified Public Accountant and began working at KPMG. Two years later, I joined SC&H, a regional accounting and business consultancy in Sparks, MD.
While at SC&H, I co-founded the Baltimore Bocce League in 2009, which today is called Volo City, a nationwide recreational sports league. In 2012, I left to work for other accounting firms, sold my interest in Volo and decided to launch my own accounting practice. In 2016, my business partner Mike Tich and I bought and renovated the Insight Community building at 28 E. Susquehanna St. in downtown Towson and turned it into an incubator for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Today, more than 100 businesses are entering the office building monthly, which is typically 90 to 100 percent leased. Some businesses have been so successful they have moved to bigger quarters and we are proud to see them leave the nest. In addition to developing the business incubator, we launched INSIGHT ConneX in 2017, a business networking organization that focuses on helping professionals grow their businesses and expand their business networks. In less than three years, membership has jumped to 40 participants, which include Strategic Factory, Fulton Bank, Offit Kurman, and Smyth Jewelers. INSIGHT also holds six breakfasts a year in Baltimore County bringing together hundreds of business executives to each event to hear speakers that include former Baltimore Ravens’ Matt Stover, Ed Norris, Dr. Tom Scalea, Gerry Sandusky, Muggsy Bogues, among others. The room is abuzz with conversation and energy and it is easy to see that companies are changing the way they do business in our region - we are excited to be a part of that change.
Outside of business, I am a member of the Associated Italian American Charities and each year I raise money for There Goes My Hero, a nonprofit in Lutherville-Timonium that matches donors with cancer patients needing blood or bone marrow transfusions. I am also on the board of the Baltimore Robotics Center, which aims to inspire Baltimore’s youth to pursue careers in science, technology and manufacturing. I have been fortunate to have had a variety of professional experiences thus far but it was Mrs. Brown’s class that sparked my interest in accounting which lead to my career as a CPA. I loved my time at Calvert Hall and have stayed close to many of my classmates over the years, I even helped plan some of our class reunions. You learn a lot as a student at The Hall, but it was Mr. Blake that taught me a life lesson I still try to live by...Always tell the truth and don’t look for an easy way out – be accountable and take responsibility for your words and actions. Go Hall!
