As the son of a master electrician I grew up with the electrical trade. My father Sam Astuto Sr. has owned and operated Electric Sam Company out of Rochester New York for over 40 years now. My brother Philip Astuto still works with him and runs the company. My father has become highly respected in his field and people that have done work with him before know that if you want something done right, you hire Electric Sam. Growing up with electrician as a father I was always on the job site with my dad. My father wired all of the Arby’s restaurants around the Rochester area when I was just in grade school. And I remember going to the work with my dad and him setting me up and showing me how to wiring a simple outlet. Over the years I acquired more knowledge as I grew up with the trade, and eventually found myself on a service truck answering day-to-day calls. Electric Sam did work on commercial, residential and Industrial applications. So there was nothing we didn’t tackle over the years. My father had some pretty big accounts including Sam’s Club , Pep Boys , Jiffy Lube just to name a few. Also a number of other big-name companies and restaurants. My father didn’t just teach us electrical. The countless projects I was involved with as I grew up included carpentry, plumbing, masonry and tiling. Engineering and planning became a way of life. There was no project my father didn’t take on,  therefore I was involved. It was never just about learning how to tackle the task, my father has always been a perfectionist. and it was always about learning how to do the project the right way. A nice bridge to how I got into computers is when my father bought a small Mac computer for his office to do paperwork on.

When I moved to Florida I had so much real world experience as a electrician,  I had no problem getting a job as the commercial supervisor at a company called Melco Electric. I spent most of my time there working out of a job site trailer. I managed a crew of around 15 people as I put handled all of the commercial jobs taken on by the company.  My days would normally start with me organizing the crew and getting them started on a project. Then I would stay busy with drawing up plans for new site projects. Running back and forth to the town hall to submit documents or pull permits. And making appointments with inspectors,  other contractors and Florida Power and Light. Unfortunately this company got in a little over its head, and ended up going out of business. Which was unrelated to my work at the company.

I did work for a few different electrical companies before I found the one I wanted to stay with. None worth mentioning.  Eventually I found Coral Electric, and owner Barry Seifer. Barry had no shortage of work and quickly put me to work back in the field. I stayed on with the company before giving my 2 weeks when I got the position at WFLX.

While I was growing up,  I didn’t always want to be a electrician. And working for your father was never easy.  I spent some time rebelling against the family business, and wanted to find my own path.

At one point around the late 1990’s, I got hired at a local amusement park called Sea Breeze as an engineer.  They saw my experience as a electrician, and figured I could be valuable as they were putting together the new area of their park,  The Soak Zone. I helped design and develop some of parks new attractions, and learned how to maintain and fix some of the current ones. I stayed on till a better position came along at Time Warner Communications.


Life as a cable guy….  Now that was interesting. I was only 23 years old.  I started at the bottom, just like everyone else. They put me through training and taught me everything I needed to know about working with cable and networking. I learned how to gaf telephone poles and work with new computer systems and programs. Again I got to work with customers… and working in this field came pretty easy to me growing up in the electrical field. I stayed in this position for a few years before I wanted to try something different and learn more about satellites.

Custom Home Theaters:

After I left Time Warner, I started subcontracting and taking satellite installs from a company called Dish Doctors. I worked for myself and installed Directv systems and theater setups for customers. I remember climbing to the very top of someone roof…that was covered in snow, and making sure I had everything I needed strapped to my body. So I didn’t have to get get down and come back up again. Some places were deep in the woods, and 3 stories high! I remember being scared as hell to be up that high… and physicing myself up to get the job done.