BACKSTORY

Roberts moved with his father from Plainfield, Illinois, to Siesta Key in 1979. He attended Riverview High School, and skipped plenty of classes to hang out on the beach. After graduating in 1982, he came down with a serious bout of wanderlust. Roberts spent time in Colorado, where he worked as a parking valet at a resort to support his life as a ski bum. He opened a frozen yogurt store in Portland, Oregon, that, Roberts says, “failed miserably.”

Then, “when I was 25, I decided to do something real,” Roberts says. He got into computer programming and landed a job in California at a small company called Centura Software. When the company was acquired by Compuware, Roberts moved to the corporate headquarters in Detroit and ultimately rose to the title of director of product management. He left that job in 1999 and collaborated with a friend to start CorvetteForum.com. It took off — fast. The partners formed more forum sites dedicated to different sports cars.

Roberts had never completely put Siesta Key behind him, so he returned to town in the early 2000s. He reunited with his girlfriend from his senior year in high school, Nanci Vatovec. They married in 2015 and between them have six sons. The family lives on the north end of Siesta Key overlooking Big Pass.

Troy and Nanci like to take extended off-road trips in their custom-built Jeep into some of the most remote places in America. In February of last year, the couple spent two weeks in California’s Death Valley, venturing down desolate trails that found them 60 miles from the nearest human being.

Needless to say, they brought along plenty of Siesta Key Rum.