By TONY SIMMONS

News Herald Writer

June 22, 2016

PANAMA CITY BEACH — When George Butchikas was a child, he knew he wanted to be part of the family’s restaurant business, and his father didn’t waste any time bringing him on board.

“I was born in 1949, and I was not quite 9 when this was built,” he said last week at Angelo’s Steak Pit, the restaurant his father opened in Panama City in 1958. “It was always something I wanted to do. He put me in the kitchen, put a little apron on me, and I’d peel potatoes and such.”

New Autism Clinic Established at Florida State University Panama City

On August 13, the latest addition to the Florida State University Early Childhood Autism Program (FSU ECAP) was established. The Camille Butchikas ECAP Clinic was named in honor of the generous donations from George A. Butchikas Foundation for Autism.

The state-of-the-art Camille Butchikas ECAP Clinic will be used by FSU ECAP to provide Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services to children diagnosed with autism and other related disorders. Previously an "in-home only" program, FSU ECAP will now be able to further meet the needs of children in the program by giving parents the option to have therapy provided in the home, in the clinic, or across both locations. The clinic will provide a quiet, enriched environment for therapy, as well as a technologically-advanced location for training of therapists and conducting innovative autism research.

The partnership between George A. Butchikas Foundation for Autism, the FSU Panama City ABA master's program, and FSU ECAP began in 2001 soon after the programs were first established. Since that time, hundreds of children in Bay County and their families have benefited from programs services made possible through contributions which now total $330,000 from the George A. Butchikas Foundation for Autism. The foundation also made a $15,000 contribution to assist in furnishing and equipping the new clinic.