FORWARD Florida 2014 - Ed #4

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE SUPER REGION SITE SELECTION LAKE NONA: MEDICAL MAGNET

SPECIAL REPORT CRADLE TO CAREER

SUN, SAND + SUTURES NEW WAVE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Go ahead, take it to the next level.

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One day you’re zipping around on your trusty tricycle, the next you find your balance and fly. It’s a small change, yet a huge leap. Those are the growing moments we live for. Your business is no different. A shift in the way you operate can change the game and we exist to make that kind of change possible. We’re one of the largest locally-owned public accounting firms in Central Florida and along the I-4 Corridor. With our own unique approach to consulting and management advisory services combined with audit, tax and accounting expertise, your business can lose the training wheels and really take off.

It’s time to grow.

Find out more about our full suite of services at cfrcpa.com.

Orlando 407.841.6930 Winter Haven 863.299.5638 Lakeland 863.937.9520 Tampa 813.321.6869

Florida Hospital is ranked the #1 hospital in the state of Florida for the second year in a row.

And ranked nationally in ten specialties.

Cancer

Cardiology & Heart Surgery

Diabetes & Endocrinology

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery

Geriatrics

Gynecology

Nephrology

Neurology & Neurosurgery

Pulmonology

Urology

We thank you for trusting us with your care. We thank our clinicians for their commitment to excellence.

FloridaHospital.com/USNews MKTGPR-13-16401

contents

34 BAPTIST HOSPITAL, MIAMI

20 66 © SALVADOR DALÍ. FUNDACIÓN GALA-SALVADOR DALÍ, (ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY), 2014 / COLLECTION OF THE SALVADOR DALÍ MUSEUM INC., ST. PETERSBURG, FL, 2014. THIS EXHIBITION IS SUPPORTED BY AN INDEMNITY FROM THE FEDERAL COUNCIL ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMANITIES.

48 DEPARTMENTS

SPECIAL FEATURES: HEALTH CARE

SECTIONS

10

I.C.Y.M.I.

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COVER STORY: MEDICAL TOURISM

INNOVATIONS

12

ETC . . .

42

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

20

BOLD, GOLD & GREEN

16

COUNTY REPORT

44

MENTAL HEALTH: A CLOSER LOOK

22

PULLING THE THREAD

18

PERSPECTIVES

46

DRUG DISCOVERY

66

32

LIFE & DEATH IN THE LAB

PARTING SHOT

4

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTARY

SUPER REGION AT A GLANCE

LEADING POINTS OF VIEW

PEOPLE AND PLACES

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

A new wave in economic development.

GROWING IDEAS INTO ENTERPRISES

Is the grass greener on the other side of Amendment 2?

Millions of Americans suffer in silence and everyone pays a high price.

Sanford-Burnham unites statewide medical explorers in the quest for new remedies.

HEALTHY GLOW

The sun shines brightly on health and fitness.

Patented soil developed by UCF’s Stormwater Management Academy is helping green roofs come to life.

Florida Tech researchers work to understand the fabric of life.

Dr. Charles “Ed” Bailey and UCF professor/researcher Dr. Ken Stanley had a meeting of the minds about science. And life.

ALL YOU

NEED FOR

YOUR BUSINESS

IS IN THE

FLORIDA

HIGH TECH CORRIDOR.

A talented and diverse workforce. Top-ranked business climate. Easy access to research faculty at three world-class universities. Florida’s High Tech Corridor has everything you need to grow your company.

VISIT WWW.FLORIDAHIGHTECH.COM.

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64 24 SECTIONS SPECIAL REPORT

SITE SELECTION

ON CAMPUS

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

24

CRADLE TO CAREER

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57

52

28

BUILDING MOMENTUM

TIMELY AND TOPICAL

30

Innovative partnerships, and views of job creation are paving the way for regional growth.

The new-home market mirrors economic growth, shifting demographics.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

A CLOSER LOOK

MEDICAL MAGNET

Lake Nona has fought off challenges to produce a medical city and economic development hot spot.

GLOBAL PULSE

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

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GLOBAL GRADUATES

International students translate into big business for Florida.

From the DEO.

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

COMMENTARY

ACADEMICS VS. ATHLETICS

Incentives for college coaches and athletic directors are about more than winning and losing.

KEEPING SCORE

THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS

58

PIGSKIN PAYDIRT

Florida’s college football programs bring big bucks to local communities.

POLICY MAKING IN ACTION

DEEP PORTS & DEEP DATA

The Super Region pushes for port expansion.

WELLNESS

YOUR PERSONAL BOTTOM LINE

62

JOB TRAINING

64

AND THE WINNER IS...

Workplace wellness programs encourage employees to get active.

Florida Hospital Orlando ranks No. 1 statewide in U.S. News & World Report.

TAKE THE LEAD

Tony Jenkins, Market President, Central Florida, Florida Blue Chair, Leadership Orlando Class 89

Are you on the outside looking in? Are you ready to use your expertise and passion to advance a cause that will change and strengthen our region? Do you want to step inside the circle of decision-making that is shaping the future? Leadership Orlando recruits, cultivates and encourages established and emerging leaders from across seven counties to better serve Central Florida. Through our one-of-a-kind curriculum, you will explore regional assets, gain insight into the hottest topics from “those in the know,� and connect with more than 70 other like-minded professionals. Take the lead and enroll today!

Class 89 begins March 10, 2015 Contact Danielle Gulasa, Director of Business Development, at 407.835.2444 or visit LeadershipOrlando.org to reserve your space! @LeadershipORL #LeadershipOrlando

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE SUPER REGION

FORWARD FLORIDA

Forward Florida is the only magazine in Florida solely focused on economic development.

The magazine’s mission is to educate both internal and external audiences to the growth opportunities in Florida’s 23-county Super Region. Its targeted distribution list includes C-level executives, Super Region legislators in Washington, D.C., and Tallahassee, economic development professionals, site selectors and targeted industries within the region and across the nation.

Forward Florida magazine is published bimonthly, and delivers news and information via the website forwardflorida.com.

SUPER REGION

The Super Region stretches from Metro Orlando to Tampa Bay on the west coast, to the Space Coast on the east, northward to Gainesville, southwest to Sarasota and south to Highlands.

The Super Region boasts: • 90-plus colleges and universities; • a high-tech corridor that generates $1 billion in economic impact; • the world’s largest cluster of theme parks • a multimodal transportation system that includes the Kennedy Space Center and Orlando and Tampa airports, which move 52 million passengers annually; • 72 miles of beaches; and • five professional sports teams.

Tampa Bay and Orlando combined account for a $269 billion gross regional product, representing the ninth largest U.S. economy and the 40th largest metropolitan economy in the world.

EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER FORWARD FLORIDA MEDIA INC. 130 S. Orange Ave., Suite 150 Orlando, FL 32801 407.206.1011 CO-PUBLISHERS / EDITORS SUSAN REVELLO susanr@forwardflorida.com

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

Mathews Bridge, Jacksonville

SunRail Phase 1

I-595 at University Drive, Miami

I-4/SR 408 interchange

Proudly shaping Florida’s infrastructure HNTB’s CEI team provides award-winning construction engineering and inspection administration for some of the state’s most complex transportation infrastructure projects.

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i.c.y.m.i. |

in case you missed it

Alachua gains a global distinction: It’s one of just a few places where the radioisotope Molybdenum-99 will be produced worldwide and the only one in the U.S. PHOTOS COURTESY OF COQUI RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS

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Manufacturing Mo-99 Alachua gets its medical radioisotope manufacturer.

After months of hand wringing, while a final decision was being made, COQUI RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS is coming to the City of Alachua — bringing with it a $250 million production facility projected to employ 164 people at an average salary of about $75,000. This move squarely puts the city on the map as the only place in the U.S. and one of 3 or 4 facilities worldwide to produce the valuable radioisotope Molybdenum-99.

The company incorporated in 2009 to address a worldwide shortage of Mo-99.

Working in the medical field, Coqui executives were aware of the shortage and the subsequent impact on patients unable to get diagnoses.

In addition to medical diagnoses, Mo-99 is used in treatments for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, renal disease and bone traumas in an estimated 18 million procedures in the U.S. and more than 30 million worldwide every year.

Based in South Florida, the company also had considered locations in Louisiana and Tennessee. According to a news release Coqui chose Alachua to be near the University of Florida’s nuclear research reactor, for the opportunity to collaborate with UF engineering and medical researchers and to be in a biotech research park.

The 100,000-square-foot facility will be built on 25 acres south of Progress Park.

Construction could begin in late 2016 or early 2017, pending an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the start of manufacturing is slated for 2020.

In response to concerns about shortages, Congress passed the American Medical Isotope Production Act in 2012 to provide incentives for U.S. manufacturers.

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i.c.y.m.i. |

in case you missed it

Incubation Growth Metro Orlando’s incubation and entrepreneurship infrastructure, already nationally recognized, has added another asset. THE NATIONAL BUSINESS INCUBATION ASSOCIATION, which serves more than 2,200 members worldwide, is relocating its headquarters from Ohio.

Also, the NBIA announced the formation of the Global Training Center for Business Incubation & Innovation in Orlando.

The NBIA joins the National Entrepreneur Center — one of only two such centers in the nation — and the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program, one of the largest in the Southeast.

Initially, NBIA considered more than 30 cities for its new headquarters, narrowing its final list to Orlando, Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix. Karl R. LaPan, NBIA’s board chairman and interim president and CEO, looks forward to the potential synergy with his new neighbors.

“NBIA selected Orlando because of its reputation as being the home of entrepreneurship and innovation, making it the ideal place to expand our programs and enhance our mission,” he says. “The fact that the Orlando region has one of the best business incubation network systems in the world is icing on the cake.”

EMBRAER

Embraer, already building Phenom jets at Melbourne International Airport, is adding to its local presence.

Jetting Ahead EMBRAER EXECUTIVE AIRCRAFT INC. is taking to the skies again in Melbourne.

The Brazilian manufacturer plans to assemble its newest line of Legacy jets at Melbourne International Airport — a move that could result in 600 manufacturing jobs by 2019. To house the work, Embraer signed a multiyear lease at the airport for a new 250,000-square-foot, three-building facility.

Embraer already builds the Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 business jets at Melbourne International.

Including an estimated 850 spinoff jobs, the new Embraer project could create 1,451 jobs with a total annual payroll of $75 million, according to economic development officials. Not coincidentally, the announcement came with a $48.1 million incentive funding package, with $36.1 million from the Florida Department of Transportation and $8 million from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, among others.

Retail Renewal Orlando’s downtown population has grown at a faster rate than other downtown metro areas in Florida, 34.2 percent. And while growth was impressive in Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, Orlando’s was twice as strong.

That’s according to the 2014 FLORIDA RETAIL REPORT, citing U.S. Census data from 2000 to 2012.

A recovering economy, citycenter growth across the state, along with record tourism, has impacted retail spending in a big way, the study revealed. During the 12-month period ending June 2014, sales totaled $6.1 billion, 8 percent

higher than the total as of June 2013. And there were no signs of slowing. During the second quarter, retail sales were up 9 percent compared to Q1.

With the study concluding that Metro Orlando has one of the fastest-growing economies in Florida, a mega transaction in August serves as proof. MetLife Inc. spent more than $116 million to acquire The Loop, a 435,000-square-foot outdoor retail center in Kissimmee — described by one market insider as “one of the highest quality retail investment opportunities in the Southeast.”

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etc. … | news, notes and commentary ○

F L O R I D A A N G E L N E X U S L AU N C H E S O N L I N E P O R TA L

BUSINESS

○

CONSTRUCTION “Development in (Florida) accounts for nearly 13 percent of retail assets under construction nationwide.” So reveals an August report authored

by JLL Partners, a New York-based private equity firm that specializes in leveraged buyout transactions. Tampa Bay leads the way in terms of square footage under construction (1.43 million square feet). Case in point is the SARASOTA MALL AT UNIVERSITY TOWN CENTER, which opens in mid-October.

The $315 million project, totaling 880,000 square feet, has been under construction since 2012.

In late August, a CreativeWate 2-tier buffet server was shipped from AMAZON’s fulfillment center in Lakeland. Why the significance? It was the first item handled at the new one-million-square-foot facility, which was announced earlier in the year amid great attention among economic developers. The first shipment was made a few days after Amazon welcomed more than 400 full-time employees to the facility, a number that will continue to grow. The median pay inside Amazon fulfillment centers is 30 percent higher than jobs in traditional retail stores.

THE FLORIDA ANGEL NEXUS is spreading its wings, thanks to a new online portal designed to better connect entrepreneurs and investors. Before the portal was launched in August by the Orlando-based group, interested investors needed to schedule in-person meetings. The portal is welcome news. As reported in the June/July 2014 issue of FORWARD FLORIDA, various organizations statewide are working to close a large gap in startup funding. Last year, Florida captured only 1.4 percent of venture capital funding nationwide.

Twenty-one companies in Central Florida were among the 50 honored as part of the 2014 FLORIDA COMPANIES TO WATCH. The awards, presented by GrowFL, are for second-stage companies with six to 99 employees and annual revenue between $750,000 and $50 million. Other criteria include em-

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

ployee and sales growth, leadership, competitive advantage, corporate culture and community giving. The 2014 winners represented $370 million in total annual revenue and 1,757 full-time employees. Second-stage companies in Florida account for 5 percent of all businesses and nearly 30 percent of the state’s jobs.

SOUTHPARK (not the snarky TV show) represents one of the largest Metro Orlando real estate transactions in recent memory. In late July, the 176-acre office park in south Orlando was sold for $260 million, with a Boston investment group making the purchase. SouthPark Center houses the corporate offices of SeaWorld, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Lockheed Martin, Walgreens, Wyndham Vacation Resort and Marriott Vacation Club. Development of the park began in the late 1990s.

Want more evidence of a “construction boom?” Since opening a regional office in Orlando three years ago, MOSS & ASSOCIATES has been busy. Projects range from Tampa’s new Crescent Bayshore apartment community and hotels under construction in St. Petersburg to construction planning for Orlando Health’s former downtown property and for a large-scale hospitality project in Daytona.

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U S F H E A LT H TA K E S P U L S E O F N E W S I T E S

EDUCATION F. ROBERT HUTH, vice president for business and chief financial officer at STETSON UNIVERSITY, was named 2014 Distinguished Business Officer by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Huth oversees the university’s budget and financial functions, including technology, human resources, investments and facilities. Notably, facility-related projects that Stetson completed in the summer of 2014 total more than $3.5 million.

The UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA is leaving few stones unturned in its quest to gain preeminence — official designation as one of the nation’s top 10 public research universities. At the core of its Preeminence Plan is the mass hiring of top-tier faculty. UF is also offering a Trailing Spouse Program by finding or creating positions for them in their areas of expertise. In addition, UF has a referral program for the non-academic partners of new faculty.

Armed with $15 million in annual state preeminence funding, UF plans to hire as many as 130 new faculty to support preeminence.

Label this “cashing inn.” At its oneyear anniversary, the ALFOND INN AT ROLLINS COLLEGE is exceeding expectations. High occupancy rates at the 112-room boutique hotel have resulted in $3.2 million in projected net operating income for 2014, which will fund full scholarships for students at the nationally ranked liberal arts school.

Owned by Rollins, the inn cost $32.5 million to build and was funded in part by a $12.5-million lead gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation; the additional $20 million was financed by the school’s cash reserve.

○

HEALTH CARE Hundreds of leaders from an assortment of industries convened in Tampa Sept. 16-18 for MEDIFUTURE, an invitation-only event showcasing the future of a rapidly transforming health-care system. MediFuture presented a new view of health care that is patient-centered, consumer-driven and value-based. Leading experts predict that over the next decade more than $1 trillion in health-care spending will migrate to new entities, new industry segments and traditional companies that are delivering on value. The event was hosted in part by the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp.

A biodegradable pin that also aids healing? One researcher at the UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA has answered, yes, with a surgical pin made from

magnesium. Now that researcher, Michele Manuel, is working to control the rate at which the pin degrades in the body. Controlling the rate at which magnesium breaks down avoids the inadvertent creation of hydrogen bubbles under the skin.

Where is Florida in comparison to other states when it comes to telehealth?

While the 2014 Legislative Session saw significant discussion regarding the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care and related concerns, lawmakers did not pass any legislation on the issue. That’s the contention of the nonprofit organization TaxWatch, which hosts the TELEHEALTH CORNERSTONE CONFERENCE Nov. 19-20 in Tallahassee to foster discussion.

USF’S CENTER FOR DRUG DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION AND THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY have received a new award for marine research in the Antarctic. The $1.7 million award from the National Science Foundation will support research focused on marine chemical ecology. In other news: Will USF HEALTH expand its current campus or move to downtown Tampa? With the University of South Florida’s health programs steadily growing, that pressing question has prompted USF officials to explore options. USF Health already has a presence downtown with its Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation. Stay tuned.

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D R O N E S Y S T E M S L A N D AT D I S N E Y W O R L D

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HEALTH

The “pharmacy of the future” recently opened at USF HEALTH, with officials promising to create a national prototype for providing innovative patient engagement, education and monitoring. An Rx robot dispenses medications. A system of integrated electronic medical records provides seamless information. A variety of apps for tablets, smartphones and laptops literally give patients instant access to care. And QR codes direct patients to the web for more details about their condition and the medications prescribed for them, among other features. Plus, the setting indeed looks the part.

HOSPITALITY/TOURISM With 100 million visitors to Florida in 2015 a distinct possibility — and predicted by many people — the FLORIDA GOVERNOR’S CONFERENCE ON TOURISM is always a big draw. Now in its 47th year and scheduled for Sept. 22-24 in Boca Raton, the event brings together attendees from Florida destinations, attractions, hotels, resorts, parks and convention centers, along with government officials, media representatives, advertising agencies and others.

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

DRONES are Disney’s newest attraction? Not quite.

But The Walt Disney Co. has filed paperwork for three drone-related patents for use in moving projection screens and helping control aerial marionettes or puppets. Reportedly, one of the applications is for a multi-drone system that would hold aloft a projection screen for a nighttime display.

Such a display would utilize what Disney calls “flixels,” which is an Imagineer word creation for “floating pixels,” according to the patent application.

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FA M O U S F L O R I D A I N V E N T O R S I N D U C T E D I N T O H A L L

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TECHNOLOGY Commissioner for Patents Margaret A. (Peggy) Focarino of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office inducted six inventors into the FLORIDA INVENTORS HALL OF FAME on Sept. 10, during the organization’s inaugural induction ceremony.

Among the six were present-day innovators Shin-Tson Wu, next-generation liquid crystal display inventor; and nanotechnology scientist Shyam Mohapatra. The esteemed group also included Thomas Edison, Gatorade inventor Robert Cade, air conditioning pioneer John Gorrie and William Glenn, inventor of the high definition camera for NASA. The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame was founded in 2013 and is housed at the University of South Florida.

In the first six months of 2014, Florida created nearly as many tech jobs (4,100) as the state did in all of last year (4,500), according to a report by online tech career site DICE.COM. Florida now has the second largest workforce of technology professionals behind California, according to Dice.com’s data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for computer systems design and related services. Florida’s high tech industry includes 10 targeted sectors for growth: agritechnology; aviation and aerospace; digital media/interactive entertainment; financial services; information technology; life sciences/ medical technologies; microelectronics/ nanotechnology; modeling, simulation and training; optics and photonics; and sustainable energy.

Big data. Space technology. Gaming.

Laser and photonics. STEM education.

Medical technology. Simulation. Tech business development. Those topics and more are on tap Sept 27-Oct. 3 during ORLANDO TECH WEEK, hosted by the nonprofit Orlando Tech Association. Events range from the iSummit 2014, encompassing interactive media and Internet business models, to the 2014 Schwartz Tech Awards, hosted by the Orlando Economic Development Commission to honor innovation.

Virtual worlds joined the military, corporate America, heath care, entertainment and education sectors in September for GAMETECH14 in Orlando. Over the years, GameTech has expanded to include many private organizations using serious games, avatars and virtual worlds.

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county report |

super region at a glance

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popka incorporated in 1882 and recognized as a city historically resistant to great change is now earnestly looking to the future.

In April when new Mayor Joe Kilsheimer unseated 93-year-old John Land, the winds of change began blowing. Land, largely beloved through his tenure, was first elected Apopka mayor in 1949 and served for the next six decades (less three years). Kilsheimer, a city resident for more than 25 years and a former Orlando Sentinel journalist, vowed to create more jobs and prepare the city for inevitable growth.

Plans are emerging.

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Case in point is the proposed 95-acre Avian Pointe, a residential community that would be the first to offer luxury apartments and townhomes in the city.

In addition it would feature single-family homes, a bike trail and fitness center and would be developed near State Road 429 on the city’s west side.

Also, in the pipeline is a boutique hotel designed to attract eco-tourists interested in birding, angling and biking at Lake Apopka.

If the drawing board becomes reality, the project could add 1,500 residents to the city’s current estimated total of 44,000.

Avian Pointe would also rise two

miles from Florida Hospital’s new $180-million medical campus, which is expected to start construction next year.

And, according to Kilsheimer, such plans are only the start for Orange County’s second-largest city, which for years has been known as the Indoor Foliage Capital of the World. Other agenda items include downtown redevelopment; repurposing the existing Florida Hospital site; readying for the $1.6 billion, 25-mile Wekiva Parkway; and possible rail service from downtown Orlando through Apopka to Lake County.

“There are lots of exciting things getting ready to happen,” he says. “People are beginning to look at Apopka in a new light.”

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county report |

super region at a glance

VOLUSIA NEW TAX EXEMPTIONS A ballot referendum in November could deliver an economic jolt to New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater — if approved by voters. Both cities would be granted a green light to offer tax exemptions to new and expanding businesses.

That could spell more jobs and greater community investment. Exemptions would be given on a case-by-base basis.

RAYDON CORP.

VIRTUAL EXPANSION A Port Orange manufacturer received its largest military order to date. Raydon Corp. landed a $100 million contract with Army National Guard for virtual training simulators. CEO Mike Vollmar expects to add nearly a dozen jobs in the next six months paying an average $75,000 a year as a result of the contract. Other local companies see a real ripple effect for Volusia from the business, not to be confused with a virtual one.

OSCEOLA

EXPERIENCE KISSIMMEE

The Windstorm coaster at Old Town is among the many attractions now being promoted by the new public-private Experience Kissimmee. Tourism is the county’s No. 1 industry.

GLOBAL OUTREACH Osceola commissioners have agreed to privatize tourism promotion in the county, empowering a newly formed not-for-profit organization — Experience Osceola — to market the area globally.

Hailed by many tourism leaders, the action cemented a decision commissioners made in March to establish a public/private partnership responsible for promoting its No. 1 industry. The formalized contract also ushers in a new era for Experience Kissimmee, the destination marketing organization formed in 1978 as the Kissimmee-St. Cloud Convention & Visitors Bureau. Experience Kissimmee will cease operating as a department of Osceola County government when the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

D.T. Minich, who held the top post at St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau for the past seven years, was named Experience Kissimmee’s first-ever president and CEO, inheriting a nearly 40-person staff and an annual operating budget of almost $11 million. At press time, a search was on at VisitSPC for Minich’s replacement.

FLAGLER IMAGE BUILDING Less than a year ago, there was Times Square. For three months, including the holidays, a 10-second spot featured Flagler Beach 18 times daily on a 520-square-foot screen.

Now it’s Forbes magazine, recently placing Palm Coast No. 7 on its list of the “Best Small Places for Business and Careers.”

Flagler County has become a media darling of sorts.

While the county’s Department of Economic Opportunity paid for the Big Apple placement, Forbes spent time praising Palm Coast’s business environment, job growth and education achievement. Efforts to boost the city’s tour-

ism and technology also were cited.

Economic diligence, says Helga van Eckert, executive director of Flagler’s DEO, is paying dividends. “Flagler County is now a community that not only understands and wants economic development, but has everyone on the same page in pursuing it,” she says. “Local businesses, government and not-for-profits are all working together toward a common end goal.”

Call it an altered perception — one that shows well on the big screen, in print and across the country.

— Teresa Edmond-Sargeant contributed to this report.

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perspectives | leading points of view

WITH COLLABORATION AND AWARENESS, FLORIDA IS BECOMING THE HEALTHIEST STATE IN THE NATION.

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three Florida adults is at a healthy hether ensuring a child’s health, weight; one quarter is obese, and the rest preparing for natural disasters are overweight. This situation has or creating walkable neighborominous consequences for our future: hoods, public health helps people make lives lost, livelihoods threatened and healthier choices that lead to long, satiscosts unsustainable. fying lives.

To overcome this challenge, the Throughout Florida’s history, public Department launched the HEALTHIEST health has played a critical role in WEIGHT FLORIDA initiative last year. opening the state to opportunity for Healthiest Weight Florida is a pubchildren, adults and families, whether as lic-private collaboration bringing residents or visitors. We know that good together state agencies, local governhealth starts with good jobs, education ments, businesses, schools, not-for-profit and quality of life. Florida has emerged organizations and entire communities to from the Great Recession as a national help Florida’s children leader in job growth, and adults make conpublic education excelsistent, informed lence and great living. choices about healthy Every day, Florida eating and active attracts 500 more

by DR. JOHN H. living. We are people who move here, ARMSTRONG achieving healthiest and yearly our state FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL weight together by welcomes more than energizing local com75 million visitors. munities to reshape With a strong environments. economy, Florida is The Department is leading this charge becoming the healthiest state in the through a number of innovative nation. programs: This year, the Florida Department of FLORIDA HEALTH CLEANS UP! is a Health is celebrating 125 years of Florida roadside litter prevention campaign in public health. The ancestor of the which more than 1,060 Department Department — the State Board of Health employees around the state have formed — was born during a time of crisis, as 71 teams to adopt nearly 120 linear miles yellow fever gripped the state from Key of Florida byways; more than 17 miles of West to Jacksonville in the 1880s. The state highways; 25 miles of city streets; 12 dire situation demanded action from the miles of trails; 178 acres of parks and 34 state Legislature, which on Feb. 20, 1889, miles of shoreline. Regularly, these teams created the State Board of Health with will put the community spotlight on the Dr. Joseph Porter as the first state health importance of clean spaces and healthy officer. choices as they remove trash.

Just as Dr. Porter and his team The HEALTHY WEIGHT COMMUNITY overcame yellow fever, the Department’s CHAMPION RECOGNITION PROGRAM highpublic health professionals are moving lights local government efforts to health forward in Florida today. increase physical activity and improve Looking at the health landscape, we nutrition. Florida’s 416 municipalities see that the No. 1 public health issue is and counties are eligible to apply, and last weight. Currently, just more than one in

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year 37 received this recognition. In the process, we are sharing examples of what is working around Florida. One such effort is STREETS ALIVE LEE, a signature event of the Healthy Lee Coalition, which incorporates fun, fitness and food to promote healthier lifestyles by temporarily closing streets to motor vehicles and opening them for people to have fun and get active.

To enhance local awareness about weight, the Department has developed a new comprehensive healthiest weight profile for each of the state’s 67 counties.

The County-Level Healthiest Weight Snapshots tool is a part of the COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT RESOURCE TOOL SET (CHARTS) and is designed to help

Floridians achieve a healthy weight. The tool includes demographic, behavioral and environmental measures relating to the community’s healthy weight status. It may be used to support community health assessments, provide data for health and weight related research, and encourage communities to continue their efforts to improve nutrition and increase physical activity (HealthiestWeightFlorida.com).

Public health promotes economic vitality across Florida and succeeds through innovation, collaboration, accountability, responsiveness and excellence. These core values of the Florida Department of Health drive every effort to protect and improve health for all people in Florida.

EDITOR’S NOTE: DR. JOHN H. ARMSTRONG WAS APPOINTED BY GOV. RICK SCOTT AS SURGEON GENERAL AND SECRETARY OF HEALTH FOR THE STATE OF FLORIDA IN APRIL 2012.

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Composed of expanded clay matter, Bold & Gold is an innovative soil media developed by UCF’s Stormwater Management Academy team.

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Patented soil developed by UCF’s Stormwater Management Academy is helping green roofs come to life.

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ver walk by one of the many “green roofs” sprouting up on buildings and done a double take? They’re eye-catching sights — lush grass and other plant life purposefully adorning the top of a building.

At the very root of many of those settings, virtually unseen, is an innovative soil media patented as Bold & Gold™.

Developed by the University of Central Florida’s Stormwater Management Academy, Bold & Gold — a play off UCF’s “Black and Gold” moniker — provides significant filtration and reduction of stormwater runoff. It’s now deployed on more than 50,000 square feet of green roofs across the state.

Bold & Gold soil media is distributed on top of a roof’s waterproof membrane. Providing a 2- to 6-inch deep filtration layer, it’s touted as delivering exceptional extraction of pollutants, reducing the overall amount of runoff, and serving as a fertile material for plants and grasses to flourish.

“At the core of Bold & Gold is an expanded clay material we’ve developed that provides excellent extraction capabilities for nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants,” cites Marty Wanielista, Ph.D., P.E., professor emeritus with UCF’s Stormwater Management Academy. “In addition, over the course of a year, this lightweight and durable soil media can reduce the overall amount of the stormwater runoff by approximately 75 percent when used with a cistern to recycle the water to the roof.”

A commercial entity about to bloom? Just maybe. Green roof design is spreading. Industry association Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has reported a 10 percent growth in their usage across North America last year — a decidedly green glow for Bold & Gold.

INNOVATION NETWORK ON THE WAY

I-Corps™ is coming to UCF. The National Science Foundation has selected UCF to provide Florida’s first implementation of one of the agency’s flagship programs to foster innovation among faculty and students, promote regional coordination and linkages in the innovation ecosystem, and develop a national Innovation Network.

The idea behind I-Corps is to encourage teams of university scientists and post-doctoral or graduate students to go outside their laboratories into the marketplace, where they can learn firsthand about entrepreneurship while exploring the commercial landscape.

“We are going to be teaching researchers and graduate students how to be entrepreneurs,” says Tom O’Neal, associate vice president for the Office of Research & Commercialization and UCF I-Corps site executive program director. “Our objective is to increase the number of successful spinout companies based on university research and innovation.”

UCF, already recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurial networks, becomes one of 15 universities

The I-Corps executive committee: Ivan Garibay, Cameron Ford, Tom O’Neal, Pallavoor “Vaidy” Vaidyanathan and Oscar Rodriguez. Not pictured: Timothy Kotnour and Michael O’Donnell.

nationwide to lead an I-Corps program. The $300,000 I-Corps funding will enable UCF to reach more potential inventors and innovators — with a goal of recruiting and training 96 entrepreneurial teams that could result in 96 new companies over the three-year grant period. The program will offer up to $3,000 to each selected team to be used as early

SILENT NIGHT MAKING NOISE

Maglev Chief Financial Officer Martin Epstein and UCF College of Engineering & Computer Science professors Louis Chow and Thomas Wu are intent on lowering fuel-related costs and raising efficiency.

A new technology to reduce fossil fuel usage in commercial trucks, potentially saving large fleet owners money while reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere? That’s what a Floridabased company has developed in partnership with UCF researchers.

MagLev Energy Inc. (MEI), along with UCF Professor Thomas Wu and his research team from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, has invented the motor/generator technology and accompanying electronics that power an all-electric Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). The technology enables the device, called Silent Night™, to operate without generating harmful emissions from fossil fuel-powered APUs. No-idle regulations in many jurisdictions throughout the country require commercial drivers to shut off their

development seed money.

The I-Corps program will be housed at UCF’s newly established Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the collective home for UCF’s existing entrepreneurship programs. A selected group of teams will be participating in a spring pilot program boot camp (http://icorps.cie.ucf.edu).

engines for meals, deliveries and mandatory rest stops. MEI’s electric APU powers air conditioning, lights, television, computers and other “hotel” amenities overnight and when the truck engine is turned off. Silent Night uses highly efficient lithium ion batteries together with a proprietary high-efficiency motor design to cycle through an industry-leading 10 hours of air conditioning (at 10,000 BTUs) or heat. In addition, the APU can power up to 2,500 watts of power simultaneously, enough for lights and a small television or computer and other amenities.

Prototyped as a bolt-on replacement, it’s able to operate at about 60 percent of the cost of fossil fueled APUs. Although still in the prototype stage, MEI officials expect to sell the product in limited quantities by the end of the year and begin full production by mid-2015.

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Pulling the Thread

To better understand the fabric of life, Florida Tech researchers focus on separating its strands.

FLORIDA TECH

Julia Grimwade, right, and Alan Leonard in the lab at Florida Institute of Technology, where the pair, who are married, have spent the past 25 years delving into the processes in which cells grow and divide – a key to understanding diseases as varied as bacterial infections and cancer.

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s a sophomore at Wellesley College, Julia Grimwade stepped outside of her normal studies as a chemistry major and took a summer internship with the American Cancer Society.

Working under a researcher who focused on understanding how genetic instructions are used to create proteins and other materials during early development of an embryo, she discovered her love for DNA. She then took the first steps toward a decades-long career in unraveling its mysteries.

“Because I was essentially an untrained undergraduate … [the researcher] wanted to see my technical skills. So he handed me this tube of sea urchin DNA … and said, ‘Clean this up for me,’” Grimwade recounts. “Genomic DNA is long and it is stringy, and when you clean it up, you can wrap it on a glass spool like cotton candy or thread, and it is like magic. It is the coolest thing ever. As soon as I saw that I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. This is so cool.’”

Now, Grimwade is a Florida Institute of Technology biology professor and chair of the Premedical Biology program. She and Alan Leonard, her husband and fellow Florida Tech biology professor, have spent the past 25 years studying cell growth and division — processes that are critical to understanding and, therefore, preventing and treating diseases as varied as bacterial infections and cancer.

“All cells have to duplicate themselves in order to reproduce, and normally that’s a really tightly controlled process,” Grimwade says. “When it isn’t tightly controlled in humans, we get things like cancer. In bacterial systems, if it isn’t controlled and they infect us, then we get infectious diseases.”

By determining the key stages in the DNA separation process, Grimwade and Leonard are working to develop ways to inhibit cell duplication, which could prevent the growth and spread of a number of diseases.

PREVENTING DISEASES

Grimwade and Leonard’s research has its roots in the beginning stages of molecular biology. In the 1960s, a professor named Charles Helmstetter (who later taught at Florida Tech) set out to learn more about how cells divide and the rules governing the process known as the cell cycle. Researchers had previously determined that, in order for cells to duplicate themselves faster, they needed to either copy their DNA faster or begin the copying process in a more efficient way.

Thanks to Helmstetter and his colleagues, scientists now understand that cells don’t usually change the rate at which they copy their DNA, but that the key to faster replication is the rate at which cells begin their copying process, called initiation.

According to Grimwade, initiation has two

major factors that make it such a complicated process. “First of all you have to start it somewhere, so how do you know where to start?” she notes.

“And secondly, DNA is double stranded and it can only be copied when it is single stranded; so something has to happen to separate duplex strands so that the machine that makes the DNA can do its job.”

The process in which those duplex strands are separated is where Grimwade and Leonard focus.

Helmstetter recruited both professors to come to Florida Tech in 1989 and, once there, they took an approach founded in molecular biology, rather than the mostly physiological research Helmstetter was doing.

MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENTS

Since then, Leonard and Grimwade have achieved several milestones, which have led to more than $2.8 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health.

One such milestone happened around 1995, when they developed a high-resolution method to identify protein-DNA reactions at the site where chromosome replication begins, a site Leonard had isolated earlier in his career. This proved invaluable to their future research, because it allowed them to identify regions of several crucial protein interactions in 2004 and 2010.

In 2012, Grimwade and Leonard developed an easy method for placing mutations into the DNA, simplifying the way they looked at possible protein-DNA reactions. Recently, they have used these mutations to characterize the stages of initiation and to understand the role of specific proteins in this process. But as they’ve done these manipulations, they’ve found that other proteins are changing their behaviors to compensate.

Their more recent findings have confirmed that even in the simplest of systems, the beginning of chromosome replication is a very complicated process, and is one best studied by asking simple questions and letting the answers lead to the next set of experiments.

Heady stuff, indeed.

Through the ups and downs, their passion for science and discovery keeps both Grimwade and Leonard motivated to continue looking for answers.

“The project still excites me in the same way that it did when I was a young grad student in the 1970s,” Leonard says.

Grimwade agreed.

“Sometimes it’s just — you got so far, you really want to know,” she says. “It’s like ‘I’m so close to actually knowing … we can do this!’ A lot of it is you want to see the end of the story.”

Advances Molecule by Molecule Since starting on her line of research, Florida Tech’s Julia Grimwade has seen quite a few improvements in the materials and methods available for molecular biology researchers.

Here’s a look at some of the changes: › NOW: Premade enzymes that can be shipped overnight › THEN: Making them by hand in a lab › NOW: Advanced imaging equipment › THEN: Using radioactive materials to assist in imaging › NOW: Kits that do some of the basic prep work of isolating DNA › THEN: Doing it yourself in the lab › NOW: Send samples

by FedEx and within days get more sequences than could be generated in weeks › THEN: DNA sequencing technology used to be done by hand SOURCE: FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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Innovative partnerships, a continuum philosophy and a broad view of job creation are paving the way for regional growth.

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etro Orlando serves as the headquarters for Darden Restaurants, Tupperware Brands Corp., American Automobile Association and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, among many others.

There are U.S or divisional headquarters for Siemens Energy Inc., Mitsubishi Hitatchi Power Systems Americas, Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Science Applications International Corp., Electronic Arts, Spain’s Indra Systems and Australia’s Adacel, to name a few.

In Tampa Bay, the trend continues with different names, including Carrabba’s Italian Grill, BlueGrace Logistics, Sykes Enterprises, Bloomin’ Brands and GTE Financial. Et al.

Companies select locations based on a number of economic development factors, such as infrastructure, business climate and speed to market. In Central Florida, they are here for the sunshine, too.

Mostly, though, they arrive, stay and build because of the pipeline — the talent pipeline.

As Central Florida continues to diversify and attract businesses, the region has succeeded in identifying what it takes to create and maintain a talent pipeline that can compete with any area of the country. By looking at skills and certifications, technological innovations, student access to workplace and mentors,

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By JACK ROTH

and alignment of standards of success and curriculum, Super Region entities have played a vital role in training the workforce of today and tomorrow.

“Talent is definitely an important issue when companies consider a location,” says Keith Norden, president and CEO of Team Volusia Economic Development Corp., which serves the Greater Daytona area. “We have to make sure, and they want to make sure, there is ample labor that can be identified to work in their facilities.”

A qualified talent pool enables companies to grow and reach their long-term goals. Having to look outside the market for talent is costly and defeats the purpose of being in a certain location in the first place, he cites.

Gray Swoope, Florida Secretary of Commerce and president and CEO of Enterprise Florida, says much of the credit for Florida’s strong talent pipeline goes to the state’s excellent educational institutions and effective workforce training programs. Florida’s universities, medical schools, technical and trade institutes, and numerous private colleges and universities work closely with the business community to build programs that meet the needs of state industries. They’re also among the nation’s top performers in research and development and commercialization of technologies.

Swoope also notes these customized training programs and incentives help companies become operational and profitable in less time and with lower costs.

INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

As the world rapidly advances to a more global and complex economy of constantly changing jobs, job skills and workforce demands, communities must develop an education system that is intrinsically linked to its economic development and workforce systems in order to be competitive and prosperous.

“Workforce availability and quality are at the top of the list of hot buttons for employers making decisions about where to locate and grow their businesses,” says

Goodwill serves those with barriers to employment, such as disabilities, limited work history, extended unemployment or a criminal background, along with veterans transitioning to civilian careers.

Sharon Hillstrom, president and CEO, Bradenton Area Economic Development. “From technical and soft skills, to the ability to communicate and work with peers in team settings, career seekers must be well equipped to compete for highskill, high-wage jobs. They must be continuous learners who are professional, show up on time, display initiative and add value to businesses where they seek employment.”

One program that is helping prepare high school students for college and beyond is the Junior Achievement Academy for Leadership and Entrepreneurship at Oak Ridge High School in Orlando, which reopened in 2012 following a major renovation and expansion. A recent study shows JA Academy students outperformed their peers in a number of areas, including FCAT and reading benchmark scores and course grades. Developed by Junior Achievement of Central Florida and Orange County Public Schools, the program focuses on building economic insight and leadership talents while also teaching an entrepreneurial approach to help students capitalize on future career opportunities.

“We’re proud that the development of leadership and entrepreneurship skills is translating into multiple academic successes for our students,” says Kathy King, vice president of the JA Academy.

“By taking a hands-on approach to

Goodwill for Jobs Goodwill Industries of Central Florida continues to expand its footprint with new retail stores, Donation Xpress Centers — and Job Connection Centers in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Brevard and Volusia counties.

The nonprofit’s job centers offer assessment, training, interview coaching, resume writing and placement services that help people find meaningful work. In 2013, the centers served 33,000 individuals and filled 6,500 jobs. This fall, Goodwill is opening a Job Connection and Adult Learning Center in Orlando’s Pine Hills community, where 25 percent of residents live at or below the poverty level, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Goodwill serves those with barriers to employment, such as disabilities, limited work history, extended unemployment or a criminal background, along with veterans transitioning to civilian careers.

“A key piece of strengthening our region’s workforce is helping people build the skills that are in demand by local employers,” comments Bill Oakley, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Florida. “Goodwill’s partnerships with hundreds of companies allow us to take the pulse of the job market to identify available positions and what skills are needed for those roles. We help clients develop those skills and communicate them to employers. Some decide to continue their education in a growing field like health care or [information technology], and we assist them with achieving those goals.”

All of which translates to a substantial economic impact when Central Floridians shop or donate at Goodwill. Every 24 pounds of donations provides services that help one person get a job to support themselves and their families.

Economic food for thought.

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force with up-to-date skills.

The key is to be a place that develops, retains and attracts the type of skilled workforce that will help the region continue to be competitive in the world marketplace.

Another HFUW program, Together for Tomorrow, recruits volunteers to mentor and tutor students attending Title I schools — schools with a high percentage of students living in poverty. Many of these students have barriers and challenges in their lives that impact their attendance, behavior, course performance and college/career readiness — all early warning indicators of student success. Together for Tomorrow volunteers act as role models in encouraging positive behavior, academic success and personal development in students.

As part of United Way’s cradle-to-career philosophy, job seekers of all ages gather to help one another.

“Mentors are able to talk about their careers, their education, their hobbies and so much more — thus opening the learning, these achievements will result school student drops out of school every students’ eyes to a broader world,” says in real-world accomplishments.”

26 seconds nationwide, and every Brown. “These caring adults are helping In addition to a rigorous curriculum, dropout represents a major loss in ecostudents not only graduate from high students are paired with business and nomic productivity along with a signifschool, but also helping them think about community mentors who help guide icant reduction in the next steps in their them through career exploration and nation’s ability to post-secondary professional development. This gives compete globally. success.” them the opportunity to interact with “These dropouts are 18 Right now, thanks THE KEY IS TO BE A business leaders in the community who years in the making, to the concerted effort will enhance the business and life skills which is why the of many regional PLACE THAT DEVELOPS, the students learn at the Academy.

United Way provides a entities and forRETAINS AND ATTRACTS Students experience an interactive cradle-to-career conward-thinking leaders, classroom structure and experience a tinuum of support Central Florida has a THE TYPE OF SKILLED college campus feel, better preparing throughout a child’s strong talent pipeline WORKFORCE THAT them for actual college life. development,” he says. that continues to both “We regularly see innovative partner“By removing barriers lure existing busiWILL HELP THE REGION ships between our K-12 and higher eduthat directly impede a nesses here and help CONTINUE TO BE cation leadership,” says Matt Cutler, vice child’s success (like local entrepreneurs president of Investor Relations and hunger, homelessness, realize their dreams.

COMPETITIVE IN THE Development at the Tampa Bay financial instability or But as the workforce WORLD MARKETPLACE. Partnership, “and we appreciate the role lack of adult mencontinues to become that these leaders play in working with toring), we are helping more complex and regional business leaders to address to make sure the challenging, the Super critical workforce and education issues.” playing field is level for Region will have to all kids.” remain diligent in its efforts to create and CRADLE TO CAREER PHILOSOPHY If the talent of its workforce fuels the maintain a local workforce that not only Fortunately, the overall mindset in the economic engine of this region, it is meets but also exceeds expectations.

Super Region is that education is the critical that educational institutions, and “There is no single program or single most influential factor in ensuring their supporting communities, are preagency that can provide every support children grow up to do as well or better paring students to be successful in the that teachers, students and businesses than their parents. An educated com21st century. Brown explains that the need,” says Brown. “Rather, it is only munity, many local leaders believe, is a goal of the talent development pipeline when a community is able to work healthier community. and cradle-to-career continuum is for together in a collaborative way, where Bob Brown, CEO of the Heart of students who grow up in Central Florida all of our activities are mutually reinFlorida United Way (HFUW), is one of to receive the education and experience forcing, that we can have the positive those people. He stresses that a high that will enable them to enter the workimpact we desire.”

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2014 CENTR AL FLOR IDA R EAL ESTATE FORUM

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Specific topics encompass real estate and more, ranging from Project Downtown Orlando and high technology to regional transportation, sports entertainment and county outlooks.

Speakers include, among others: Randy Berridge, president of the Florida High Tech Corridor Council; Jim Wood, director of the Florida Department of Transportation’s Office of Policy Planning; Phil Rawlins, owner/president, Orlando City Soccer Club; and John Walsh, CEO of the Canaveral Port Authority.

Note: All Attendees will receive a 24 x 36 highquality aerial Event Poster, featuring Future Development of the Central Florida market area and a Flash Disk containing speaker presentations and sponsor materials.

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Event Fee: $175.00

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THE NEW-HOME MARKET MIRRORS BOTH GENERAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHICS.

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hy does Central Florida’s homebuilding community appear to be on fire? And, what must it do to effectively meet this growing demand?

To the first question, there are some fairly straightforward answers: Start with a record 59 million people who visited the Orlando area last year (as reported in the International Business Times in April).

Add a $2 billion investment in cluster life-sciences companies, seemingly sprung from the ground overnight and located next to one of the most popular airports in the nation. Known as Medical

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City, it is home to hospitals, a medical school and other university facilities, research institutions and life-science companies. Across the next 10 years, Medical City is expected to create 30,000 jobs and generate a $7.6 billion economic impact.

Now, factor in a renaissance of downtown Orlando — $4.7 billion worth of reported activity. Some of the more high-profile projects in the works include Creative Village, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Citrus Bowl renovations and a Major League Soccer stadium, all to complement the Amway

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Center, which opened in 2010.

Other ingredients in this mix include the Orange County Convention Center (the nation’s second largest); the University of Central Florida, the state’s biggest (and the nation’s second-largest) university in enrollment; and near UCF, the world’s largest simulation cluster is located at the nation’s fourth-largest research park.

On the transportation front, there’s $3 billion in passenger rail projects, including Orlando’s SunRail, Maglev and All Aboard Florida, and a planned $1 billion expansion at Orlando International Airport.

Orlando is changing. It’s becoming a sophisticated metropolitan city, no longer

perceived primarily as a destination for major theme parks and attractions.

It seems everywhere you turn, people are preparing for growth. With this tremendous growth comes the need for new housing, and as a result, $5 billion in real estate transactions were recorded last year alone.

Like most areas across the country, new homebuilding stagnated when the housing bubble burst in 2007 and it took more than five years for developers to venture — cautiously at first — back into the market.

Today, inventory has yet to catch up with demand. Housing experts say it takes a minimum of two or three years to catch up with pre-existing demand,

much less the expanded demand created by accelerated growth.

Growing economies drive the demand for housing. In turn, the strengthening of the housing market helps produce more robust economic growth. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Florida is fifth nationwide in job growth for 2014. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity recently released its Local Area Unemployment Statistics, indicating Orlando has added nearly 50,000 jobs since June 2013.

So the cycle continues between housing and the economy, each supporting and boosting the other.

Research conducted by Charles Wayne Consulting Inc. shows the housing recovery in Central Florida began in 2012 but really surged last year when new-home prices increased 16 percent — an indicator that people have regained enough equity in their existing homes to consider moving again. Between these people and new home buyers in the market, many new developments are being launched. As of April 2014, 38 new projects were open that weren’t building or selling just three months earlier.

Which brings us back to the second question: What sort of homes should the industry build to best meet this demand?

Predicting future growth is not an exact science, but for some answers, builders should examine Florida and the nation’s changing demographics, which includes a focus on multigenerational housing. Martin & Associates, which consults in eight states including Florida, closely examined U.S. Census statistics and studies by Harvard University, Coldwell Banker, Pew Research Center and more to identify market trends.

Martin’s analyses reveal the next wave of home buyers nationwide is not the same group traditionally targeted by the industry. Families with children are a declining segment of the market. Our population is aging. This group, primarily ages 55 to 74, will account for 10.2 million people in the U.S. by 2020.

Many will be married couples without children and single home buyers.

Martin’s research reveals that within the next six years those two groups will account for nearly 60 percent of new-home customers nationally, while

married couples with children will fall to about 20 percent. As a traditional “retirement state,” that gap could be even larger in Florida (Real Estate Economics Webinar #12 – Martin & Associates, 2014: “Ride the Demographic Wave of the Future, 2015-2020”).

A cultural shift to multigenerational living is occurring. The 2010 census found that 63 percent of widows lived alone and 33 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents, also known as the boomerang kids.

Americans are coming to the realization that dispersed living isn’t always the healthiest option physically or emotionally. Research in 2008 found consumers were increasingly considering a multigenerational lifestyle, a reflection of an earlier time when grandparents, parents and children lived under the same roof.

Our change in consumer lifestyle, extended life expectancy, attitude regarding the value of family, financial factors and health care costs are some of the primary drivers.

While Americans rediscover the benefits of extended family living, multigenerational housing has been the norm in Central and South America and also Asia.

Central Florida’s strong economy and technology-driven opportunities attract large numbers of families around the world. The Center for Immigration Studies reported that Orlando’s Asian and Hispanic populations were growing five to six times faster than the general population.

Based on the numbers and projections, there appears to be strong potential in the region’s multigenerational housing market — and something builders will pursue.

Strong economy. Professional opportunities. Soaring new-home market. This is the equation for ongoing success and growth.

As builders and developers, we just need to follow the trends and deliver what fits the region’s emerging new demographics.

EDITOR’S NOTE: ANDRÉ VIDRINE, P.E., IS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE CENTRAL FLORIDA DIVISION OF TOLL BROTHERS, WHICH WAS RECENTLY NAMED NATIONAL BUILDER OF THE YEAR BY BUILDER MAGAZINE AND WAS TWICE NAMED NATIONAL BUILDER OF THE YEAR BY PROFESSIONAL BUILDER MAGAZINE [TOLLBROTHERS.COM].

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he debate about the roles of the private and public sectors in economic development often misses the point — it’s less about the scope and limit of the sectors’ respective roles and more about the synergies necessary to create and sustain economic growth.

“I think what has driven that (Florida’s economic recovery) comes from the private sector,” says Jesse Panuccio, executive director of the state Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) in Tallahassee. “What helps the private sector grow is policy, the policies that government puts in place.”

Panuccio’s department has a myriad of responsibilities, including administration of Florida’s unemployment compensation program, and he is ready to talk at length about any of them. But, his passion clearly is the DEO’s economic development responsibilities.

“The areas that I focus on are, number one, taxation policy. I think that’s the single-most important issue for growth,” he says.

“Second will be regulatory policies, making sure that agencies are going about the work of protecting public health, safety and welfare, but doing so in a way that is not overly burdensome and with an attitude that views businesses and families as partners in economic growth.”

Also high on his list are smart budgeting, acknowledging that often means “difficult choices” in tough economic times, and investment in infrastructure, which he terms “critical.” He had special praise for his boss, Gov. Rick Scott, and the Legislature for investing in ports so that Florida is ready for the Panama Canal expansion.

A recent DEO report noted that Florida ranks sixth nationally in origin of exports, and Panuccio believes Florida can be an even bigger force in exporting.

After noting Florida’s ideal location on trade routes, he said, “I think we are trying to focus on growing industries that are critical to trade. We’ve put a lot of emphasis on growth in logistics, on growth in aerospace, on growth in the life sciences.”

He said Florida is trying to create relationships among state and local agencies and business groups to help them grow economic development opportunities. To enhance capabilities in areas still growing their programs, the DEO and other state agencies are increasingly focusing on county commissions and city councils to help them better “understand the competitive nature of business recruitment in the country and in the world these days.”

Panuccio cites the Super Region as an example of an area at a high level of economic development readiness.

“When I get asked where are we seeing growth that we have in the state ... one of the responses I often give is ‘Look at the I-4 Corridor from Orlando to Tampa.’ There is incredible economic growth. You have local officials who are very much focused on a long-term vision.”

At age 33 and directing a large state agency, Panuccio is viewed as a rising political star in the state — especially after he turned what could have been a career-damaging crisis into a personal triumph. Formerly counsel to Scott, he was nominated by the governor to the DEO post in late 2012, and he began his service

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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES FROM THE DEO

Jesse Panuccio, executive director of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO).

there in early 2013.

Before the year was out, he found himself embroiled in a controversy over problems with CONNECT, a web portal allowing Floridians to apply for unemployment benefits online. As problems with the site and criticism mounted, Panuccio’s final Senate confirmation to his post was delayed. By this past spring, the problems appeared to be corrected, and he was easily confirmed with bipartisan support. Panuccio is quick to credit others (including, with great regularity, Scott), and his reflections on his confirmation are no exception.

“I said during the confirmation process, when you run a large organization ... crises and challenges are inevitable. The real question is how you respond to them,” he said. “That’s really a credit to the people that work here. I get to be up at the hearing and in the newspapers, but the real work gets done by people working very long nights and weekends and through the holidays when there’s a crisis.”

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By MICHAEL CANDELARIA

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r. Charles “Ed” Bailey’s career path intersected with his personal life. In a big way.

A medical doctor with a bachelor’s degree in biology, a practice in psychiatry and clinical research in psychopharmacology for the past 15 years, Bailey successfully paired biology and evolutionary computation while also finding a fast friend in Dr. Ken Stanley at the University of Central Florida.

He met Stanley seven years ago while researching his book “Mind Code: How the language we use influences the way we think.”

And that created a lifeline.

More than two years ago, Bailey was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Although remaining relatively strong and steadfastly thinking “outside the box,” he acknowledged in March that beating the odds was a long shot.

Sadly, the clock was ticking down on his life. Yet, his research mission was helping to keep him alive — BAILEY offering hope for his health as well as the future of science.

On June 18, Bailey died. But not his mission.

“We live in a world of possibilities and probabilities,” said Bailey.

“Unfortunately, we tend to think and act and speak like we’re in a world of certainty and that uncertainty is the exception. That’s not the case ... I’m more interested in thinking about other ways to do things instead of this is the way it’s always been done.

“You stumble across some great discoveries. In the meantime, you enjoy your research — the research is exciting.”

That journey led him to Stanley, a computer science associate professor/researcher and innovator in the field of artificial intelligence. He runs UCF’s Evolutionary Complexity Research Group, which focuses on “abstracting the essential properties of natural evolution that make it possible to discover astronomically complex structures such as the human brain.”

Stanley creates brain-like programs inside computers that enable robots and vehicles to operate increasingly without the help of humans. His works have been cited more than 5,000 times by other researchers.

While much of his efforts center on building technologies that heighten the usefulness of computers and robots, they have also taken him to scientific places far and wide, what he calls “novelty research” — a theory about discovery and innovation. That destination is reached by employing artificial intelligence programs that “show counterintuitively we can actually solve some problems better by not trying to solve them.”

The research resonated with Bailey. Professionally and

personally. He became a staunch advocate of Stanley’s work and a charitable giver to the cause. Stanley’s cause and his own.

Each fueled the other’s lofty scientific aspirations.

“To put it simply, the giving [brought] freedom,” Stanley explains. “What Ed [did was] encourage the kind of research that would be hard to propose to the typical funding agencies that scientists pursue, because this research is open-ended and does not follow tidy milestones laid out from the start. “[I could] explore really creative ideas, really high-risk ideas, without worrying about not fulfilling a particular checklist.”

Counterintuitive? Precisely.

“Our research has shown that often if you’re trying to achieve something very ambitious or do something really creative and innovative, or find a solution to a problem that’s never been solved, you’ll have a higher chance of STANLEY solving it if it’s not your objective,” says Stanley. “Sometimes it’s better simply to try to follow the path of novelty rather than follow the path of a specific objective, just to try new things and be creative instead of trying to achieve a specific goal.

“To put it another way, sometimes you just have to pursue your passion because it’s interesting to you without actually knowing where it will lead.”

For Bailey, the research gave him hope for his health along with the future of science.

“Education, learning, creativity and innovation go hand-in-hand with the exploration for information and novelty research,” he asserted in March.

“We can take it a step further and consider the difficulties of living in a world of possibilities, probabilities — fraught with uncertainties that science strives to help us understand through research.

“In science, we are overwhelmed with data. A lot of what Dr. Stanley does is deal with these things in abstraction. He compresses the data to where the dimensions aren’t as large. He takes abstract concepts and makes them into something where you can understand things. The better you understand things, the better chance you have of interacting with it in an effective way.”

Until the end, the two researchers remained close.

“Ed was really germinating risky ideas all over, and that’s what he meant to do,” Stanley concludes. “I think it was a personal mission for Ed. He wanted someone to think outside the box without having some solution in mind.”

His words live on: “Searching for the sake of searching for information is in and of itself an important challenge for science and an important component of scientific thinking.”

Dr. Charles “Ed” Bailey and UCF professor/researcher Dr. Ken Stanley had a meeting of the minds about science.

And life.

W FORWARDFLORIDA.COM 33

With 100 million visitors envisioned in the not too distant future, Florida has all the right stuff to become a major player in the emerging MEDICAL TOURISM field.

By JOEL BRANDENBERGER

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The Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando is popular for medical meetings, with many requests for satellite feeds and global communications during conferences.

HYATT REGENCY GRAND CYPRESS

W FORWARDFLORIDA.COM 35

Florida Hospital in Orlando cares for more than two million people each year and offers state-of-the-art medical training.

he man who arguably was history’s first medical tourist – Juan Ponce de Leon – arrived in Florida in April 1513 searching for the mythical Fountain of Youth. Now, five centuries after the Spanish conquistador came here seeking a cure for everything, medical tourism is coming of age in the Sunshine State.

The Florida Legislature has allocated $5 million to get the proverbial beach ball rolling on a statewide initiative headed by VISIT FLORIDA. There is national and international recognition that medical tourism is big business. In late September, the World Medical Tourism and Global Healthcare Congress in Washington expected 3,000 participants from around the globe. Next year the event will be in Orlando.

In fact, the industry is growing so rapidly, that its biggest proponents cannot agree on how big the business already is, much less how big it can be.

Will Seccombe, president and CEO of VISIT FLORIDA, the state tourism arm, is aiming high. His vision is to make Florida the No. 1 travel destination in the world. “Florida is the No. 1 beach vacation destination, No. 1 for baby boomers and millennials, why not No. 1 for medical tourists?” he says.

As the lead organization for the state-funded initiative for medical tourism, his organization will work with industry partners to lay the groundwork.

In late August, they had more than 100 participants on the medical tourism initiative kick-off call. “I think we have to crawl, walk, run, as we develop a comprehensive medical tourism strategy for the state,” says Seccombe.

VISIT FLORIDA will use the funding to leverage partnerships with the private sector to increase medical tourism to Florida. “This will be an inclusive process, CVBs, representatives from hospitals, groups and organizations around the state that have a vested interest in medical tourism. Everyone will have a seat at the table.”

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A Medical Tourism task force for the state is being assembled to guide near-term and long- term strategies for promoting the industry domestically and internationally.

An initial area, that is a natural fit, is that of medical meetings. “We can really zero in on medical meetings and training, continuing medical education, opportunities statewide for domestic and international physicians.

“I guess I call it B2P, business to physician, in getting the referrals and word of mouth. And an understanding of the quality of care, quality of physicians, the quality of facilities we have in Florida,” says Seccombe.

Orlando-based Florida Hospital, a partner with VISIT FLORIDA, is a great example of a teaching hospital, training physicians from more than 20 different countries in the newest technologies.

“With Orlando’s rapid growth as a medical city, we have the opportunity to not only provide care to millions of patients every year but to also offer state-of-the-art training to the physicians of

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FLORIDA HOSPITAL

tomorrow,” says David Banks, chief strategy officer for Florida Hospital.

Seccombe also pointed out the natural synergy of the funding for cancer centers in the state helping the overarching mission of medical tourism.

The state received a big boost from the Legislature to the tune of $300 million over the next five years to help cancer centers at the University of Miami and the University of Florida receive the prestigious top designation from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Currently Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Center is the only facility in Florida to have achieved that status.

An NCI nod for Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UF Health Cancer Center with its Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville and partnership with Orlando Health would benefit many areas of the state. A study commissioned by the University of Miami reported that an NCI designation there would result in a $1.7 billion economic impact by the year 2020.

Seccombe added, “It’s a huge opportunity with

“FLORIDA IS THE NO. 1 BEACH VACATION DESTINATION, NO. 1 FOR BABY BOOMERS AND MILLENNIALS, WHY NOT NO. 1 FOR MEDICAL TOURISTS?” — WILL SECCOMBE

PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VISIT FLORIDA

W FORWARDFLORIDA.COM 37

UF, UM and Moffit all working together — getting that alliance on the map is a win for the state.”

MARKETING SUNSHINE

People enjoying the beach near Jacksonville.

The Mayo Clinic there delivers a $1.6 billion impact to Jacksonville annually.

When embarking on our marketing campaign to capture a larger share of the medical tourism market, we must answer the question, “Why Florida?”

For starters, Florida is the only state in the country with four major hub airports — Orlando, Miami, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. This provides an ease of travel component for domestic as well as international travelers. New international carriers are aggressively being recruited to the state regularly.

And with beaches on both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, plus amusement parks, world-class medical facilities, 409,000 hotel rooms and warm weather yearround — Florida might be just what the doctor ordered.

Many areas of the state are already luring medical tourists to their destinations. Overall, travelers from 186 countries visited Florida last year. Orlando is the most visited overseas destination in the U.S. RX: FLORIDA

Florida Hospital, in addition to being a well known teaching hospital in Orlando, also is the state’s No. 1 ranked hospital for the second consecutive year, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Founded in 1908, it receives patients from all over the world. As one of the largest not-for-profit hospitals in the country, Florida Hospital stretches across the state from coast to coast with 23 hospitals and more than 4,600 patient beds. It markets its services across the state, throughout the Southeast and also utilizes physician-to-physician relationships in the Caribbean and Latin America to spread the word about its renowned programs.

Another place to examine for medical tourism is Jacksonville, home of the Mayo Clinic and the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute.

Mayo, which opened its Florida hospital in 1986, draws more than 20,000 patients per year from outside the state. Many bring at least one companion; some are accompanied by their entire families. Stays can be long depending on the treatment sought. According to Visit Jacksonville, the Mayo Clinic provides $1.6 billion in revenue to Jacksonville annually.

Mayo’s Jacksonville campus employs two Spanish translators and has information offices in

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Mexico City; Guatemala City; Quito, Ecuador; and Bogota, Colombia.

Patients needing treatment for particular cancer diagnoses are coming to the UF Proton Therapy Institute. Many are referred by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, which has referred approximately 200 children and adults for proton therapy in Jacksonville since 2010.

It also has an agreement with the Norway Health Authority to treat both children and adults who have rare tumors in the nasal and sinus cavity, skull and brain. Currently there are no medical centers in Norway that offer proton therapy.

The Institute has delivered more than 177,749 cancer proton treatments to more than 5,222 patients since it opened in August 2006 and offers extensive listings of houses and condominiums for rent on its website.

Visit Jacksonville estimated medical tourism accounted for almost 46,000 room nights booked at area hotels in 2012, creating an economic impact of more than $23 million.

Miami, the gateway to Latin America, has been accommodating medical tourists for many years.

Some local officials have mentioned that international patients are part of the city’s DNA. Its name says it all — the SpringHill Suites Miami Airport East/Medical Center is an all-suite hotel located walking distance from downtown Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Baptist Health South Florida offers an

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAYO CLIINIC

CERTIFIABLE:

Medical Tourism Seals of Approval international services program. Last year, more than 12,000 patients from 100 countries came to Miami and Baptist, whose hospitals include: Baptist Hospital of Miami, South Miami Hospital, Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, Baptist Children’s Hospital, Doctors Hospital, Homestead Hospital, West Kendall Baptist Hospital and Mariners Hospital.

The international services are led by multilingual staff that help coordinate all aspects of care: travel arrangements, such as air and ground ambulance, if required, and transfers to and from the airport; accommodations at their fully-equipped on-site apartments or at local hotels; financial services; daily hospital visits from international staff; and case monitoring by an international nurse.

Baptist Health International also works with local doctors in telemedicine (sharing live operations to teach new techniques and procedures), seminars and symposiums. And its Executive Platinum Health and Wellness Program was developed for Caribbean and Latin American corporate and government officials. The one-day health-care package offers a comprehensive physical examination with other tests and screenings.

Miami Children’s Hospital also offers an international patient services department with a multilingual staff to help foreign visitors with not only doctor’s appointments and hospital business, but hotel accommodations as well.

The surest sign the medical tourism industry has arrived? Look no further than the certification programs.

As medical tourism professionals seek to become an accepted part of the broader tourism industry, they have banded together to create programs that enhance the industry’s transparency and provide consumers confidence in those guiding their experience.

In the U.S., one of the prime certification entities is the Medical Tourism Association (MTA), based in West Palm Beach. According to its website, the MTA offers the following programs: International Patient Services Certification – This program helps ensure facilities have the infrastructure necessary to accommodate medical tourists of all income levels.

Certified International Patient Services Specialist – Similar to the previous program, this is designed for individuals rather than facilities.

Certified Medical Tourism Professional or Specialist – It’s designed to help both health-care facilities and those marketing to medical tourists better develop targeted programs.

Certified Medical Tourism Marketing Professional or Specialist – Also aimed at people on both sides of the medical tourism equation, the program also helps enhance marketing efforts and increases awareness of the financial constraints driving health-care choices.

The WellHotel® Program – Several certifications are available here, all designed for medical tourists to identify easily the hotels and hotel staffs that can meet their special needs.

W FORWARDFLORIDA.COM 39

Percentage of non-local patients who came to the Laser Spine Institute in Tampa Bay for minimally invasive surgeries in 2013

Economic impact of those Laser Spine Institute patients

The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau even has a medical tourism brochure as part of its marketing materials.

In Tampa Bay, last year more than 90 percent of patients who came to the Laser Spine Institute for minimally invasive surgeries in accredited facilities were non-local residents, many of whom came from abroad, driving nearly $14.9 million in medical tourism to the area economy. To support growth and expansion, the Institute announced plans to build a new facility to house its Tampa-based headquarters and ambulatory surgery center. The new 176,000-square-foot building is expected to open in 2016 and will accommodate 25 percent more patients.

At the University of South Florida’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, also known as CAMLS, the “tourists” are largely physicians from around the world who arrive in downtown Tampa for cutting-edge, simulator-based medical training. The 90,000-square-foot facility opened in February 2012.

NATIONAL AND GLOBAL COMPETITION

When it comes to medical tourism dollars, Florida is facing stiff competition here and abroad.

As with the industry’s financial impact, quantifying the exact number of medical tourists in the U.S. and internationally is not easy, but there are clear indicators of its growing impact. A 2009 Deloitte study estimated that at least 400,000 people traveled to the U.S. expressly for medical treatment, and subsequent reports indicate that number has grown.

While Florida’s world-class tourist attractions and emerging medical prowess give it a considerable edge, other states also can boast top-notch hospitals, pretty scenery and good shops and restaurants. The San Antonio-based CMTR presentation estimated that the Texas Medical Center in Houston received 18,000 international patients in 2009 alone. The Houston scenery may be debatable, but the center leveraged its assets, which include the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and several world-class cardiovascular programs.

TWO-WAY STREET

Americans are medical tourists, too. The CMTR presentation, citing a survey of 1,800 participants, estimated that as many as one million Americans went abroad for medical care in 2009. Other studies indicate the figure may have been higher and that it is growing.

Second, the number of people from other countries traveling for medical care also is growing and those people don’t always choose the U.S. The market research firm Frost and Sullivan several years ago listed 14 top medical tourism destinations, and the medical travel organization Patients Beyond

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Relaxation at the Bentley Beach Hotel in Miami.

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Borders offers a list of 11 sites. Compare the two lists, plus others readily available from other sources, and a consistent list of nine key destinations emerges. In addition to the U.S., they are (listed alphabetically): Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Turkey.

The reasons patients go to these destinations usually falls broadly into two categories, elective surgeries (cosmetic and weight-loss procedures) that can be folded into broader vacations and those seeking specialized treatments for serious conditions like cancer and cardiovascular disease that cannot necessarily be found or afforded at home.

One luxurious example that falls into the former category is a now-famous 2012 package offered by a Chinese travel agency and the Ritz-Carlton in Seoul.

Promoted as an “anti-aging” tour, the agency and hotel offered a variety of packages that included sightseeing and shopping but that ultimately were built around cosmetic treatments at a South Korean clinic. Pricing for the “tourism” part of the package remains unclear, but the “medical” piece included treatments ranging up to $88,000.

The perception of foreign hospitals’ quality also is on the rise. Earlier this year, the International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) presented its first-ever Medical Tourism Awards. No U.S. hospital or health-care center won, and precious few were finalists. The International Hospital of the Year was in Malaysia and the Destination of the Year Award went to Jordan. Awards are subjective, but the results are a clear indicator of how competitive the field is becoming.

PHOTO COURTESY OF VISIT FLORIDA

MONEY MATTERS

The Beijing-to-Seoul experience aside, cost savings increasingly is cited as a critical factor driving medical tourism. It is at least as important as the availability of a procedure, maybe even more so. Patients Beyond Borders looked at U.S. costs for a variety of procedures and found patients and insurers can save anywhere from 25 percent to 90 percent by having their procedures done abroad.

Savings also can be achieved at home, though, as companies and insurers come on board and negotiate rates with major U.S. health-care providers.

More employers and insurers are offering financial incentives to encourage workers to consider domestic medical travel. By pointing employees toward facilities with high-quality care and lower prices, employers say they can reduce their costs 20-40 percent — more than enough to cover the travel expenses involved.

“Domestically we’re seeing some large employers and health plans offer to employees the option of having certain expensive procedures performed at designated locations both in and outside the U.S. where they can achieve more predictable outcomes at more affordable costs than might be the case at their local community hospital.

This is the exception, not the rule, but a trend worth watching. Any health-care system competing for these opportunities, including those in Florida, will need to focus on exceptional quality and service while also staying competitive on price,” says Thad Seymour, Jr., who leads strategic planning and business development for Lake Nona Medical City.

A lot is at stake.

Hospital care accounts for more than one-third of the nation’s $2.5 trillion annual health spending tab. And spending on hospital care — which rose nearly 6 percent last year — is expected to accelerate. Employers with domestic travel programs say they save money in part by negotiating a single rate, which includes fees for surgeons, anesthesiologists and all medical care up until the patient is discharged.

“This is one of our ways of trying to bend the cost curve,” says Bob Ihrie, senior vice president in charge of employee programs at Lowe’s. The national home-improvement retailer has a three-year deal with the Cleveland Clinic for employees and their dependents in need of specialty heart treatments – open-heart surgeries, valve repairs, pacemakers.

Lowe’s, which like many large employers is self-insured, may add orthopedic surgeries to its travel program, Ihrie says. Four other large employers — including an airline and a bank — are in a coalition with Lowe’s and are developing similar agreements with medical providers.

UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint and Humana are also looking to curb expenses by encouraging their members to receive medical procedures abroad through cross-border plans.

HEALTHY OUTLOOK

As Medical Tourism magazine notes, “’hospital’ and ‘hospitality’ come from the same Latin root, ‘hospes,’ which means ‘host.’” The same article advised hospitals to look at their assets that would appeal to medical tourists, noting that facilities offering minimally invasive, outpatient procedures are ideal, especially if those facilities are in areas that offer strong tourist attractions.

It should be noted that the above magazine is produced by the Medical Tourism Association, which happens to be located in West Palm Beach.

So it is easy to see why lawmakers, health-care leaders and the hospitality industry in Florida remain excited about medical tourism’s potential in the state. Florida brings a lot of assets to the table, but all of these proponents remain acutely aware that outcomes are not guaranteed in economic development any more than they are in medicine.

A strategic marketing plan is critical. But ultimately the destination must deliver. Top-notch medical care, incredible hospitality and a seamless patient experience door to door, not only for the patient but his or her family.

Figuratively speaking, Florida has its marketing fingers on the pulse of medical tourism. The beat will only get louder.

Hospital care accounts for more than one-third of the nation’s $2.5 trillion annual health spending tab.

Increase in hospital spending in 2013, as compared to 2012.

— Susan Revello contributed to this report.

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41

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Is the grass greener on the other side of Amendment 2?

F

lorida, a hot state to begin with, will be even hotter come Nov. 4.

Voters will be deciding whether to approve an amendment to the constitution legalizing medical marijuana. Known as Amendment 2 it has proponents and opponents in an expensive and heated campaign. There are also ramifications for the gubernatorial race based on “get out the vote” strategies for those wanting victory and those wanting to defeat the amendment.

Proponents cite compassion for the patients suffering from chronic diseases the bill is designed to help.

Opponents proffer views this will lead to widespread misuse of medical marijuana and loopholes big enough to drive a car through.

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What everyone can agree on is this is a complex issue and while polling tends to favor passage of the amendment — it most likely will be close. Since it is a constitutional amendment, its approval requires 60 percent of the vote.

Currently, 22 states permit medical marijuana.

Interestingly, the Florida Legislature last spring passed legislation (SB 1030) known as Charlotte’s Web, which Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in June. It provides limited use of medical marijuana, the strains high in cannabidiol, or CBD, but low in THC, to help children and adults with epilepsy.

It may be accessed through oil or vapor form, but not smoked.

That law has drawn criticism for how it has been handled by the Florida Department of Health. A lottery

system will be used to select five companies as medical marijuana dispensaries licensed to sell low-THC cannabis.

Only nurseries that have been in business in Florida for 30 continuous years and that have at least 400,000 plants are eligible to apply.

The biggest complaint to date has come from the Legislature’s own oversight committee. A Sept. 3 article in the Tampa Bay Times outlines the 19-page complaint sent to the Department of Health by Marjorie Holladay, chief attorney for the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee.

In essence, a law passed in the spring for a narrow use of medical marijuana is fraught with issues in its implementation.

Amendment 2 is broader in scope and that worries both supporters and critics.

In navigating the hyperbole surrounding Amendment 2, it boils down to some core elements. Many sick people with debilitating illnesses will be helped from medical marijuana. It also will most likely create many unintended consequences in the process.

John Morgan, the face of Amendment 2, is a successful Orlando-based trial lawyer, who founded the multimillion dollar Morgan & Morgan business empire. His political committee, People United for Medical Marijuana, has raised millions. Its United for Care campaign is responsible for getting the amendment on the ballot through a well-organized petition drive.

Morgan has a compelling personal story about medical marijuana. His late father used marijuana in his cancer battle and his brother Tim, a quadriplegic as a result of a lifeguarding accident, uses marijuana to ease his pain.

A successful litigator, Morgan lays out his views very succinctly. “Disease does not pick political parties.” His response to critics’ concerns about widespread use of marijuana: “The gateway drug this leads to is morphine and the hospice center.” Morgan went on to discuss the fact that OxyContin kills 60,000 people a year. “There’s never been one overdosed death from marijuana ever.”

The Florida Chamber of Commerce has spoken out against the amendment. David Hart, executive vice president of government affairs and political operations was troubled with the fact this was an amendment to the constitution.

“Most of us believe that a constitution is a pretty sacred foundational governing document that’s supposed to direct human rights and how we’re going to frame our system of government, whether at a federal or a state level,” he says.

Hart continued, “This constitutional amendment 2 is not necessary, but beyond that we see numerous, what I would describe as fatal flaws.

“Amendment 2 uses the phrase ‘caregivers’ to dispense medical marijuana, but it doesn’t define who or what a ‘caregiver’ is. Doesn’t define what kind of training they need. In fact, under the amendment they could even be a felon. That’s a pretty broad loophole to not have clarity around.

“I think the Florida Chamber and our board wanted to be a voice: this amendment’s not necessary, it’s been dealt with by the Legislature appropriately in a more narrow and responsible fashion. We hope this isn’t the direction Florida voters want to go,” says Hart.

More common ground for proponents and critics are the examples of Colorado and California and their respective marijuana laws. Both sides agree these states do not embody what is proposed for Florida.

One common misperception: Colorado allows the sale of cannabis for recreational use, meaning it is legal there to buy, possess and consume marijuana for recreational use. It is not what Florida is contemplating with medical marijuana. Hart discussed the ramifications in Colorado for business owners with employee use and the negative impact on new companies relocating there.

Morgan stated California should be viewed as a case study as to what we should not do.

California was the first state to legalize cannabis in 1996 and the state has yet to establish a set of standards guiding the cultivation, production and sale of the plant. California currently leaves it up to local governments to decide how

“THE GATEWAY DRUG THIS LEADS TO IS MORPHINE AND THE HOSPICE CENTER.” — JOHN MORGAN FOUNDER, MORGAN & MORGAN LAW FIRM

“THIS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 2 IS NOT NECESSARY, BUT BEYOND THAT WE SEE NUMEROUS, WHAT I WOULD DESCRIBE AS FATAL FLAWS.” — DAVID HART EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS AND POLITICAL OPERATIONS AT THE FLORIDA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

they want to implement the state’s medical marijuana law.

However, from a federal standpoint, cannabis is still illegal and remains a Schedule 1 drug (meaning it has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse). The federal government will not get involved as the Department of Justice published the Cole memorandum (Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole) in August 2013, laying out eight “enforcement priorities” beyond which it will defer to state and local law enforcement agencies to “address marijuana enforcement of their own narcotics laws.”

Florida voters should educate themselves on the amendment and our democracy will take care of the rest.

There are eloquent and impassioned voices on the merits and problems with medical marijuana.

On Nov. 4 we will learn which side prevailed.

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Millions of Americans suffer in silence and everyone pays a high price.

By CASSIE CORYELL

M

any responded with shock following the death of Robin Williams, wondering how a talented actor and comic genius could feel such despair that would lead him to commit suicide. It is commonly known that Williams suffered from depression, which led to even more questions. Isn’t a comedian supposed to be happy?

One of the greatest struggles with mental illness is that an individual may appear “normal” yet suffer in silence.

Mental illness brings such stigma, often causing the patient to feel guilt and shame, which frequently results in failure to seek treatment or discuss the condition openly. For the family of Williams and many other Americans with some form of diminished mental health or a diagnosed mental illness, it’s a high price to pay.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that only 17 percent of all adults in the U.S. are considered to be in a “state of optimal mental health.”

Among those clinically diagnosed with mental illness, depression is most common, affecting 26 percent of the U.S. adult population. Recent evidence shows positive mental health also results in improved health outcomes. Mental illness, especially depression, complicates chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma and obesity. Even for those with mental illness and no associated medical condition, a depression diagnosis often leads to behavioral risk factors that are commonly associated with chronic illness, such as physical inactivity, smoking,

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The death of Robin Williams in August brought mental illness out in the open.

excessive drinking or insufficient sleep.

In addition to the heavy emotional toll mental illness takes on patients and their families, the financial burden is significant as well. Depression is linked to higher health-care costs and higher mortality rates from suicide. In Florida, more than 2,800 deaths were linked to suicide last year alone.

Florida’s total expenditure for state mental health agencies is more than $740 million. While that amount may seem high, the per capita spending is only $39.55, which is 49th in the nation. More money needs to be spent on mental health, but what is the benefit?

The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that the economic

benefits of treatment for depression has a ROI of $7 for every $1 invested. It makes sense when you compare the average Florida emergency room cost per visit at $2,887 to a crisis stabilization bed per day at just $292. The average annual cost to provide an adult mental health treatment is $1,551 vs. that same adult requiring admission to a state mental hospital, which typically costs $112,000.

The strong link to costs associated with mental health and medical conditions has many health-care organizations taking action, both in educating the public and greater coordination of care.

Health care previously has had a disconnect between the medical and behavioral entities, without effective collabo-

ration between the two.

In an effort to change the dialogue on mental health, mental illness and substance use disorders, the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW) launched the Stamp Out Stigma campaign. This initiative is directed at reaching one million people by the end of this year and enjoys collaboration between medical and behavioral health-care organizations. Members of the ABHW participating include Aetna Behavioral Health, Beacon Health Strategies, Cenpatico, Cigna, MHN, New Directions Behavioral Health and ValueOptions.

The nation’s largest independent behavioral health-care company, ValueOptions has maintained a strong presence in the Florida market for some time, with 650,000 people covered in its commercial lines of business (including

commercial, employer based and employee assistance programs) and an additional 350,000 people covered in its Medicaid lines of business (which can vary at times due to members’ Medicaid eligibility).

“There are some exciting changes making their way in Florida,” says Joseph Wellman, Florida market president of ValueOptions. “For the first time this year, we are seeing a similar design being implemented in Medicare and Medicaid as was previously only available in commercial.” Wellman explains a wave of consumerism coming in health care which specifically affects our region: In Florida, Medicare recipients can change and have consumer-like choices in health plans. It also creates a level of competition that Medicaid recipients’ need that has never existed before.”

In addition to a more consumer-driven

model, there is also a change in the way medical and behavioral health organizations communicate. Wellman explains, “Coordination of care is going to be a challenge for some time to come because there are strong separate traditions and we need to continue to do more integration. But what we’re beginning to see here is a stronger emphasis on utilization management and greater collaboration for care management.”

With an increased awareness on eliminating the stigma of mental illness, combined with greater communication between medical and behavioral health-care organizations, the hope is that positive changes will be forthcoming.

A reason to smile.

EDITOR’S NOTE: CASSIE CORYELL IS THE PRESIDENT AND CEO OF TOPSOURCE HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS.

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The Florida Translational Research Program at Sanford-Burnham unites statewide medical explorers in the quest for new remedies.

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Sanford-Burnham scientists work with colleagues at universities and nonprofits across the state to find the medicines of tomorrow.

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all this lifesaving ROI. In 2011, Gov. Rick Scott issued a call for new ventures to catapult Florida into the lead in U.S. biotech innovation.

Projects would have to meet three broad criteria: (1) elevate science across the state in an open and competitive way; (2) build on existing resources and infrastructure; and (3) show potential to be self-sustaining over time.

Answering this call: Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona. The Institute proposed the Florida Translational Research Program and outlined how the state could help create a pipeline of potential medicines by giving Florida-based research scientists access to its Prebys Center’s advanced drug discovery technology platform and expertise.

The Florida Department of Health allocated $3 million in 2012 in support of Sanford-Burnham’s ideas and the FTRP was hatched.

Subsequently, a team led by Layton Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of Drug Discovery at Sanford-Burnham in Lake Nona, issued a request across the state for drug discovery proposals.

While researchers typically wait years or longer to secure federal funding, the FTRP provided some with almost instant support.

In April 2013, the FTRP announced its first five projects. Three were seeking new treatments for cancer at the University of Miami, the University of Florida and the University of Central Florida. The other two were focused on therapies for diabetes and obesity, both led by researchers at Sanford-Burnham.

Sanford-Burnham, which arrived at Lake Nona in 2009, a national coup following a very public and intense recruitment, was paying more dividends.

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Each FTRP project is focused on either a specific disease such as cancer or a broader research area like rare diseases. And all land squarely at “the valley of death” — the gulf between the laboratory bench and the clinical bedside — where treatment breakthroughs languish, drug discoveries are delayed and patients perish.

Not coincidentally, that gulf is shrinking in Florida.

“The immediate and potential long-term impact of this funding on my research cannot be overstated,” says UCF program participant Cristina Fernandez-Valle, Ph.D. Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh, Ph. D., a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida International University and director of the Biomolecular Sciences Institute, agrees. Also an FTRP partner, she spends her time investigating bacterial pathogens, which provide a target for discovery of new antibiotics to combat multidrug-resistant infections. Much of what she accomplishes could not be done without the inherent partnerships of the program.

Inside the facility at Lake Nona, hundreds of thousands of drug-like compounds are run through what’s called high-throughput-screening assays to identify molecules with the greatest therapeutic

potential. When those assays produce viable hits, trials are conducted among promising candidates for efficacy and safety.

Essentially, the FTRP’s emergence as a drug discovery catalyst is filling a void created by a decline in federal research funding and mounting risk aversion in the pharmaceutical industry.

And, as a result, the state’s economy is getting a bit healthier.

“I think the potential for economic impact could be enormously significant,” says Smith, pointing to the program’s founding vision of accelerating growth within the medical industry to diversify Florida’s economy.

ECONOMIC PILL

Now entering its third year, the FTRP has amassed a portfolio of 32 collaborative drug discovery projects involving nine institutions, including the aforementioned plus Florida International University, Moffitt Cancer Center and Nemours Children’s Hospital. The program is advancing promising research toward the stage where discoveries can attract commercial interest, according to Smith, who adds that the FTRP is on track to achieve self-sustainability through royalties and licensing agreements Moreover, it has all the makings of a powerful economic pill, cites Smith: “The signs are there.”

Noting that drug discovery is a long and costly process, Tse-Dinh adds: “To achieve our ultimate goal, along the way we have to get federal funding or money from a large pharmaceutical company, which brings dollars to the state in the form of new research funding.” The process can also result in the creation of new biotechnology companies, further aiding the state’s economy.

The FTRP filed its first patent, “a first step in the return on investment that the governor was looking for,” Smith cites. And two FTRP principal investigators have parlayed the state’s initial discoveries into out-of-state grants that will further advance their discoveries. One is Mayo Clinic in Florida researcher and associate professor Pamela McLean, Ph.D., who has received funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

When McLean applied to the FTRP in 2013, she was looking for state support in her search for breakthrough Parkinson’s disease therapies. Now, she has access to the Prebys Center’s and the National Institutes of Health’s libraries of 900,000 compounds and industry-trained drug discovery experts.

“Everything has moved forward at an amazing pace, and everything has gone smoothly,” she says.

Across the state, FTRP research hasn’t yet reached the finish line. Such advancements require years. Also, there are still many unmet needs — largely for rare “neglected diseases.” But, there is progress. And there is impact.

In turn, researchers have embraced something infectious – collaboration.

“All the stakeholders in this partnership are working hard to reinvent the drug discovery process,” concludes Smith.

“ALL THE STAKEHOLDERS IN THIS PARTNERSHIP ARE WORKING HARD TO REINVENT THE DRUG DISCOVERY PROCESS.” — LAYTON SMITH, PH. D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF DRUG DISCOVERY AT SANFORDBURNHAM MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN LAKE NONA

EDITOR’S NOTE: FOR MORE ABOUT DRUG DISCOVERY, SEE SANFORD-BURNHAM’S PORTAL MAGAZINE AT SANFORDBURNHAM. ORG/PORTAL.

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The sun shines brightly on health and fitness in Florida.

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unshine, warm weather, a variety of sports and outdoor activities — health conscious people have come to the right place.

Florida provides countless opportunities for

attaining and maintaining wellness year-round. The state offers 825 miles of beaches; most golf courses in the U.S. at 1,200; 7,800 lakes; 1,711 rivers and streams; and national and state parks.

Biking, hiking, boating, paddling, fishing, tennis — pick your sport.

Not Just Oranges ‌ Florida has 47,500 commercial farms, using a total of 9.25 million acres and ranks seventh in agricultural exports with $4 billion. More than 25 million units of fresh fruits and vegetables are sold annually through the 13 state farmers markets. There are smaller farmers markets also located in communities throughout the state. Delicious fruits and vegetables abound. Not to mention local seafood and beef.

Homegrown Publix Super Markets, founded in 1930 and based in Lakeland, is both the largest employee-owned company and the most profitable grocer in the country. It is also the seventh-largest private company in the U.S., with retail sales of nearly $29 billion.

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site selection |

a closer look

FORWARD FLORIDA: FIRST, FROM A STATEWIDE PERSPECTIVE LOOKING OUT TO THE NATION AND WORLD, IS THERE A SPIRIT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION IN FLORIDA? JAMES ZBORIL: Without question. When we look at points of differentiation within the state of Florida, and especially in Orlando, cooperation or, rather, collaboration is a key driver for attracting new business. At Lake Nona, we take that spirit one step further, as evidenced by the recent recruitment of the USTA [U.S. Tennis Association] to JAMES ZBORIL build the ‘new home of American tennis’ at Lake Nona. We have helped drive a powerful, winning combination of private and public partnerships with the City of Orlando, teaming up with Orange County, the University of Central Florida, Visit Florida and other public and private entities. This kind of regional cooperation does not exist elsewhere.

FF: AGAIN FROM A NATIONAL LENS, AND WITH AN EYE TOWARD ATTRACTING NEW EMPLOYERS TO THE STATE, HOW IS THE STATE WORKING TO SEPARATE ITSELF FROM OTHERS — AND SPECIFICALLY WHEN IT COMES TO HEALTH CARE? JZ: Everybody already knows that Florida is just one of the best places to live and play — from year-round sunshine and world-class attractions to nearby beaches and lakes, and the diversity of neighborhoods and housing options. Not to mention the tax benefits. I think what is less known is the entrepreneurial spirit and talent pool apparent within our biotech and health-care industries, which continue to thrive and expand through unique partnerships that you just don’t find in other parts of the country, or even the world.

Florida has one of the most sophisticated health-care systems in the country, a growing life-sciences sector, the second largest medical device manufacturing industry and a massive B2B pharmaceutical distribution sector.

The business is already here, and it’s growing.

I’m excited that the regional branding and marketing efforts will soon launch to promote some of these other great aspects of our area.

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Lake Nona has fought off an ailing economy, general skepticism and heated marketplace challenges to produce a medical city and economic development hot spot.

By MICHAEL CANDELARIA

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enciled in at 7,000 acres roughly a decade ago and encompassing a “medical city” along with housing, retail and commercial development, Lake Nona was touted as a game changer long before that phrase became popular. Others questioned its viability, believing reality wouldn’t match expectations — particularly given economic uncertainties (i.e., the Great Recession) and uber competition (the national site selection landscape).

Today Lake Nona extends and rises, serving as a role model for an ambitious vision coming to life. However, the work isn’t done. And all, of course, hasn’t gone as planned. Yet, under the leadership of James “Jim” Zboril there is significant progress and, more notably, continued promise.

Zboril, president of Tavistock Development Co., shares his development views of the national scene, the state of Florida and a swath of land larger than Manhattan.

FF: SPEAKING OF CLUSTERS, DO THEY HELP ATTRACT OTHER RELATED ENTITIES? JZ: Absolutely. There are tremendous opportunities that become really apparent in a cluster environment. We have doctors that are drawn to the hospitals not just because of the work that they can accomplish in that facility, but also because of the research they will be able to do at Sanford-Burnham or the universities, or the ability to teach at the universities, all of which are within walking distance. Some of these researchers later pursue entrepreneurial opportunities with startups, attracting venture capital. All of these employees need places to live, eat and shop, so naturally neighborhoods and retail centers also build up around the cluster. And when related businesses see the success and opportunity within such an innovative environment, they too want to locate their business within the community, and that’s when the true collaboration starts to happen.

Hospitals attract outpatient services, which include wellness facilities that marry nicely with training and sports complexes, which attracts manufacturing and media. Clustering has a powerful effect.

FF: NOW LOOKING SPECIFICALLY AT LAKE NONA, WHEN YOU PROMOTE METRO ORLANDO, WHAT ARE YOU SELLING FIRST? JZ: Quality of life and workforce. Southeast Orlando is the fastest-growing region of Metro Orlando. Our newest neighborhood, Laureate Park, is the top-selling community in the area and among the best in the country. Lake Nona is a great place to live and work, with a worldclass airport [Orlando International] and an amazing group of community leaders who want quality growth in harmony with the environment. We have a young, diverse and educated workforce with an entrepreneurial attitude and a true spirit of partnership that you just don’t find in other parts of the country or even the world. It’s a powerful force.

FF: WHEN YOU PROMOTE LAKE NONA AND MEDICAL CITY, WHAT ARE YOU SELLING? JZ: We’re selling the opportunity to be a part of something new, something special, something larger than any single person or building.

It’s really the collaborative opportunities and ability to break silos and institutional inertia that is so interesting. Our Medical City partners have been able to attract some of the very best because of our ‘livability’ factors, but also because of the power of the cluster we’ve created here. These top clinicians and scientists understand, better than anyone, the power of cross-pollinating ideas, and they thrive

in an environment that’s set up to naturally enhance these interactions. That’s because we’ve started from scratch, given them a blue sky of options, and built one of the world’s best technology backbones. We’ve created a unique campus, with leading universities as neighbors, three hospitals and a prominent research institute. You won’t find this anywhere else.

Equally important, we’re selling the power of Tavistock Group and our team’s ability to deliver. It’s always great to have dreams, but one must have the financial capabilities to deliver on those dreams. Our founder and chairman, Joe Lewis, is our not-so-secret weapon.

He gives us the ability to think big and realize these dreams through his unwavering commitment to the vision, his guidance and perfect balance between patience and persistence.

We think having a private company leading the charge with strong public sector support is an unmatched team.

FF: HOW IMPORTANT IS THE PROXIMITY TO ORLANDO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT? JZ: Hugely important. We’re less than 10 minutes from a world-class airport, which provides direct access to multiple metropolitan areas in the U.S. and the world. This is key for both our employment base and our residents, and will be even more important in the future as we see an increase in activity with the USTA and our emerging office park. We’re seeing some tight occupancies for large office users in the region and a fair amount of obsolescence. As regional commute times continue to increase, we believe that the airport will be one of the keys to our differentiated offering.

FF: AGREE OR DISAGREE THAT THE BUSINESS OF SITE SELECTION/CORPORATE RELOCATION AND GROWING YOUR BRAND IS DIFFICULT/TRICKY BUSINESS? JZ: There are many things to consider with site selection and corporate relocations, no doubt about it. We’ve seen a marked increase in interest from out-of-state companies this year, many of which have been represented by some of the best site selection firms around the globe. After years of building new roads, schools, parks and housing from entry level to executive, we’re starting to be on the radar screen. We need to do more to get our story out there. Lake Nona has so much to offer, from lifestyle and location to transportation and education, an educated workforce and world-class health care. I’m proud to humbly represent this great community and our region, and think that the companies we’ve been successful in recruiting would hopefully say that the decision was a good one.

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legislative update |

policy making in action

WASHINGTON The leaders of two of the Super Region’s key ports arrived in Washington shortly after Labor Day, armed with a friendly — but firm — message for the Obama administration: help us expedite port expansion so we can help exports continue fueling the economic recovery.

John Walsh, Port Canaveral CEO, and Paul Anderson, Port Tampa Bay CEO, (along with Port Everglades’ Steve Cernak) were among a select group of port and business leaders invited to the White House Business Council International Trade and Export Briefing.

Immediately after the briefing ended, Walsh met in Washington with FORWARD FLORIDA to discuss the conference. Describing the meeting as positive, Walsh said he and the other port leaders were able to get their key message across.

“I think they heard us,” Walsh said.

“The (Army) Corps of Engineers needs to speed the process up.”

Administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, were touting their export enhancement efforts. Among these were the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) which, in a year filled with gridlock, Congress passed earlier this year with bipartisan support.

Walsh did not dismiss WRRDA’s importance but he said its funding is secondary to a streamlined regulatory process as Florida ports look to expand to accept the larger cargo vessels that will come with the widening of the Panama Canal.

“We have people already interested in investing. The problem is getting through the regulatory red tape to start the projects. Secretary Pritzker and Ambassador Froman were supportive,” he said.

Anderson also spoke highly of the

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In Washington, the Super Region’s ports push for expansion; back home, political consultants grapple with a changing electorate.

Port Canaveral CEO John Walsh and other Florida port leaders told the Obama administration that bureaucratic red tape poses a danger to the expansions necessary to increase exports and grow the economy.

meeting, saying, “Ports must continue to help companies create the best environment for exports and develop ties with companies around the world. I was honored to join my fellow port directors and business leaders to brief the Administration on ways they can support Florida and the country in export activities.”

Walsh was complimentary of the briefing and the officials’ effort to unite the participants behind a pro-export agenda. In addition to a discussion of ports, the White House team sought the participants’ support in lobbying Congress to reauthorize the ImportExport Bank, whose charter expires Sept.

30 (see “Global Pulse,” Page 54).

REMEMBERING SOTLOFF. International terrorism came too close to home earlier this month when journalist Steven

Sotloff, a UCF alumnus and native Floridian, was executed by Islamic State militants. Florida’s state and federal political leaders attended Sotloff’s memorial service in South Florida.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R) spoke at the service, saying “Steven was committed to truth and revealing it. He has revealed the true nature of evil in the world today.”

Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist also were in attendance while others found a variety of ways to memorialize Sotloff.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D) has been on numerous news shows discussing the ISIS threat, and he has introduced a bill giving the president additional authority to strike at the group. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Okeechobee, also has been active on the media circuit and on social media condemning the ISIS execution.

Election Day is only weeks away, and candidates in Florida are fighting over a voter base that is shifting almost as rapidly as the state is growing.

TALLAHASSEE Floridians will go to the polls in just a matter of weeks to vote in a gubernatorial race being watched closely around the country. Most observers will be focused on the “art” of politics — the campaign ads, the speeches, the robo-calling, etc.

Those efforts, though, are driven by people who spend hours examining voter registration rolls, population shifts and emerging demographic trends. Call that the “science” of campaigning.

What do this year’s numbers show for Florida’s Super Region, and what might they mean in November?

When registration closed before the August primaries, there were almost 5.5 million voters registered in the 23-county region, and Democrats hold a very slight edge in registration: 37.2 percent to 36.1 percent. Of special significance to campaign managers across the state is the growing number of those listing “No Party Affiliation,” which now stands at 23.3 percent.

Compare to 2012, and the first thing that stands out is that there were slightly more than 5.2 million people registered to vote, almost 300,000 fewer voters than this year. Of those, 38.4 percent were Democrats, 36.6 were Republicans and 21.8 percent claimed no party affiliation.

Republicans outnumber Democrats in 15 of the Super Region’s 23 counties but among counties with 300,000 or more people, Republicans hold a lead in only two (Brevard and Pasco). Region-wide, both major parties added voters in the last two years, but the Republicans have done so at a faster clip. Still, “no party affiliation” has outpaced them both.

Nowhere is this more striking than Orange County — the Super Region’s second most populous — where no-party/ third-party voters outnumbered Republicans on the day of the primary elections (209,774 to 204,555).

Looking at the region’s three most populous counties — Hillsborough,

Orange and Pinellas — white voters judge who earlier threw out the redisremain the majority, making up 64.2 tricting plan originally prepared by the percent of the voters. That ranges from a Legislature has approved the one drawn low of 51 percent in Orange County to in an early August special legislative 82.1 percent in Pinellas. Hispanic and session.

African-American voters are relatively But, with the primaries already past evenly divided across the three counties and the November general election at about 14 percent each. looming, Circuit Court Judge Terry The largest block of Hispanic voters is Lewis allowed the original map — which in Orange County, where they comprise he determined favors Republicans — to 21.4 percent of the electorate and the stand for this year. Overall, seven of the lowest is Pinellas at 3.8 percent. The state’s 27 districts were affected, but the largest group of African-American voters two primarily in question were the 5th is in Orange County, but Pinellas is where — running from Jacksonville to near they have the largest lead over Hispanic Orlando — and the 10th, which is just west voters. of Orlando. Democrat Corrine Brown One final notable trend: registration represents the former and Republican among women outpaces that among men.

Dennis Ross the latter.

Among those identifying their gender, women account for 52.1 percent of voters.

YOUTH IS SERVED. Come January, the Voter registration, though, is not a sure Florida state House district that covers indication of who will vote, especially in portions of Orlando and Lake counties, non-presidential election will be represented by the years. That’s why campaigns youngest woman in the are investing so much money Legislature’s history. Last in get-out-the-vote (GOTV) month, Jennifer Sullivan, 23, efforts and why the Super won the Republican primary Region – home to roughly half to represent District 31, and the state’s voters, with a since the Democrats are not razor-thin margin between fielding a candidate, she is as the parties and an increasing good as in. number of non-aligned voters She used her mother’s – remains the richest prize in Mount Dora home as her camJENNIFER SULLIVAN the state and among the most paign headquarters and porhotly contested in the nation. trayed herself as a voice of change to defeat several older and more seasoned REDISTRICTING. Florida’s long-running opponents. congressional redistricting drama The only younger legislator in appears to be drawing to a close, though Florida’s history is state Agriculture the final act will be almost as convoluted Commissioner Adam Putnam, who was as all that preceded it. The same state 22 when he won a House seat in 1996.

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global pulse |

international news

International students translate into big business for Florida.

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oreign students have the potential to transform Florida’s economy.

The Brookings Institute used a new database to examine student visa approvals from 2001-12 and, by examining foreign students in 118 U.S. metropolitan areas, conducted the first-ever metro-level analysis of these students in American colleges and universities. In a recently released 52-page study, Brookings found that most foreign students come from large, fast-growing cities in emerging markets and that these students create new economic opportunities for the cities where they study and live.

“Foreign students are a significant source of earnings for U.S. metro economies in several ways,” says Neil Ruiz, author of the report. “First they open up markets in their home cities which facilitates trade, foreign direct investment and knowledge transfer …

Our business and community leaders need to develop better strategies that retain their talents after they graduate.”

The countries that sent the most students

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2014 • FORWARDFLORIDA.COM

between 2008 and 2012 are CHINA, INDIA, SOUTH KOREA and SAUDI ARABIA. SEOUL topped the list with the most students, more than 56,000, or 5 percent of the total.

Rounding out the top five international cities are: BEIJING, SHANGHAI, HYDERABAD, India, and RIYADH, Saudi Arabia. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields are the most popular with 37 percent of all F-1 students. Hyderabad is the top source of STEM foreign students. Palm Bay (Florida Tech) was a highly ranked metro area for STEM. Forty-five percent of foreign-student graduates extend their visas to work in the same metropolitan area as their college/university.

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan area ranks fourth nationally for retention of foreign students. Tampa was 20th and Orlando 21st in retention.

In Florida, foreign students spent $538.7 million on living expenses and $907 million on tuition between 2008 and 2012. Nationwide, they contributed $21.8 billion in tuition and $12.8 billion in other spending.

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global pulse |

international news

The EXPORT-IMPORT BANK CHARTER may be allowed to expire on Sept. 30, and a South Florida congressman believes that would be bad for the state. “In 2013, the bank supported an estimated $37.4 billion in export sales — including $7 billion in Florida — and helped sustain over 200,000 American jobs,” U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Miami, wrote in the Miami Herald. Despite the bank’s low default rate, House conservatives are seeking to block charter renewal, saying the private sector should handle such financing.

This summer Coral Gables-based MASTEC INC. acquired CANADIAN PACER HOLDINGS CORP. and its affiliated operating companies (collectively Pacer) for $126 million cash plus a fiveyear contingent earn-out. One of the largest infrastructure companies in the Canadian oil sands, Pacer has 1,600 employees and more than 2,000 pieces of owned equipment. Additionally, MasTec increased its senior secured credit facility to $1 billion.

Orlando tech firm NANOPHOTONICA this summer signed a research and development agreement with Tokyo-based Japan Display Inc., a consortium of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi. The company’s S-QLED display technology (phones and TVs), using its own unique nanoparticle material, will help simplify the manufacturing process. Developed at the University of Florida, Dr. Paul Holloway is the chief scientist behind the patented material. A former tenant of the Florida Innovation Hub at UF, NanoPhotonica is the recipient of many awards and much recognition. This homegrown Florida company hopes manufacturers in Asia will see their light.

Foreign buyers are helping to heat up Florida’s housing recovery. Florida claims a 23-percent share of all foreign purchases. Nearly 60 percent of reported international transactions were all cash. This is according to the National Association of Realtors 2014 Profile of International Home Buying Activity. And according to Bloomberg News, home prices in South Florida have risen 14 percent. FRENCH and CANADIAN buyers led the pack this spring, based on a report from the Miami Association of Realtors. LATIN AMERICAN investors are also snapping up commercial properties in South Florida, particularly in the office market.

Big Swedish meatballs in Miami. IKEA opened its largest store on the East Coast and the second-largest in the U.S. in late August near the Dolphin Mall. The Swedish retailer’s first store in Miami-Dade County cost more than $100 million and features 416,000 square feet. The Swedish, U.S. and Florida flags were raised as part of the celebration. Founded 71 years ago in Älmhult, Sweden, the privately owned IKEA is the world’s largest home-furnishings retailer. Last year, it generated $36.9 billion in revenue globally, including $4.37 billion in the U.S.

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WE BRING THE WORLD TO FLORIDA

CLIENTS INCLUDE ArtNexus Magazine Boat International Media Bombardier/LearJet Camper & Nicholsons International Caterpillar, Inc. Chris Evert Charities Embraer Executive Jets Escada ESPN Ferrari North America Gulfstream Aerospace Jet Aviation Land Rover Lazzara Yachts

& FLORIDA TO THE WORLD

Maybach Robb Report Rolls-Royce Motor Cars ShowBoats International Signature Flight Support The Walt Disney Company

A full-service Event Planning and Logistics Firm producing National and International Events.

UBS W Hotels Zumba Mary Fanizzi Krystoff | Fort Lauderdale, FL | (954) 568-3000 | krystoff@fanizziandcompany.com

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on campus |

commentary

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

SHINING THE SPOTLIGHT ON INCENTIVES FOR COLLEGE COACHES AND ATHLETIC DIRECTORS REVEALS MORE THAN WINNING AND LOSING.

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his has been quite a team’s athletic and academic summer of change for the performances. We have consisNational Collegiate tently found head coaches in Athletic Association. football and men’s/women’s In just the past month or so, basketball to have more athletic the NCAA has granted the “Big team performance-based incen5” athletic conferences tives (conference championBy MATT WILSON (PAC-12, Big 10, Big 12, ACC ships, postseason play, national and SEC) autonomy to govern themselves championship and postseason final on issues such as student-athlete stirankings) than academic incentives (team pends, length of scholarships and staff student academic progress rate, gradusizes. The NCAA has settled two lawsuits ation success rate and GPA). for a combined $90 million and was ruled In football, for example, University of to have violated antitrust laws in the Ed Florida head coach Will Muschamp’s O’Bannon case. At the same time, college highest potential athletic team perforathletics also has had to deal with stumance incentive is $250,000 for winning dent-athlete academic issues at the a national championship. However, his University of North Carolina and the signed 2010 contract did not contain a University of Notre Dame. clearly defined academic team perforCoinciding with these events, a recent mance bonus. At Florida State, Jimbo trend gaining momentum is placing the Fisher’s highest potential athletic team spotlight on contract incentives for performance incentive is $125,000 for NCAA Division I athletic directors and winning a national championship, which head coaches. he earned last year. His highest potential As researchers, my colleagues and I academic team performance bonus is have spent a great deal of time analyzing $25,000 for the team achieving at least a hundreds of college athletic directors and 75 percent graduation success rate (GSR) head coaches’ contracts obtained from each year.

USA Today databases. Our analyses focus These results may not appear suron incentive clauses in those contracts for prising. College coaches are hired to win

games because this brings publicity, prestige and revenue to the institution. At the same time, the disparity between athletic and academic incentives is starting to receive more attention by state and federal officials.

In April 2014, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the status of college athletics. During the conversation, he offered his opinion that college coaches’ contracts are too focused on athletic incentives and instead need to be more tied to academic team performance.

Our analysis of 2009 and 2012 men’s and women’s basketball head coaches’ contracts found that University of Connecticut’s former head basketball coach, Jim Calhoun, had his athletic team performance incentives contingent upon the team meeting certain academic benchmarks. Unfortunately, this clause is not the norm in college contracts.

Secretary Duncan, at least, may have sparked movement on the issue.

In August 2014, California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome sent letters to the CEOs of the University of California and the California State University system, calling for the state’s public university athletic director jobs to be more connected to the academic performance of its athletes.

“Athletic directors’ contracts should stipulate aggressive benchmarks for improvement in graduation and academic progress rates or face termination, period,” said Newsome, according to USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz. “We’re not incentivizing academics. We’re incentivizing athleticism.”

If implemented, this stipulation could set a precedent for college contracts.

Yet, we need to proceed with caution when tying student-athlete academic performance with athletic administrators’ and head coaches’ compensation. If job security is tied to the academic success of 18- to 22-year-olds, we may witness the unintended consequence of student-athletes being funneled into “easier” majors to stay eligible instead of allowing student-athletes the opportunity to pursue their degrees of choice.

A challenging playing field all the way around.

EDITOR’S NOTE: MATT WILSON, ED.D., IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SPORT BUSINESS AT STETSON UNIVERSITY [STETSON.EDU].

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keeping score |

business of sports

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he fact that major college football and basketball have become “big business” isn’t exactly news. The proof is in the lawsuits over the use of player likenesses in merchandising and the Northwestern University players’ efforts to unionize. The dollars have become huge, and everyone involved in big-time college sports is angling for a share.

But what about the communities that are home to these universities? According to Florida TaxWatch, they are reaping significant benefits as well. In its August “Economic Commentary,” the organization pulled from a variety of existing studies and reports to demonstrate how college programs — especially successful ones — can pay dividends beyond campus boundaries.

Looking at college football’s defending national champion, the Florida State Seminoles, TaxWatch said studies indicate the team can have an economic impact on Tallahassee ranging from $1.5 million for a low-level non-conference game (think the Sept. 6 Citadel game) to $5 million for a conference game (Wake Forest on Oct. 4) to $10 million for “premier” and “top end” games (Notre Dame on Oct. 18 and Florida on Nov. 29).

The heightened activity comes from increased restaurant

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Florida’s college football programs bring big bucks to their local communities. business, apparel sales and hotel room revenues. Though the studies are inconclusive as to whether this economic activity boost leads to increased employment or salaries, TaxWatch indicates “the increase in sales tax collections alone is an important benefit” because it keeps local tax revenues strong without the need for a rate increase. This is especially notable in smaller communities. Three of the seven Florida universities playing at college football’s highest level are located in cities with less than 200,000 people: Florida State (Tallahassee), Florida (Gainesville) and Florida Atlantic (Jupiter).

And you can add a pot of gold in Ireland estimated at $50 million in economic impact for UCF’s season opener against Penn State in Dublin on Aug. 30. (UCF lost, 26-24.)

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keeping score |

business of sports

UNIFORM CHANGES (COLLEGE EDITION ) .

We previously examined the financial forces that helped drive the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2014 uniform changes.

Those same forces — and more — also are at work in college football.

As TaxWatch reported, the Gators rank sixth nationally in apparel sales, and Florida State used its national championship run to jump from 21st to seventh in sales. UCF and USF also rank in the Top 75.

But, college football uniform changes have as much to do with appealing to prospective recruits as with merchandising revenues.

Seventeen-year-olds like multiple flashy uniforms, and the Oregon Ducks are the poster child for translating gaudy uniforms into a championship-caliber football team. Florida schools are getting in on the act.

USF, which already has several combinations, has added matte green and

chrome gold helmets. Florida State now has garnet helmets, black jerseys and black pants from which to choose.

Florida Atlantic may be adding red helmets and has made minor jersey changes. Florida International added gold pants and changed its helmet color slightly. No announced changes for Florida but the Gators and Georgia both will wear home jerseys for their annual showdown in Jacksonville. There also are no known changes to UCF’s uniforms.

So, it falls to Miami to shake up the Florida football fashion world. The Hurricanes, which heretofore limited options to a couple of jerseys and pants colors, suddenly have orange, green and black helmets to go along with the classic white. Black jerseys and pants join the existing orange and green options.

The possible combinations are enough to make an Oregon Duck blush.

College football fashion in Florida gets a makeover.

FSU

STADIUMS COUNT. Bobble-head give-

aways may be fun, but fielding competitive teams and a state-of-the-art stadium remain the keys to putting people in the seats.

Witness the Miami Marlins. When Marlins Park opened to rave reviews in 2012, fans initially flocked to the stadium.

As the team headed toward 93 losses, attendance dropped precipitously. The trend continued last year, when the Marlins lost 100 games and finished next-to-last in attendance, averaging 19,584 fans (barely half of Marlin Park’s 37,000-seat capacity).

Things are changing in South Florida.

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As of late August, Miami was only two games below .500 and just 5½ games back in the wild card race. Fans are noticing. Attendance has jumped by an average 2,000 per game and is approaching 60 percent of capacity.

As for the Tampa Bay Rays, the team is poised to finish last in average attendance for the third straight year, despite 90 wins in 2012, a 2013 playoff appearance and a record this year that was only one game worse than the Marlins. The facility is the key. As previously reported here, the team and Tampa Bay leaders are seeking to create a new home in the area for the Rays.

USF

GROWING SOCCER. As the “world’s most

popular sport,” soccer continues to take root in the U.S. Now Seminole County and Orlando City Soccer are teaming up to give youth soccer new fields and the Orlando Lions a top-notch training facility. As part of an agreement with the county, Orlando City will build four new soccer fields for county residents near Lake Mary while the team will be given exclusive use of the county’s Sylvan Park training center and two adjacent soccer fields.

our backyard just keeps getting bigger.

Distribution centers in the southeastern uniteD states

Tampa Bay-Orlando I-4 corridor is home to Florida’s largest concentration of Distribution Centers.

Florida is one of the fastest growing markets in the U.S. and poised to soon overtake New York as the 3rd most populous state, with a projection of more than 20 million.

With today’s population of more than 8 million residents and 55 million visitors annually, the Tampa Bay/Orlando I-4 corridor is a massive consumer market, projected to be the fastest growing region in Florida for the next 20 years.

This tenth largest economy in the U.S. with a GDP of more than $302.6 billion, the Tampa Bay/Orlando I-4 corridor will increase at twice the rate of Miami/South Florida over the next 6 years.

port tampa bay – a new, better way to serve the Florida market and beyond.

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tampa bay

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wellness |

your personal bottom line

JOB TRAINING W

e’ve all seen the headlines — probably while seated squarely in front of a TV or computer screen — Sedentary Lifestyles Are More Deadly than Smoking. In fact, the nation’s “sitting crisis” is now linked to a host of chronic diseases, including conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, stroke and heart disease, which impact nearly half of all Americans.

And the toll is staggering. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic disease accounts for 70 percent of deaths in the U.S. and 75 percent of health-care spending.

Businesses, too, feel the burden. In 2013, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that employer-sponsored family health insurance topped $16,000 for the first time, with employees shouldering about $4,565 of the expense.

Economic realities, coupled with the Affordable Care Act’s emphasis on prevention, are prompting companies of all sizes to encourage employees to get up, get active and get healthy.

WEALTH OF BENEFITS According to the U.S. Department of Labor, approximately half of all employers now offer wellness-promotion initiatives, which can also have a positive impact on employee morale, retention and productivity.

The government of Orange County, City of Orlando, Florida Hospital, Valencia College and Orlando Health are among the latest employers in Central Florida to adopt workplace wellness programs. And to

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date, the reviews are good.

“Orlando Health is always seeking innovative solutions for driving down health-care costs, while improving our employees’ health, wellness and quality of life,” says Claire Fournier, Orlando Health Chief Strategic Partnership Officer.

“Prevention is a major focus of that effort, not only for our employees but as part of our mission to improve community health.”

PARTNERING TO COMBAT CHRONIC DISEASE When launching its wellness initiative, Orlando Health partnered with the YMCA of Central Florida.

Through its focus on Healthy Living, the Y offers a range of customizable options like health screenings; personalized coaching, training and goal setting; family fitness; group exercise; diabetes prevention and more.

“For companies considering a workplace wellness program, knowing where to start isn’t always easy,” says John Cardone, YMCA senior vice president of Health Strategies and Business Strategies. “The important thing is to provide the right mix of programs, inspiration, technology and personalized support that help people take small steps toward creating lifelong healthy habits.”

Cardone said the Y’s corporate program fits with the organization’s larger, mission-driven focus on chronic disease prevention. “The epidemic of chronic disease is real and growing, but there’s still time to turn the tide,” he notes. “It’s why the Y is joining with local, national and global partners — everyone from businesses leaders, physicians, public health officials and researchers — to create new solutions for tackling this crisis together.”

Will you be ready when disaster strikes?

Join us as we Prepare Florida

PrepareFlorida Floridians are in danger—we are living in the second most disaster-prone state in the United States. The risks and costs are enormous.

Hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and other catastrophic events shatter lives, cripple local economies and devastate entire neighborhoods.

Disasters happen quickly and often without warning, and what we all do before the disaster has everything to do with how well we do after the disaster. If we wait, it’s too late.

How to help: • Be Prepared • Volunteer • Take a Class • Support Prepare Florida

The people of Florida depend on the American Red Cross.

We depend on you.

We are looking for partners who want to make Florida strong. Your investment gives strength to Florida residents, business and visitors to be ready for any disaster we may face.

visit redcross.org/prepareflorida

500,000

Increase feeding capacity by 100% (500,000 meals daily).

10,000

Increase number of volunteers from 4,500 to 10,000 trained community leaders.

350,000

250,000

177,500

Three-Year Campaign Goals

Increase current outreach 100% over three years from 177,500 to 350,000 by campaign end.

Train 500,000 people with lifesaving First Aid/CPR/ AED skills.

Call Linda Carbone at 813.868.7624 to stand with us as a Prepare Florida partner.

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wellness |

your personal bottom line

Florida Hospital Orlando takes top statewide honors in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals in America rankings.

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alk about a healthy report under close examination.

Of Florida’s 265 hospitals studied by U.S. News & World Report, seven were nationally ranked and 26 others met standards for strong performances within the state. Florida Hospital proved to be the strongest and most vital.

The 25th annual Best Hospitals in America ranking tabbed Florida Hospital as the No. 1 hospital in the state — for the second consecutive year. In addition, Florida Hospital ranked nationally in 10 adult specialties and was “high-performing” in two other adult specialties.

The Best Hospitals rankings are updated each July. Hospitals are grouped into 16 individual Having more than 18,000 employees, specialty lists. Most of the Florida Hospital is a 2,482-bed general medical rankings are based on death and surgical facility with 130,100 admissions in 2013. rates for patients who represent It performed 32,001 annual inpatient and 37,836 especially challenging cases, outpatient surgeries. Its emergency room had 446,581 patient safety and other meavisits. Additionally, Florida Hospital is a teaching sures of performance that can hospital and accredited by the Commission be assessed using hard data. An on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities. annual survey of physicians, who are asked to name hospitals they consider the best in their specialty for difficult cases, is also used. Children’s hospitals are not included in the report.

“The data tell the story — a hospital that emerged from our analysis as one of the best has much to be proud of,” says U.S. News Health Rankings Editor Avery Comarow. “A Best Hospital has demonstrated its expertise in treating the most challenging patients.”

Florida Hospital was among 144 facilities, or roughly 3 percent of the 4,743 analyzed for the 2014-2015 rankings, to be ranked in even one of the 16 specialties. Florida Hospital ranked among the top 50 U.S. hospitals for the following specialties: gynecology (No. 9), diabetes and endocrinology (13), gastroenterology (19), nephrology (22), urology (23), neurology (26), geriatrics (27), pulmonology (30), cardiology (38) and cancer (45).

Florida Hospital President and CEO Lars Houmann points to people as being the key prescription for success.

“This recognition belongs to the fine staff, doctors and frontline leaders at Florida Hospital who take responsibility for everything that happens to our patients every day,” says Houmann.

Hospital Chart

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CLEAR VISION + BOLD IDEAS + EFFECTIVE ACTION

That’s the Power of Partnership.

The Central Florida Partnership serves as a passionate advocate for Central Florida business and a champion of free enterprise in our seven-county region. Every day, Central Florida moves closer to achieving its full potential as a globally-recognized, high-performing economy. The Partnership makes it possible by identifying the opportunities, thinking big and taking action—by moving “Ideas to Results.”

Join us by investing in our region and moving our community forward.

Call Amanda Muley at 407.835.2512 or find out more at www.IdeasToResults.org.

@CFLPartnership #IdeasToResults

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parting shot |

people and places

THE DALI MUSEUM ST. PETERSBURG

Picasso/Dali, Dali/Picasso International exhibit: Nov. 8 - Feb. 16, 2015.

Co-organization with Museu Picasso in Barcelona.

Compoteir/Frutero (Fruit Dish) Pablo Picasso, 1917 © 2014 Estate of Pablo Picasso /Artists Rights Society (ARS) /Collection of the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain, 2014.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

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Better information, better decisions — and a better way to help your company!

You know more about your company than anyone else. But like most CEOs you could probably use some help when it comes to decisions about new markets, generating sales leads or deriving more value from your website. GrowFL represents a new way of thinking about supporting growth companies and letting business owners know how important they are to our local economies. We offer something that we know is valuable to you: information — strategic information — gathered with your guidance and specifically for your company.

Suported by Florida’s economic development organizations, we work with a select group of qualifying companies that meet certain criteria — and our program is offered to them at no cost. As a growing company, you make a positive impact on our local economy. We want to help you make an even bigger impact. GrowFL services are specifically designed to help growing companies make better decisions while navigating the challenges associated with growth. Apply today at GrowFL.com.

GrowFL, the Florida Economic Gardening Insitute at the University of Central Florida - GrowFL.com 407-823-6384

WE CAN DO IT! DECLARE WAR ON BREAST CANCER.

Hilda

Breast Cancer Survivor

JoinThePinkArmy.com. Get screened. Donate.

Enlist today at JoinThePinkArmy.com.

MKTGPR-13-16404

The Florida Hospital Pink Army is a community initiative created to increase awareness about early detection and prevention of breast cancer. By joining the Pink Army, you can help spread this life-saving message to those you love.