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CANNABIS

CONUNDRUM Regulators find that legal terrain surrounding medical marijuana is tricky

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850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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850 Magazine December 2017–January 2018

IN THIS ISSUE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ZIMMERMAN AGENCY (86) AND GULF COAST STATE COLLEGE (94)

FEATURES

94 In This Issue

Corridors

8 From the Publisher

EMERALD COAST

83 Sound Bytes

The Zimmerman Agency

Together, they started their careers at an agency in Atlanta, she on the public relations side of the house, he on the advertising side. But Carrie and Curtis Zimmerman found that the demands of work and metropolitan living left them with little time to spend with their two small children. So it was that, after considering a few alternatives, they moved to Carrie’s hometown of Tallahassee, not intending to start a business, but to enjoy parenthood and be close to family. Almost immediately, however, businesses with whom the Zimmermans had worked in Atlanta sought them out and an agency was born. Today, that agency employs 164 people and has an international clientele and annual billings of $160 million. On the Cover: Zimmerman Agency co-founders Carrie and Curtis Zimmerman. Photo courtesy of the Zimmerman Agency.

98 The Last Word from the Editor

Departments 850 LIFE

12 Wendy Spencer, after serving a tour of duty in Washington, D.C., as CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, is back in Tallahassee as the head of Leadership Florida.

IT’S THE LAW

14 Via constitutional amendment, Florida legalized medical marijuana in 2016. Reconciling the right of access thus created with a federal prohibition on marijuana possession hasn’t been easy.

Special Section DEAL ESTATE

16 What’s trending, what’s selling and what’s hot to buy in the 850? Find out here.

92 Two-time Masters golf champion Bubba Watson strayed for a while, to Arizona and Orlando. But now that he has returned to his hometown of Pensacola, Watson, one of golf’s biggest hitters, is leading a drive to bring about a new children’s hospital.

BAY

94 At Gulf Coast State College, the Advanced Technology Center is helping to close the “skills gap” by readying students for highly skilled jobs like those being created by GKN Aerospace at its new plant at the Venture Crossings industrial park near Bay County’s airport.

FORGOTTEN COAST

96 The Wakulla Environmental Institute’s “Introduction to Unmanned Systems” class, conducted on its campus in Crawfordville, prepares students to pass the Federal Aviation Administration’s newly implemented Part 107 exam and obtain a certificate required to fly drones commercially.

2018 TALLAHASSEE BUSINESS JOURNAL AN 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE SPECIAL REPORT

Special Report CAPITAL INVESTMENT

Tallahassee anticipates — and creates — a bright future

BUSINESS JOURNAL The capital of the third-largest state in the nation is given 19 to TALLAHASSEE a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, spurred by the presence of two universities and a forwardlooking community college. Positioning itself for growth, Tallahassee is making new investments in infrastructure and economic development.

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

When it comes to business, it’s best to...

850 THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE OF NORTHWEST FLORIDA

December 2017–January 2018

Vol. 10, No. 2

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Steve Bornhoft MANAGING EDITOR Laura Cassels STAFF WRITERS Hannah Burke, Erin Hoover ASSISTANT TO DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Kim Harris Thacker CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Marina Brown, Jason Dehart, Rosanne Dunkelberger, Al Latimer, Tisha Crews Keller, Rochelle Koff, Karen Murphy, Craig Petrus, Audrey Post, Rob Rushin, Florence Snyder EDITORIAL INTERN Sara Santora CREATIVE CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Lawrence Davidson DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Saige Roberts DESIGN DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Charles Bakofsky, Shruti Shah GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Meredith Brooks, Sarah Mitchell CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Steve Bornhoft, Adam Cohen, Scott Holstein, Alicia Osborne, Bruce Palmer, Ray Benton Creative, Johnston Roberts, Saige Roberts, Todd Douglas Photography, Alex Workman SALES, MARKETING & EVENTS VICE PRESIDENT/CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT McKenzie Burleigh Lohbeck DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS Daniel Parisi AD SERVICES COORDINATORS Tracy Mulligan, Lisa Sostre ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Makenna Curtis, Julie Door, Darla Harrison, Anthony Lopez, Rhonda Lynn Murray, Dan Parker, Linda Powell, Sarah Scott, Lori Magee Yeaton EVENTS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Mandy Chapman INTEGRATED MARKETING MANAGER Rachel Smith CLIENT SERVICES COORDINATOR Joslym Alcala SALES AND EVENTS ASSOCIATE Mackenzie Ligas

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OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES/HUMAN RESOURCE COORDINATOR Marah Rhone CORPORATE CLIENT LIAISON Sara Goldfarb CLIENT SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE/PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan STAFF ACCOUNTANT Jackie Burns ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Daphne Laurie RECEPTIONIST Eliza Holtom, Christie Valentin-Bati

DIGITAL SERVICES 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE 850businessmagazine.com, facebook.com/850bizmag, twitter.com/850bizmag, linkedin.com/company/850-business-magazine ROWLAND PUBLISHING rowlandpublishing.com SUBSCRIPTIONS A one-year (4 issues) subscription is $30. To purchase, call (850) 878-0554 or go online to 850businessmagazine.com. Single copies are $4.95 and may be purchased at Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million in Tallahassee, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Panama City, Pensacola and at our Tallahassee office.

850 Magazine is published quarterly by Rowland Publishing, Inc. 1932 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL 32308. 850/878-0554. 850 Magazine and Rowland Publishing, Inc. are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. Editorial contributions are welcomed and encouraged but will not be returned. 850 Magazine reserves the right to publish any letters to the editor. Copyright December 2017 850 Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Member of three Chambers of Commerce throughout the region.

LOCAL TICKETS. ONE PLACE. Produced by the same trusted, award-winning team that has published 850 Business Magazine for 10 years, 850Tix.com is an online ticket portal dedicated exclusively to Northwest Florida events. 850Tix provides organizations complimentary access to promote their event to the entire Rowland Publishing audience of over 4 million, plus a Northwest Florida box office, built-in marketing support and a professional team right here to help your event succeed. OPPORTUNITIES INCLUDE Editorial content in our print products

Promotions through our social media

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Call Brian Rowland at (850) 878-0554 to learn more. // Visit 850Tix.com for more information. 850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

From the Publisher

KEEPING PACE We’re redoubling our efforts to deliver business news

BRIAN ROWLAND browland@rowlandpublishing.com

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

850businessmagazine.com

PHOTO BY SCOTT HOLSTEIN

At Rowland Publishing, we are undertaking a new chapter in the life of 850: The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida, one that will make available to you more news and information of the sort you turn to 850 for — and in a more timely fashion. As a reader of 850, you are accustomed to seeing the magazine six times a year. Effective in March, we will embark on a quarterly print publication schedule for the magazine — but I will not promise you that we will be saving many trees. I fully expect that the page count for the magazine will grow as we move to a four-timesa-year calendar and that our coverage of business news in Northwest Florida will become more robust. We will continue to publish “Business Journals” focused on counties within the 850 region as part of the magazine, but we will place increased emphasis on issues and trends that affect the region as a whole. Perhaps, in so doing, we can make a small contribution toward encouraging Northwest Florida to adopt a regional identity. Certainly, meetings including the annual Gulf Power Economic Symposium and efforts including those by Florida’s Great Northwest to position and market the Northwest Florida region as a globally competitive place to do business reflect a regional consciousness. Still, there remains much work to be done before the area can be said truly to have recognized that, as a whole, it is greater than the sum of its parts. In terms of electrical circuitry, Northwest Florida really does work in series and not in parallel. When one light goes out, the entire region is affected and, likewise, local success spread among counties and municipalities contributes to regional success. So, it’s critically important that Triumph Gulf Coast money be distributed equitably and reasonably. But I digress. I launched 850 knowing that a dearth of business news was available in the market. Statewide publications tend to pay scant attention to the Northwest Florida business community, and business sections have all but disappeared from newspapers in our area. Indeed, the appetite for the content provided in 850 Magazine has proved strong. In my travels, business owners and business leaders frequently comment on how valuable they find 850 as an information resource. Their comments inspire me to make 850 the best that it can be. The world of business in Northwest Florida is an increasingly dynamic one. No longer can it fairly be described as slow paced or slow to evolve. Much can happen in the time that elapses between the filing of a story and the cranking up of the printing press. To keep pace, we need to be reacting to developments as they occur. So, the other big component in our new approach to 850 will be a commitment to devoting more resources to providing more news of an immediate nature online. It is my strong desire to see to it that business people from Pensacola to Tallahassee and beyond begin their days by checking the 850 website to see what’s new. Our goal, then, is to employ the multiple platforms at our disposal to let you know what has happened in the Northwest Florida business world, what is happening and what is likely to happen. That’s a big job, made all the more challenging by the successes and progress that our region is enjoying. As always, please feel free to let me know how we are doing. Best regards,

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DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

P RO M OT I O N

850businessmagazine.com

Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical scientist whose books include The Absent Super Power

Elder law is among Andrew Wheeler’s areas of practice. An attorney with Matthews & Jones, LLP, he frequently speaks to groups about legal issues affecting aging individuals and their families. For Wheeler, there are three aspects of elder law that he finds himself dealing with most frequently. Read his thoughts on each at: 850businessmagazine.com/Legal-Insights/

LET’S GET SOCIAL!

Find and follow Rowland Publishing’s business page on LinkedIn for updates from each of our publications, business tips, and information on and about Northwest Florida businesses. You can also join the LinkedIn 850 Business Group for deeper interactions with fellow 850 business leaders. No matter what device or social medium, we want to be a top-of-mind resource for business professionals. Follow, like and share with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and even Instagram. LinkedIn: 850 Business Magazine; Twitter: @850BizMag; Facebook: 850 – The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida; Instagram: 850bizmag

Want to know the latest from 850 Business Magazine? Sign up for our e-newsletter and get updates about our website, video previews and additional offers.

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DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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Globally, what is the environment in which Northwest Florida will work to create a bright future? From the standpoint of the United States, things look good, said geopolitical scientist Peter Zeihan, the keynote speaker for the recent Gulf Power Economic Symposium at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. Read more about the symposium and Zelhan’s predictions for the future at:

850businessmagazine.com/ Blog/News-2017/Predictingthe-Future-By-Creating-It/

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

» Flip Books: View issues in a digital book format. » Archived Stories: Peruse our entire archive of articles. » Blog: Read about local business events, happenings and gatherings through our up-to-date blog section. » Deal Estate: Browse the latest real estate deals and listings.

PHOTO BY LAWRENCE DAVIDSON

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From Kiplinger's Personal Finance, May © 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

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Executive Mindset

The (850) Life BUILDING A STATEWIDE COMMUNITY

At Leadership Florida, Spencer harnesses expertise and ‘goodness’ WENDY SPENCER

TALLAHASSEE, CEO of Leadership Florida

 Q&A WITH WENDY SPENCER

unlight is flooding into the corner suite of Leadership Florida’s seventh-floor office. The sparkling skyline of Tallahassee has never looked so bright. That seems to be the way the organization’s president and CEO, Wendy Spencer, sees Florida itself. At Leadership Florida, the recharging and educational platform for leaders all around the state, Spencer has taken the executive reigns with an indefatigable enthusiasm. She only recently shifted from the national stage in Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama engaged her as CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Now, Spencer has settled back into the local community she loves — one where, with her sunny optimism and depth of service knowledge, she looks forward to inspiring others. — Marina Brown

850: Your career has spanned a series of high-profile, highresponsibility positions: a decade with the United Way; director of the Florida Park Service, where you oversaw 158 state parks; three times appointed CEO of the Governor’s Commission on Volunteerism (Volunteer Florida); and recently, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community

S 12

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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Service (CNCS), where you managed an appropriated $1.1 billion, plus an additional $1.26 billion in matching funds that funded AmeriCorps, VISTA, Senior Corps and the Social Innovation Fund. How did those jobs and experiences impact the way you think of service? Spencer: In my five years with CNCS, I saw the very best of America. I had the chance to travel to all 50 states — to rural towns, inner cities, retirement homes, child-care centers — and to meet with mayors, civic leaders and the individuals who live across America. And what I believe is that Americans like to be neighborly. When they see problems, they like to solve them… often at the neighborhood level. When there are disasters, people draw together to help one another. Americorps is a wonderful example: I’ve met young vets suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), children struggling to read, volunteers mucking out moldy homes, ethnic heritage revitalized — all help provided by volunteers. I think we just have to tell the story well, and people will rise up to serve. 850: What about growing up in Florida and Georgia influenced your choice of career paths and how? Spencer: I was brought up the “old-fashioned” way, the way you looked out for your neighbor and for your neighbor’s children. It was a way of life that was about “relationships,” where you found common ground with someone else, a way of dealing with one another that was “friendly.” I think business relationships should be conducted the same way. Find the commonality in a problem, and then the bipartisan aspect will come into play. 850: What have been keys to growing your career? Spencer: At each level of my working life, I learned a great deal. My knowledge in one

Photo by SAIGE ROBERTS

position became the building blocks for the next step. You acquire skills in one place that can be transferred and built upon. But one thing I always did was to focus on good personnel first. Surrounding yourself with skilled associates helps you do your best job. 850: To what extent do you see “donor fatigue” or “volunteer fatigue”? Are Americans less willing now to step up to help? Spencer: I don’t see that. In fact, Americans are giving more now than ever before. I credit social media with making people aware of the needs. And the economy is better than it has been in years. Also, charities are more creative, making it possible to give even at a $10 level, which builds up. I think leaders should help corporations develop giving as a business model. Young employees often evaluate employers on their social consciousness and sense of community.

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850: How do you advise service employees on advancing their careers while maintaining private space? Spencer: First of all, I never went after any job … it always came to me. My advice is to focus totally on doing a good job in the one you’re in. People will notice. Have goals, but don’t look too far ahead. As to finding a good work/life equilibrium, I tell my employees to “work hard and play hard.” Sometimes I’ll tell someone to “go home, unplug, cut it off” and I’ll see them come back with more energy after a break. That’s what we do, when my husband and I go alone or with one of our four sons and their families to our vacation places. When you’re recharged, you’re in a position to truly help others. America is filled with goodness — I’ve been exposed to the best of it — and we need to harness our own energy to help it find direction.

Committed to growth, the Chamber works diligently to create a community rich in talent and resources, while driving local business development for future generations. Learn how your business can benefit from a Chamber membership today! WWW.PENSACOLACHAMBER.COM 850.438.4081 SUPPORT@PENSACOLACHAMBER.COM

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

Executive Mindset

It’s the Law MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE

Green Rush Six Northwest Florida counties join budding industry

n November 2016, Florida became the 29th state to legalize medical marijuana. Amendment 2 created a state constitutional right of access to cannabis to help manage myriad medical maladies; it was approved by an overwhelming and bipartisan 71% margin. But under federal law, marijuana possession and use is illegal. Period. The conflict makes for a legal wicket that’s likely to remain sticky for a very long time. In courtrooms and at the state Capitol, opponents of medical marijuana and advocates for broader, quicker, cheaper access play the long game of litigation and lobbying. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs have poured millions of venture capital funds into a business that economists predict will be worth over a billion dollars by the end of this decade. Florida’s Department of Health is in charge of implementing the will of the voters without stepping on the

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

850businessmagazine.com

BY FLORENCE SNYDER

toes of the feds. Much of the action takes place in cyberspace. Every element of the medical marijuana business is tracked “from seed to sale” in databases which are closely monitored to assure that drugs are not diverted and money is not laundered. The Department’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU) oversees the manufacturing and distribution operations of the 17 vertically integrated companies currently licensed to grow, process and sell medical cannabis. OMMU also keeps tabs on the physicians and patients who make up the first wave of individuals participating in the post-Amendment 2 “green rush.” The barriers to entry are high, but so far, more than 1,200 doctors and more than 33,000 patients have jumped through the rigorous legal hoops. For Florida doctors, that means taking a specialized course and passing an examination designed to ensure they are familiar with the legal as well as medical terrain

PHOTOS BY SEASTOCK (INDOOR MARIJUANA) AND EPICSTOCKMEDIA (MARIJUANA BOTTLE) ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

surrounding Amendment 2. A passing grade qualifies the physician to counsel patients and “recommend” medical marijuana in appropriate cases. “Prescribe” is a verb that doctors avoid for fear of antagonizing the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, which regulates prescriptions for legal but potentially dangerous medications Doctor-patient relationships involving medical cannabis are required by law to be created the old-fashioned, in-person way. That can be a hardship for many in north Florida, because most state-certified doctors are located in high population centers in central and south Florida. By late October, there were certified doctors in six northwest Florida counties: Bay, Escambia, Jefferson, Leon, Okaloosa and Santa Rosa. They do not take kindly to being called “Dr. Feelgood.” Medical marijuana is a deadly serious matter for Floridians who suffer from cancer, Crohn’s disease, chronic nonmalignant pain, and other serious and sometimes life-threatening illnesses. Of special interest to epilepsy patients is a cannabis-based oil known as Charlotte’s web, named for Charlotte Figi, a child in Colorado who came to national attention when CNN reported how the marijuana extract had freed her from the constant threat of seizures. Prominent Escambia County-based attorney Fred Levin has taken a special interest in Charlotte’s web, and, as an investor in one of the companies presently licensed to distribute medical marijuana in Florida, has made a priority of bringing the potion to the Panhandle. Like any other medical specialist, Florida physicians certified to recommend medical marijuana examine patients and review records compiled by their primary care doctors to determine whether medical marijuana is a potentially effective treatment option. If so, the doctor will enter patient information into the state’s Medical Marijuana Use Registry and assist the patient or the patient’s legal representative in applying for a Compassionate Use Registry Identification Card. The state charges $75 to review the application, a process which can take five weeks or longer. Once the card is issued, the patient is authorized to contact a licensed medical marijuana dispensary and fill the doctor’s recommended order. Home delivery service is available for that one product only. In this fledgling marketplace, the quality of the marketing matters as much as the quality of the medicine. Medical marijuana costs to the patient are not covered by insurance, and they can run as high as $400 per month. Investors in this newly emerging industry need health-care providers and consumers to consider medical

cannabis as an alternative to the offerings of big pharma, and they’re spending big to get noticed. Publicity materials to create “brand awareness” are popping up in impossible-to-ignore locations all over the 850. The state is expected to continue wrestling with litigation, rule-making and additional license applications, while certified physicians and licensed dispensaries get into position to serve patients, who may find the new systems a bit hard to navigate. “There’s a lot of confusion in a very immature market,” said Jeff Sharkey, a lobbyist, consultant and founder of the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida. Licensed “medical marijuana treatment centers” that dispense or deliver their products are emerging around the state. Trulieve has two dispensaries in northwest Florida — in Tallahassee and Pensacola — and two dozen others open or in the works elsewhere in the state. Knox Medical has a dispensary in Tallahassee, five others open or coming soon in other parts of Florida, and offices in Texas and Puerto Rico. Surterra operates a dispensary in Tallahassee and is opening one soon in Pensacola. The legal dust will settle as medical researchers and marketplace forces combine to get things sorted out amid the ongoing conflict between state and federal laws. Meanwhile, be kind to stressed-out state regulators and federal authorities as they wink, nod, and try to stay out of each other’s way.

FOR DETAILS AND UPDATES: The Florida Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use posts weekly updates of certified physicians online at: FloridaHealth.gov/OMMU Licensed treatment centers/dispensaries are listed online at: FloridaHealth.gov/programsand-services/office-of-medical-marijuana-use/ medical-marijuana-treatment-centers

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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CONTENTS

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND

CREATIVE CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Lawrence Davidson DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Saige Roberts DESIGN DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Charles Bakofsky, Shruti Shah GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Meredith Brooks, Sarah Mitchell SALES & MARKETING VICE PRESIDENT/ CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT McKenzie Burleigh Lohbeck DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS Daniel Parisi AD SERVICES COORDINATORS Lisa Sostre, Tracy Mulligan ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Makenna Curtis, Julie Door, Darla Harrison, Anthony Lopez, Rhonda Lynn Murray, Dan Parker, Linda Powell, Sarah Scott, Lori Magee Yeaton EVENTS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Mandy Chapman INTEGRATED MARKETING MANAGER Rachel Smith CLIENT SERVICES COORDINATOR Joslym Alcala MARKETING AND EVENTS ASSISTANT Mackenzie Ligas OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES/ HUMAN RESOURCE COORDINATOR Marah Rhone CORPORATE CLIENT LIAISON Sara Goldfarb CLIENT SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE/ PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan STAFF ACCOUNTANT Jackie Burns ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Daphne Laurie RECEPTIONISTS Eliza Holtom, Christie Valentin-Bati

PHOTO BY BRUCE PALMER

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Steve Bornhoft MANAGING EDITOR Laura Cassels STAFF WRITERS Hanah Burke, Erin Hoover ASSISTANT TO DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Kim Harris Thacker EDITORIAL INTERN Sara Santora

Autumn Calder, planning manager, Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency

8 G UEST COLUMN Al Latimer, who heads

38 A CCOMMODATIONS Visitors to

up the Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality, is cataloging the reasons that business leaders choose the area as their home.

10 F UTURE OF SOUTHWEST TALLAHASSEE Big changes are taking shape as the “Airport Gateway” project morphs and expands to benefit what is being called the “Gateway District” encompassing an area from the main campus of FSU to Capital Circle.

14 E MPLOYMENT TODAY AND TOMORROW Leon County and Florida have “a lot of people who are not necessarily unemployed but underemployed and who want more work or more highly skilled jobs,” said Tom Feeney, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida.

Tallahassee will soon have more options to rest for the night, or longer. Seven hotel projects are either under construction or proposed for Tallahassee, prospectively adding nearly 1,000 new rooms.

42 TOWARD EMPLOYMENT FOR ALL

There is a big gap between abilities and job placements in the professional world; it stems from attitudinal problems, programmatic inconsistencies and a lack of opportunities for people with disabilities to show their abilities to employers.

49 A CENTER OF INNOVATION Florida

State University researchers have been awarded 506 patents that have contributed to manufacturing, business processes, creative endeavors and other positive effects on economic health.

18 PHILANTHROPY Fundraising for

charitable organizations once consisted of an annual signature event and an end-ofthe-year appeal by mail. But these days, fundraising is a year-round endeavor.

53 A NEW PLACE IN THE SUN In February

2016, the Office of Economic Vitality (OEV) was formed as part of a newly created Tallahassee/Leon County department for Planning, Land Management and Community Enhancement — acronym PLACE.

22 P ENNY SALES TAX Three times since

1989, Leon County voters have approved adding a penny to the local sales tax. In the third vote in 2014, voters agreed to extend the tax from 2020 to 2040.

57 L ESSONS LEARNED A trip to Nashville,

26 R EAL ESTATE Dramatic new real

estate developments are changing the streetscapes around Tallahassee and are changing how Tallahasseans live, work, play and shop. The result is new lifestyles.

32 MUSTIAN CENTER Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is looking at the big picture, one that stretches 50 years into the future, with the building of its new surgery center.

35 COMMUNITY OUTREACH Construction of

two new, freestanding emergency facilities is part of Capital Regional Medical Center’s effort to extend patients quality care in convenient locations, with little to no wait time.

said one participant, exposed local leaders to programs “so inspired, supported and effective that they challenge us to think bigger and act faster back at home.”

61 TOURISM In Tallahassee, sports tourism

is not confined to a flat, rectangular field. It also includes rolling hills where athletes run without pads.

ON THE COVER: From left, Tallahassee Mayor Pro-Tempore Gil Ziffer, Leon County Commissioner Kristin Dozier and Kevin Graham, executive director of FSU’s Real Estate Foundation, look forward to the completion of the FAMU Way Extension, a vital leg linking the Airport Gateway to downtown Tallahassee. PHOTO BY BRUCE PALMER

rowlandpublishing.com | 850BusinessMagazine.com

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 7

GUEST COLUMN

VITALITY, GROWTH, INCLUSION

ast year, I proudly joined the newly established Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality (OEV) to help the community achieve sustainable economic growth. In a rapidly changing field, OEV has met the challenge to be more competitive by creating an economic development organization that does more than just traditional business recruitment and attraction. For the first time, our community is employing a long-term strategic plan to guide its economic vitality efforts, which was adopted by the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency Board of Directors. Rooted in collaboration and transparency, the strategic plan emphasizes the need to responsibly allocate resources, promote our community as a business generator, support small, minorityowned and women-owned businesses, and continuously engage key stakeholders. I would like to highlight a few key efforts that OEV has focused on over its first year within the areas of vitality, growth and inclusion — all linked to goals in the strategic plan.

Vitality through engagement OEV serves as Tallahassee-Leon County’s “front door” to business solutions. Engaging the private sector through our Capital Local Outreach Opportunity Program, CapitalLOOP, is part of a comprehensive strategy that promotes economic engagement and provides direct outreach to the businesses in our community. This two-way information exchange enables us to share resources with local businesses, while they share insight into their current status, challenges, and the trends they see in the local business climate. To date, we have met with nearly 40 businesses —

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Latimer

by AL LATIMER

which has generated three leads for expansion opportunities. To maximize and amplify the voices of our business community, OEV launched a social media campaign last summer seeking opinions on why Florida’s capital is the ide al location to operate a business. This interactive campaign encourages business leaders to share why they chose #FLCapital4Biz as their home. We are also working to promote TallahasseeLeon County in the global marketplace. This year, OEV led a team from across North Central Florida to develop and win an international bid to serve as hosts for the 8th Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE 8). In December, the North-Central Florida ACE 8 tour brought 50 global leaders from more than 27 countries to our community, highlighting the entrepreneurship, innovation, research, industry and talent that make our community economically competitive. It established the foundation for building partnerships between our region and the participating countries.

Promoting economic growth Creating jobs, the recent opening of Senior Life Insurance Company offices in Tallahassee-Leon County was made possible by the coordinated efforts of OEV, the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, and CareerSource Capital Region. Senior Life’s decision to open its first Florida location in Tallahassee is a vote of confidence in our community. Our office is working 16 such projects. Since April 2016, we have assisted with the creation of 193 new jobs. An additional initiative helping augment our business retention and recruitment effort is the Targeted Industry Study, to be released

in early 2018. It will identify high-potential industry sectors for our community to target, strategies for developing them and strategies for strengthening our entrepreneurial culture to support them. OEV has formed collaborative partnerships with key ecosystem partners such as Florida State University and Florida A&M University to leverage resources and assets for developing a technology cluster centered on the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is being used to recruit industry and talent. To support this effort, OEV formed the Magnetic Technologies Task Force to provide guidance and a focused strategy.

Cultivating inclusion Our Minority, Women, & Small Business Enterprise programs contribute a vital element in the local economic ecosystem: inclusion. MWSBE certification provides businesses access to a network of resource partners and members, educational training, and procurement opportunities with local contractors. The launch of the Industry Academies this spring is an example of education and engagement opportunities offered to certified businesses to promote competitiveness and increase demand for their services. Our (re)certifications are up almost 25 percent over last year. These are just a few examples of the work we are doing at OEV. I strongly believe this collaborative, comprehensive approach to economic vitality enhances our local and regional business climate and reinforces Tallahassee-Leon County’s place as Florida’s Capital for Business — a community that directly promotes vitality, growth and inclusion.

COURTESY OF TALLAHASSEE-LEON COUNTY OFFICE OF ECONOMIC VITALITY

Comprehensive approach yields dividends

NATIONAL ACTS

INNOVATIVE

developed business incubator

at the Capital City Amphitheater

COMMUNITY CATALYST bridging skilled jobs gap

WORLD CLASS

hiking, biking & paddling trails

VISION

A community that is safe, healthy and vibrant.

MISSION

To efficiently provide public services which serve and strengthen our community.

(850) 606-5300 â&#x20AC;¢ www.LeonCountyFL.gov 2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 9

FUTURE OF SOUTHWEST TALLAHASSEE

SOUTHWEST SYNERGY Gateway District projects create lanes for growth and revitalization by AUDREY POST

hen the government spends money on infrastructure, private investment follows. Following that standard philosophy of urban development, Southwest Tallahassee should prepare for big changes in the next few years as the “Airport Gateway” project morphs and expands to benefit what is being called the “Gateway District,” a huge chunk of real estate that encompasses the area from the main campus of Florida State University to Capital Circle on the south and west. “When you invest in your own infrastructure, it leads to growth, it leads to regeneration,” said Ben

International designations position airport to support economic growth by AUDREY POST

From left, Tallahassee Mayor Pro-Tempore Gil Ziffer, Leon County Commissioner Kristin Dozier and Kevin Graham, executive director of FSU’s Real Estate Foundation, represent key partners in the multilayered Gateway District project. They were photographed at the FAMU Way Extension construction site — a key connector among the airport, the universities and downtown.

Pingree, director of PLACE, Tallahassee-Leon County’s office of Planning, Land Management and Community Enhancement. Funded through the 1-percent sales tax extension called Blueprint 2020 approved by voters in November 2014, the $58.7 million gateway project will create a muchimproved route from Tallahassee International Airport into the downtown area and to both Florida State and Florida A&M universities — something most everyone

f you’re one of those people who rolled their eyes and laughed when you heard Tallahassee Regional Airport was applying for “international” status, you need to check the chuckles and look at the larger picture. It’s not about being able to fly off to Paris for a long weekend without changing planes in Atlanta, although that certainly sounds nice and officials hope that international commercial flights happen down the line. Instead, renaming and re-branding Tallahassee International Airport is about economic development, the capital city’s growing air-freight business and the need to accommodate general aviation aircraft, those private planes and jets that can fly in from the Caribbean, Central and South America and points beyond. “Commerce comes first. You grow jobs. Everything else follows,” said Ben Pingree, director of TallahasseeLeon County PLACE — Planning, Land Management

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and Community Enhancement program — which coordinates planning, economic development and Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency programs. These days, business is global. Industry is global. Managing those enterprises is global. As Innovation Park’s leadership works to recruit more high-tech manufacturing companies to work alongside its worldclass researchers — at the Florida A&M UniversityFlorida State University College of Engineering and at FSU’s cutting-edge labs such as the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, High-Performance Materials Institute and the Aero-Propulsion, Mechatronics and Energy Center — transportation issues loom large. Being able to provide easy access for people and product is a key asset in economic development. Having an international airport designation facilitates “a broader conversation,” said David Pollard, interim

agrees has been needed for decades. Current routes from the airport through the light-industrial section of Capital Circle Southwest don’t exactly show off the capital city’s charms. “The current route is certainly less than desirable,” City Commissioner Gil Ziffer said. “The route proposed provides some level of concern for existing neighborhoods that we have to be mindful of, but there’s no doubt we can make it better than it is now.” The project includes improvements to vehicular lanes along Lake Bradford and Springhill roads, with landscaping as well as bicycle and pedestrian lanes. Along Springhill between Orange Avenue and Capital Circle Southwest, a median is planned that will allow for additional lanes to be added later within the existing footprint. On the stretch of Lake Bradford Road between Gaines Street and Orange Avenue, roundabouts will be added at key intersections, as well. A roundabout is also planned for the intersection of Gaines Street and Stadium Drive.

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (ZIFFER, DOZIER AND GRAHAM) AND SAIGE ROBERTS (FAMU WAY)

Synergy bolsters multiple projects By connecting the Airport Gateway project with other improvements planned for the area, Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency is leveraging its assets for greater return. For example, the last section of Capital Circle Southwest that hasn’t been widened and landscaped — the section from Orange Avenue to Crawfordville Road that includes the airport — is due to be improved in the next few years. Planned widening of Orange Avenue, not a Blueprint project, is being factored in, as well. FAMU Way, which runs west from Railroad Avenue and curves south, paralleling Eugenia Street, will intersect with Lake Bradford Road near its current intersection with Gamble Street. Across Lake Bradford Road, improvements will continue on Stuckey Avenue as it winds through several streets in the Providence neighborhood, eventually connecting on Roberts Avenue to a new road through FSU property. The collaboration involved in the project is one of its standout features, with key stakeholders in Southwest Tallahassee coming together in ways the community has not seen on previous projects. “FSU needs a road through its property near where Alumni Village once stood and the existing golf course, which it wants to redevelop with a Jack Nicklaus

airport director. “We were at a competitive disadvantage with other airports in the region.” The Austin, Texas-based consulting firm that analyzed the Tallahassee airport’s potential for growth in 2014 found it to be the largest general aviation airport in the Panhandle, handling almost 10 million pounds of air freight a year. Having passengers clear Customs and having cargo inspected at a Federal Inspection Services facility in Tallahassee eliminates the need for a stop in Orlando, Miami or Atlanta. In addition, overcrowding at South Florida airports may open up trade opportunities here with Central America. With international-airport status, Tallahassee will be a “user fee” airport in the eyes of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Pollard said, covering all the costs of having Customs

The extension begins at the roundabout on Railroad Avenue marking the entrance to FAMU.

design,” said Leon County Commissioner Kristin Dozier. “It is donating the right-of-way for the road, which will become a Blueprint road.”

Better transportation as recruitment tool Having better access to the airport will help not only FSU but also Innovation Park, a zone that was created by special charter in 1978 by the state to attract private companies to work with university researchers. Dozier, who has served on the Innovation Park board for seven years, several as its chair, said having better ground transportation to and from the airport will help recruit new tenants and more jobs to Innovation Park. Improvements under way at the airport, including work to establish a Foreign Trade Zone there, also will help. “We have room to attract more manufacturing to Innovation Park. We also have 12 acres that could be used for commercial development,” Dozier said. “If we want to be a world-class research center like the

and Border Patrol personnel in place until international traffic reaches a minimum threshold for having them assigned permanently. He said in early November that he hoped to meet with Customs officials soon to agree on a Memorandum of Understanding. Once that’s done, the airport can submit an application to create a Foreign Trade Zone and send out a Request for Proposals for design of the international arrivals facility, which would also house the Customs office. Such zones allow manufacturers operating there to import parts and components without having to pay import tariffs when they receive them. Instead, the tariff is paid when the final product is sold and shipped out. In essence, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, creation of Foreign Trade Zones

helps “level the playing field and improves U.S. competitiveness by reducing the costs of U.S. operations.” “It opens us up to have a broader conversation, partnering with the Office of Economic Vitality and the Chamber to recruit,” Pollard said. “Adding a Foreign Trade Zone becomes one more feather in our cap and ultimately brings jobs to our community.” This follows closely $62 million in major improvements inside the Ivan Munroe Terminal and to the runway. Phase 1 added an inline baggage handling system, terrazzo flooring and new ticket counters and rental car counters. Phase 2, due to be wrapped up by the end of 2017, renovated the security check-in area. “One of the things that airlines are looking for is a clean and modern (continued on next page)

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 11

FUTURE OF SOUTHWEST TALLAHASSEE 111’ R/W - Proposed

International designations position airport to support economic growth

Beautified connector roads are being designed not only with cars in mind but also cyclists and pedestrians.

District will be an opportunity to see growth Research Triangle, getting our transportation and revitalization in the southwest sector of issues resolved, both ground and air, is key.” the city, there are some details to be worked Kevin Graham, ORANGE executive director of AVENUE - [ SEGMENT B ] out,” Richardson said. FSU’s Real Estate Foundation, sees the Changes from the Blueprint 2020 plan collaboration as a win for everyone. approved by voters are subject to approval by “Right now, FSU has academic, athletic, the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, an research and administration offices on the oversight board of city and county officials southwest campus. Pottsdamer (Street) is currently chaired by Leon County Commisa main thoroughfare from Orange Avenue sioner Mary Ann Lindley. when it should be a residential road for the “It’s got a few hurdles but I think they’ve Callen neighborhood,” he said. “The same actually got a pretty good plan,” Lindley said. with Levy, coming off Lake Bradford Road, “Good signage to explain in the Providence neighalternate routes can make borhood. If we can relieve a big difference in how you some of the traffic with the moderate traffic flow.” new road, those streets can She noted that the latest become residential again.” tweak of Blueprint earmarks City Commissioner 12 percent of the sales-tax Curtis Richardson served revenue for economic develon the Blueprint 2000 opment, executed by the committee and on the “We have room Office of Economic Vitality. committee that successfully to attract more “Originally, Blueprint campaigned for Blueprint manufacturing to Innovation Park. We was all infrastrßucture all 2020, which extended the also have 12 acres the time, focusing on recresales tax through 2040. The that could be used ation, transportation and Blueprint 2020 proposal for commercial development. If we the environment,” Lindley called for Springhill Road want to be a worldsaid. “Once the southwest to be the single gateway class research center infrastructure improvefrom the airport, he said, like the Research Triangle, getting our ments are in place, the but FSU’s offer to provide transportation issues poverty and the need for right-of-way through its resolved, both ground small businesses need to be property for a road and and air, is key.” addressed, and this can be the creation of a Gateway KRISTIN DOZIER, a piece of it. There’s potenLEON COUNTY District brought south Lake COMMISSIONER tial for private development Bradford Road into play. partnerships.” “While the Gateway PROPOSED TYPICAL SECTION

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facility that is convenient for operations and for customers,” Pollard said. “Our IT systems improvements behind the scenes allowed airlines to use more kiosks and fewer ticket agents, which helps the carriers operate more efficiently.” The announcement in late October that American Airlines will resume daily non-stop flights to and from Washington, D.C., in February underscored both the airport’s commitment to creating a clean, safe and secure environment and the growing connections between Tallahassee and the nation’s capital. The flights ceased in 2015 when American and U.S. Airways merged. Meanwhile, the airport is advertising for design bids for a state-of-the-art, rental car quick-turnaround service facility with a two-story parking garage. “We hope to select an engineering firm in February or March,” Pollard said. “The design phase will take about a year, and construction will probably take another year after that.” In addition, city utility customers have already pledged to buy all 20 megawatts generated from the 120-acre solar farm on airport property once the system goes online, and there’s a waiting list of potential customers. The City of Tallahassee Utilities is leasing the land, and Origis Energy owns and operates the farm — with more than 200,000 solar panels. Origis will sell the electricity to the city utility starting in January 2018. A proposed second solar farm, twice the size of the first and designed to produce 40 megawatts, is currently under review as part of the airport’s master plan. The Federal Aviation Administration requires a number of steps in preparation, Pollard said, “and we’re working through it.”

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (DOZIER) AND COURTESY OF BLUEPRINT (AIRPORT GATEWAY)

(continued from previous page)

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2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 13

EMPLOYMENT

OCCUPATIONS IN DEMAND

EMPLOYMENT REBOUND Job market heats up; health, tech jobs in demand by ROCHELLE KOFF

oey Castagnaro “bounced around” for a year after graduating from Florida State University in 2016, but he landed well. At age 23, he’s now a business analyst for Tallahassee-based Diverse Computing, a technology provider for law enforcement agencies, acting as a liaison between clients and the firm’s software developers. Karen Shouppe is a former teacher and stay-athome mom who decided to go back to college to become a registered nurse. At 56, she will be graduating from Tallahassee Community College’s Ghazvini Center in December, aiming to get a job in women’s health care. Castagnaro and Shouppe may be launching different careers but they have something in common. They’ve chosen two of the hottest professions in a post-recession economy — technology and health care. “Our teachers assured us that there are plenty of jobs out there,” said Castagnaro. “This is exactly what I was looking for.” While some professions are suffering, the 2017 job market is at one of its strongest points in decades.

Myrna Hoover, director of FSU’s Career Center, at the Seminole Futures career fair in September

14 / 2018 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

The top 15 advertised occupations in Gadsden, Leon and Wakulla counties (August 2017)

Registered nurses

Computer systems analysts

Management analysts

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in August. Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.0 percent in August 2017, down 0.1 percentage point from July 2017, and down 0.9 percentage point from a year ago, according to the state Department of Economic Opportunity. There were 408,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 10,095,000. The unemployment rate in the Gadsden, Leon and Wakulla counties was 4.2 percent in July 2017, 0.9 percent lower than the region’s rate in 2016 of 5.1 percent, according to the DEO. “Florida has a lot of people who are not necessarily unemployed but underemployed who want more work or more highly skilled jobs,” said Tom Feeney, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida. At the Sept. 28 FSU Seminole Futures career fair, more than 200 participating employers included tech companies, bankers, retail stores, accounting firms, law enforcement and insurance companies. Representatives of Apple, Amazon and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations were among the recruiters greeting eager students milling around the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center. “I’m networking today to go anywhere,” said FSU senior Blake Tipping, at the fair both as a student job seeker and president of the university’s Career Center Ambassador Program. His interest? “Project management and business analytics,” said Tipping, currently an intern with DEO. The prospects? “Thirty percent growth within the next four years,” he said. “Business analytics is going to be the next big thing.” Tipping said he double-majored in finance and management information systems to acquire the hard skills but also gathered experience at leadership and team building. STEM (science, technology, engineering and

Business Operations Specialists

First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers

Software developers, applications

Computer user support specialists

Marketing managers

Medical and health services managers

First-line supervisors of retail sales workers

Heavy and tractortrailer truck drivers

Social and human services assistants

Web developers

Information technology project managers

Retail salespersons Source: The Conference Board, Help Wanted Online, prepared by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Tech companies such as Apple, retailers, financial firms and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations were among the 200 employers who met with prospects at the FSU Seminole Futures career fair on Sept. 28.

“I’m networking today to go anywhere.”

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS

FSU SENIOR BLAKE TIPPING, STUDENT JOB SEEKER AND PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY’S CAREER CENTER AMBASSADOR PROGRAM

math) jobs are well represented on the list of top jobs but if you’re a history or English major don’t lose faith. “We hire all majors,” said Teri-Anne Brennan, group talent acquisition manager for Enterprise Holdings, which expects to hire 50 to 60 FSU grads in 2018. The company promotes from within so is looking for candidates with a good work ethic and professionalism, she said. “At the end of the day the most important thing is leadership,” said Brennan, a 2004 FSU graduate. Industries will post about 14,000 job listings a year, said Myrna Hoover, director of FSU’s Career Center. “There are opportunities out there,” said Shereada Harrell, director of the Career and Professional Development Center at Florida A&M University, which also held a job fair in September, featuring more than 100 employers and nearly 900 students. “We just added 15 more companies than we had last year.” Along with job fairs and career centers, a new free tool is available to help students assess their potential job outcome based on programs at public institutions and training programs. LaunchMyCareerFL.org highlights in-demand jobs, desirable skills and what students can expect based on their

major. The initiative is a partnership with the Florida Chamber Foundation and the DEO, with funding by Strada Education Network. “This is a piece of gold that has been given to the folks who work directly in schools,” said Rebecca Schumacher, executive director of the Florida School Counselor Association in a statement to the press. In Leon County, 92.3 percent have a high school degree and 45 percent have a bachelor’s degree. But help is also available for people who haven’t graduated high school. “We can help them through the GED process, pay the exam fees and help them figure out what to do next,” said Ruthann Campbell, marketing and communications coordinator for the state’s CareerSource program in the Capital region. “We’re essentially career coaches but we don’t cost anything,” she said. We help you get a job but our main goal is to get you a career, no matter your age.” Clients have ranged from 16 to over 70. The career center steers people toward “in-demand careers,” said Campbell. “Those are the ones we pay for, the ones that are growing and have a large need. We’re not paying for jobs that won’t exist in five years.” Identifying opportunities is just one

of the roles of the state’s CareerSource program, which also helps with resumes, counseling and financial aid. “It’s not a loan, it doesn’t have to be paid back,” said Campbell. CareerSource Gulf Coast helped Heather Hunter pay for tuition, books and other costs so she could become a licensed practical nurse and later a registered nurse. She’s currently working as a case manager for Hospice Covenant Care in Panama City and pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Gulf Coast State College. “I don’t think a lot of people realize that CareerSource provides this kind of help,” said Hunter, who wants to become a nurse practitioner. “If they hadn’t helped me I wouldn’t have been able to finish.” Health professions offer growing opportunities at every level, said Campbell. “Every single month, registered nursing is Number 1” on advertised job listings, she said. “I knew I would never have a problem getting a job,” said aspiring nurse Shouppe. “But that wasn’t part of my thought process. Being a nurse is something I always wanted to do.” The industry needs more people like Shouppe, said health administrators. “There’s a shortage of nurses nationally

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 15

EMPLOYMENT

Susan Fiorito is director of the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship at FSU.

so it’s always going to be a good field of study with guaranteed job placement,” said Dr. Stephanie Solomon, executive director of the Ghazvini Center for Healthcare Education and dean of healthcare professions at Tallahassee Community College. “There will always be a demand for nurses, but there will probably also be a demand

for EMTs (emergency medical technicians) and paramedics.” The nonclinical field of health information management is also growing rapidly, said Dr. Solomon. These technicians play a critical role in gathering, coding, managing and maintaining patient health information. To expand its services, CareerSource

Capital Region, along with local businesses, educational providers and economic development entities, have created a new Career Pathways Project to help people entering their first or second career find local training programs and financial aid opportunities. Anyone interested in health science medical administration, for instance, can visit www.mycareerpathways.org and learn three possible options, with training and salary information, that could take you from entry level to higher skilled jobs. For instance, an entry level job as a medical administrative specialist, which requires a certificate and two semesters of training, will pay $10 to $11 per hour. The next steps — health informatics & information management and healthcare management will require a four-year degree but the salary range will increase from $20.19 to $58.44 per hour. “Entry level jobs are different for every industry,” said Campbell, at CareerSource. “Retail looks very different from technology

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16 / 2018 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

PHOTO COURTESY OF FSU PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES

careers. And entry level positions can change very rapidly.” Nonprofits can also offer employees the chance to move into management. Nonprofits are major employers in Leon County, said Jessica Lowe-Minor, executive director of FSU’s Institute For Nonprofit Innovation and Excellence. “One in 10 jobs in Leon County is a nonprofit job,” she said. “These range from institutions as large as Tallahassee Memorial Hospital to small nonprofits with one or two staff. Altogether, there are 2,000 nonprofits that collect $3.1 billion in revenue.” Finding a good job doesn’t always require a four-year degree. There’s a growing emphasis on training and short-term certification programs geared to the needs of employers. The I/O Avenue Code Academy (which stands for Input/Output) is a new 12-week, $6,000 bootcamp tech program that focuses on web development. There’s also a $500 introductory course available. The Academy is a collaboration between Domi Station, Florida A&M University and the office of Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum “to help fill a need in Tallahassee,” said Ryan Kopinsky, the academy’s director. The academy will be able to offer “an underserved community” the latest technological developments, he said. Seventy percent of the 200 applicants for the program’s first classes in September were female, which is “encouraging” in a male-dominated field, Kopinsky said. “There are 500 tech jobs every year that go unfilled,” he said. “These are highpaying jobs and we don’t have the people to fill them.” Educators and business leaders have been working more closely in recent years to offer skills needed in Northwest Florida with the educational system and programs like Workforce Development at Tallahassee Community College. “In 2013, what I saw was a huge gap between what employers were asking for, and what educational institutions were delivering, in terms of what skills students had and the knowledge they had,” said Kimberly Moore, vice president for Workforce Innovation at Tallahassee Community College.

The Workforce program offers courses that can help an employee gain skills or change careers. The program offers short-term certification in fields like air-conditioning, driving a commercial truck, cyber security, maintaining industrial machines and welding. Most classes are offered at night. “In 12 months or less, students can embrace a new career,” said Moore. “The ultimate goal is for individuals to gain employment. We listened to employers when we designed the curriculum.” Feeney, of AIF, said “all sorts of companies need people with vocational skills. It’s important “not to be locked into one job or location or learn how to do one thing.” Plumbing and electrical work are among fields that stay in demand. “You can work with robotics without being a robotic engineer,” he said.

Shifting Economy “Forty or fifty years ago, young people were expected to work at the same facility for decades, retire at 65 and get a gold watch,” said Feeney. “Now it’s not what company are you working for but what project are you working on.” A shifting economy has helped make entrepreneurship a growing alternative for innovators of all ages. “There have always been people who have decided to go out on their own,” said Susan Fiorito, director of the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship at FSU. “But during the recession, when companies started downsizing, people had to figure out whether they could work for another large corporation or go out on their own.” In 2015, Jan Moran and The Jim Moran Foundation committed $100 million to FSU to expand the Jim Moran Institute’s operations statewide and create the School of Entrepreneurship. The university accepted 80 students as entrepreneurship majors in the new school program. Of those, 60 are pursuing commercial businesses and 20 are going for nonprofits and businesses geared to helping the community or society as opposed to a product or service. “They have to have that inner passion,” said Fiorito. “Not everyone can be the

CEO of a company but you can be the CEO of your own company.” Faculty members are entrepreneurs including Mark McNees, the founder of the nonprofit Red Eye Coffee, which now has five locations. “Entrepreneurship allows you to create the career you want but it’s not for everybody,” said McNees who works with students seeking internships in entrepreneurship. Doug Tatum, a member of the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship faculty, CEO and author, said the school has developed a specialized plan or an “internship in a box” that allows students to work with small or mid-size companies that wouldn’t otherwise have the resources to work with a student.

CAREERSOURCE CAPITAL REGION TOP PRIVATE EMPLOYERS Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare...... 3,674 Walmart...................................... 2,631 Publix.......................................... 1,563 Capital Regional Medical Center....... 968 McDonald’s ................................... 826 Winn-Dixie..................................... 759 Pizza Hut / KFC / Taco Bell............... 685 Tallahassee International Airport..... 620 Capital Health Plan (a).................... 600 Marriott Hotels............................... 489 Chick-fil-A......................................447 Capital Health Plan (b).................... 401 Sears / Kmart................................. 389 CVS Pharmacy................................ 384 Coastal Forest Resources Co............ 350 Westminster Oaks .......................... 350 HealthSouth................................... 343 Target............................................ 330 Source: InfoGroup Employer Database 2017 ed. 2 Prepared by: Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) Bureau of Labor Market Statistics *Note: DEO cannot verify the accuracy of this vendor’s report ** Note: Some of these employers listed may be duplicative due to this source’s use of telephone book listing

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PHILANTHROPY

Tallahassee Museum Executive Director Russell Daws took his nonprofit museum to the next level by installing a zipline and ropes course.

DESIGNING SUSTAINABILITY Nonprofit organizations reinvent fundraising

by AUDREY POST

ector Forward: Impact and Opportunity, an overview of nonprofits in Leon County and Florida’s Big Bend, summed it up nicely: “Nonprofit organizations are a critical stitch in the fabric of any community’s economy and quality of life.” In the Tallahassee region, the documented economic impact of that critical stitch is substantial:

»L eon County has more registered

nonprofits than any other county in Florida. »F rom 2006 to 2015, Leon County saw a 15 percent increase in the number of registered nonprofits, with an almost 50 percent increase in nonprofit assets.

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»D uring the same 10-year period,

nonprofits saw a 30 percent growth in revenue. »N onprofits employ 10 percent of the workers in Leon County, higher than the statewide 7.4 percent and almost on par with the national rate of 10.3 percent.

»L eon County nonprofits generate

$3.16 billion in revenue. »L eon County nonprofits have more than $5.5 billion in assets. »L eon County nonprofits make up more than 20 percent of total GDP. The report, released in February 2017 by the Institute for Nonprofit Innovation and Excellence (INIE), acknowledged that the nonprofit designation covers a lot of organizations and associations such as civic leagues, associations of employees, real estate boards

and chambers of commerce, social and recreation clubs and fraternal societies. The report, however, concentrated on public charities with 501(c)3 tax status, the organizations that people tend to think of as philanthropic charities. But these are not your grandparents’ pet charities, nor are they operated in the same old ways.

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (RUSSEL DAWS) AND SAIGE ROBERTS (GOODWOOD MUSEUM AND GARDENS)

Changes in Strategies and Tactics

“Nonprofits have become more aware of those generational differences, and perhaps they’ll do a mailer, plus a Family Fun Day and notices on social media,” Stansbury said. “It’s not just about fundraising. It’s about the search for sustainability. Nonprofits are trying to figure out how to fund not just this year’s programs, but the organization going forward. “Organizations need to ask themselves: What are you doing to groom the next generation of donors?”

Fundraising for most charitable organizations once consisted of an annual signature event, such as a gala, and perhaps an end-of-the-year appeal by mail. But these days, fundraising is a year-round endeavor, and there have been major changes in the ways people give. “There was a time when you hired a professional fundraiser,” said Alyce Lee Reassessing the Mission Stansbury, a consultant who works with nonprofits and serves on the INIE board. The leadership at Goodwood Museum & Gardens spent “In today’s world on the internet, anybody can be a fundraiser.” a lot of time the past few years evaluating the historic The influence of technology and the resulting online giving has been tremendous. property’s streams of income and realized it needed to “Online giving has really grown, and it didn’t exist 20 years ago,” said Joy diversify. It also needed to stay true to its core, which is “a Watkins, executive director of the Community Foundation of North Florida, setting where we preserve and share our history, enjoy the which facilitates charitable giving for donors and helps nonprofits by awarding arts and celebrate significant events in our lives.” grants and helping build endowments. “We asked ourselves, ‘How do we broaden the Another change in charitable giving has been an increase in bequests as part definition of the mission to create partnerships of estate planning, Watkins said. “It’s a trend, as baby boomers are passing their and increase our relevancy to the community?’” wealth on.” said Nancy I.M. Morgan, one of Goodwood’s two Despite the small recession of 2000-2002 and the big recession that began in co-executive directors. “We have this amazingly 2008 that caused a slowdown in charitable giving, Watkins said charitable giving beautiful green space in the middle of the city.” has recovered, in general, and she describes the current climate as “robust.” Goodwood has created partnerships with several “We’re celebrating our 20th year, and to date we’ve had more than $71 million community arts organizations, including Opening come in to the Community Foundation, and almost $23 million in grants go out.” Nights Performing Arts, Tallahassee Hispanic Jessica Lowe-Minor, executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit InnovaTheater and Theater with a Mission. It is also evaltion and Excellence, agrees that fundraising methods are changing. uating partnerships with Tallahassee Memorial “Having the online technology to solicit donations has increased the ease of HealthCare, including a “Pathway to Wellness” giving,” she said. “Targeting online platforms and specific events can cost a lot of project which will include walking trails. money, but it’s the go-to strategy for a lot of organizations.” “We want to develop Goodwood as a center for Payroll deductions for charitable contributions, the so-called “United Way model,” wellness for the community,” said Morgan’s counterhave not held up well since the recession, she said. “Fewer employees are opting to part, Co-Executive Director Jennifer Humayun. “In participate in that type of program, so it’s less of a strategy for philanthropies.” doing so, we gain access to grants related to health and Pamela Goodman, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, spent wellness, as well as the historic preservation grants.” 15 years as president and CEO of Limited Express. That experience is applicable to the nonprofit world. “Fundraising is not a lot different than retailing,” she said. “You’re selling a product: your organization.” One group that has been slow to return to charitable giving, Lowe-Minor said, is middle-class donors who routinely gave $100, $150 or $250 a month to a favorite charity but stopped during the recession. “We have to ask ourselves the question: Have these donors gotten out of the habit of giving, or have philanthropies focused on big donors at the expense of the working-class donors whose contributions also add up?” she said. Several Tallahassee nonprofits, particularly public radio, have capitalized on the monthly recurring contributions, offering “young philanthropist” societies and “sustainer” memberships in smaller monthly chunks that tend to be less of a burden than one large annual donation. Goodwood Museum & Gardens diversified to better connect with community priorities.

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 19

PHILANTHROPY

Goodwood is not alone in its efforts to find more sources of funding. The INIE report also showed that two-thirds of Leon County’s nonprofits generate less than $500,000 in revenue a year, and more than one-third generate less than $100,000 a year. Building sustainability into fundraising is a must. “It’s not just about fundraising,” Stansbury said. “If you want to build sustainability, it’s about mission, money and leadership.” Getting people engaged in an organization’s mission can enhance fundraising, said Ellen Piekalkiewicz, executive director of United Partners for Human Services. “People want real-life stories,” she said. “They want a human behind where their dollars are going.”

Seeking New Revenue Streams Goodwill Industries set the stage decades ago when it opened its thrift stores to fund its mission. Over the years, it also expanded its mission from a narrow focus on helping people with mental or physical challenges to become productive members of the workforce, to helping anyone with barriers to employment. Over the past few years, local nonprofits have joined in the entrepreneurial effort: Element3 Church started RedEye Coffee to help fund its humanitarian efforts around the globe, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of the Big Bend collects clothing and other household goods for international bulk resale in purple bins placed around town, and Big Bend Cares operates a wholesale pharmacy. But the zipline course at Tallahassee Museum has to be the most daring endeavor of all, both physically and financially. Costing a little under $600,000, the Tree to Tree Adventures course has had a synergistic effect on the museum, Executive Director Russell Daws said. “It has brought in visitors who weren’t familiar with the museum previously, and some of those visitors have become members and donors,” he said. The museum borrowed half a million dollars to build the course five years ago, and that note has already been paid off. For Daws, the lesson learned is to embrace change. “This started a whole chain of events and has given us a new relevancy, engagement and excitement that has really helped fundraising,” he said. “We needed to listen to our audience, look at what the community needed and be receptive. It worked. We changed with the community, and we’re celebrating our 60th anniversary.” Stansbury said it has been interesting to watch nonprofits become more entrepreneurial, while for-profit businesses adopt some of the nonprofits’ tactics. Some businesses, such as 4Rivers Smokehouse, have no marketing budget per se. Community engagement and charitable giving are the company’s marketing, founder John Rivers of Winter Park told her. Both build brand and demand for the product. “For many companies,” she said, “charitable giving is part of good business strategy.”

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PENNY SALES TAX

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A PENNY MAKES Blueprint leverages sales-tax revenue to bring community enhancements to life by ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

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PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

s Tallahassee and Leon County have learned over the past few decades, it makes sense to mind your pennies. Three different times since 1989, voters have approved adding a penny per dollar to the local sales tax to fund major road improvements and other infrastructure projects. With each iteration of the tax, local leaders, residents and staff members have refined the process, creatively planning together on how to get the most bang for those pennies. And there are a lot of pennies. In the third vote in 2014, voters agreed to extend the tax for another 20 years — from 2020 to 2040 — which is expected to generate revenues estimated at $756 million. Most counties in Florida also have approved an extra tax for improvements, most using them for roadways and facilities such as jails. Tallahassee-Leon County did much the same when the tax was first approved for 1989-1999. The money raised was divvied up between the city and county and used to pay for the Leon County Jail and major upgrades to Blairstone Road, Capital Circle Northeast and other roadway projects in the community. In the run-up to the second vote held in 1999, a citizen’s group called the Economic Environmental Consensus Committee (EECC) favored the penny-per-dollar tax being extended but asked for more citizen oversight about the projects the penny would be used Autumn Calder, planning to build. “That’s when Blueprint manager at Blueprint 2000 was born,” says Autumn Intergovernmental Calder, planning manager Agency, helps bring projects such as the for what is now known as the award-winning Cascades Blueprint Intergovernmental Park in downtown Agency. Tallahassee to fruition.

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (CALDER) AND COURTESY OF OEV AND BLUEPRINT

Also born was a “holistic” philosophy. This joint city-county effort would leverage the penny by partnering with other public entities and private developers to take a single improvement — a roadway, a stormwater pond or the like — and layer multiple benefits for the betterment of the community as a whole. One of the biggest Blueprint 2000 projects was the widening of Capital Circle Southeast. Already in the plans for the Florida Department of Transportation, “for every one dollar that we spent of local sales tax revenues, we were able to obtain three dollars from the state to put toward the road improvements,” said Calder. “What we were able to do with that one dollar was implement the Blueprint holistic philosophy,” so stormwater ponds became visual amenities instead of eyesores, a multiple-use trail was added and the right of way was widened to be able to accommodate traffic for at least the next 50 years. “These are things that we as a community identified as priorities and were willing to fund through the sales tax,” is how she explained it. Perhaps the most well-received project funded during the 15 years of Blueprint 2000 was downtown’s Cascades Park. Attempting to solve major drainage and flooding problems, a massive amount of stormwater storage would be required. But rather than just digging a holding pond, Blueprint money was used to create a 24-acre urban park that includes an amphitheater, walking trails, waterfall, memorials, playground, landscaping, dancing fountain and play area, and Florida’s prime meridian marker — the point from which all surveys in Florida begin. It was immediately popular and reinvigorated a downtown area that was previously deserted after business hours. After its 2014 opening, Cascades Park would go on to win two prestigious

BIG-TICKET BLUEPRINTFUNDED PROJECTS Water quality and stormwater improvements (annual allocations)

$85 million

Widen Capital Circle Southwest

$70 million

AIRPORT GATEWAY: Springhill Road and Lake Bradford Road

$58.7 million

NORTHWEST CONNECTOR CORRIDOR: Widen Tharpe Street

$53.2 million

Sidewalks (annual allocations)

$50 million

Northeast Gateway Welaunee Critical Area Plan Regional Infrastructure

$47.3 million

NORTHEAST CONNECTOR CORRIDOR: Widen Bannerman Road

$33.3 million

ORANGE AVENUE: Widen from Adams Street to Springhill Road

$33.1 million

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 23

PENNY SALES TAX

The Blueprint Governmental Agency breaks down the 27 projects into these five general descriptions. Gateways

Entryways to different parts of the community that “foster a unique sense of place.”

national awards from the American Public Works Association and the National Recreation and Park Association and serve as an inspiration statewide. “Going around to other communities, you can see everybody’s starting to … take their stormwater ponds and turn them into amenities, like Depot Park in Gainesville,” Calder said. “The Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency and the citizen’s committee were so visionary in establishing this holistic philosophy. That was very innovative at the time, and now it’s not necessarily innovative anymore because all of these other communities are doing it. “One of our biggest challenges … moving into these next 20 years is to continue to implement innovative approaches into our community projects,” she continued. “That’s the forward-thinking vision that Blueprint has always embodied and will continue to embrace into the next round of projects. That’s exciting.” Although the latest tax approved doesn’t kick in until 2020, Blueprint still has its hands full, finishing up the Blueprint 2000 to-do list and ramping up for the 27 projects already earmarked for funding in the future. The 2020 list (see sidebar on previous page) was recently prioritized. No. 1 on the list is the completion of widening Capital Circle Southwest near Tallahassee International Airport. It was originally supposed to be a Blueprint 2000 project

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but was scuttled for years when sales tax revenues dropped during the Great Recession. Unlike the previous two taxes, the 2020 plans earmark 12 percent of the money raised for economic development. With some funds set aside for the airport and a planned convention center, there will be an estimated $54 million allotted to the newly created Office of Economic Vitality. Also a joint city-county effort, OEV mirrors Blueprint’s holistic attitude to growing business by not only trying to attract businesses from outside the area, but also by working to help existing businesses connect, grow and prosper. Calder said the 2020 program has more diversity that will “physically touch more parts of the community and … improve our quality of life by creating more spaces for people to live, work, play and connect.” Even though the first funds won’t be generated for more than two years, the Blueprint team is already laying the groundwork for projects. “One of the things we’re starting to think about now is the community and the outreach, how critical it is to start building relationships with the communities that (will be) impacted by our projects,” Calder said. By visiting neighborhood associations, businesses and others, they will learn who the local contacts are and their concerns. When it is time to sit down and start drawing up plans in the future, “we have something to start from,” she said. “It’s going to take some work, but I think we’re up to the task.”

Community Enhancement

Projects that create special urban places which foster a sense of community, mostly what they call “placemaking.”

Connectivity

Projects to improve and expand local roads, with funds allocated for entry points to Florida A&M University, sidewalks, greenways, bike routes and enhancements to the bus system.

Quality of Life

Projects that promote public recreation and ecotourism while protecting and preserving the community’s environment and natural resources.

Regional Mobility

Creating a holistic transportation network that includes air, mass transit, automobiles, bikes and pedestrians. For in-depth descriptions of the projects and to view an interactive map, visit leonpenny.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OEV AND BLUEPRINT / ADAM COHEN

Penny sales-tax revenue added to state transportation funds enabled the widening of Capital Circle Southeast to be not only utilitarian for motor vehicles but also beautiful and useful to pedestrians and cyclists.

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REAL ESTATE

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Development is changing streetscapes and lifestyles by KAREN MURPHY

s dramatically as new real estate developments are changing the streetscapes around Tallahassee, they are changing how Tallahasseeans live, work, play and shop. “It’s a good time to live in Tallahassee,” said Edward Murray Jr., President/Broker and Principal of NAITalcor, a local commercial real estate company. Real estate development boomed over the last decade in Tallahassee. The revitalization of Gaines Street and new development

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in Midtown and around Bannerman dramatically impacted surrounding communities. According to a recent report by the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, the taxable value of land around Blueprint project areas increased by $4.4 billion in the City of Tallahassee and $6.5 billion in Leon County since 2000. Real estate owners and experts saw land prices and rental income increase as well. These developments create more than new buildings. They create new lifestyles.

For example, anyone living in northeast Tallahassee knows well the daily mass exodus of residents from the suburbs into town for the morning commute. In the late afternoon, they travel back out to their homes and families. “You have 50,000 people who live within a five-mile radius with the highest income in the county, but if they wanted dinner out, they had to get on Thomasville Road and drive south, because there was nothing out here.” said Claude Walker, CEO of the Summit Group Commercial Properties and developer of Bannerman Crossings. “Our vision for Bannerman Crossings was to have enough mix of different types of retail and eating establishments so everybody could stay in their neighborhood. We wanted a community where you could live, work, play and shop.

PHOTOS BY JOHNSTON ROBERTS

NEW COMMUNITIES

Bannerman Crossings

It’s designed to be interconnected, walkable, golf-cart-friendly and to improve quality of life.

Midtown

Creating a new community at Bannerman Crossings are owner Rick Kearney (left) and developer Claude Walker, CEO of Summit Group Commercial Properties. The phased project entails office space, retail, dining, recreational opportunities and eventually residences.

It kind of morphed into us building a little city out here,” he explained. Bannerman Crossings, owned by Rick Kearney, has three commercial components. Phase 1, the Walgreens at the corner of Thomasville Road and Bannerman Road, with Phase 2, comprising Chick-fil-A, Dunkin Donuts, Battery Source and a host of other businesses, occupy roughly 75,000 square feet of retail space. Phase 3, a 116,000-square-foot “Destination Lifestyle Center,” was completed in 2016. This open-air shopping area is divided into quads, each anchored by a restaurant in the center of the complex. With mostly perimeter parking, Bannerman Crossings is designed to draw people into the core of the complex, making it more of a destination than a typical shopand-go strip mall. The boutiques are local retailers, and the restaurants include both

high-end and casual dining. Office space occupies the second floors. Summit Group also is developing retail and office space on the north side of Bannerman Road. Walker said although lunch traffic is good, Bannerman Crossings comes alive in the late afternoon and evening. He said Bannerman Crossings hosts events under its large pavilion to bring people out, and the Friday events get going around 7 p.m. “This place is packed,” he said. The next phase is a residential development on the western edge of the shopping center. Preliminary plans call for 147 homes — 22 attached singlefamily homes, 35 detached single-family homes, 43 minimum-lot-line houses and 47 standard single-family lots of one-third acre. Plans also include a 15-acre conservation easement with trails running through it. Walker said they expect to break ground in spring 2018.

Efforts to breathe more quality of life into quaint Midtown began in the early 2000s. Three or four little commercial developments began to pop up, with Manor at Midtown being most notable. “Today, you can walk to 15 to 20 restaurants very comfortably,” said Murray, whose own office is in Midtown. “You can’t do that anywhere else in town.” He described the area as very diverse with lots of housing in all price ranges, serving many demographics. “Commercial real estate in Midtown is scarce and expensive,” said Murray, “which substantially affects housing too. Everything is driven by location.” A significant “get” for Midtown was Whole Foods Market. The grocery retailer determined there would be only one Tallahassee store and that it would be in Midtown at 1817 Thomasville Road.

Downtown Closer to downtown, Allan Franklin of Culpepper Construction Company called the new 66,000-square-foot “Ballard Building” at 201 E. Park Avenue the nicest building he’s ever built. He said that with its sloping canopy, copper accents and exquisite interior detail, the six-story building is unique to Tallahassee. The new home of Ballard Partners, the law firm of lobbyist Brian Ballard, features office space, a roof-top terrace, a ground-floor restaurant and 80 parking spaces. “A few more buildings like this would make downtown really special,” Franklin said. Other efforts to improve downtown and Frenchtown got underway in the early 2000s with the help of local government. The revitalization of Gaines Street was a massive project identified and advanced by the City of Tallahassee.

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 27

REAL ESTATE

Gaines Street

Shawn McIntyre, North American Properties (NAP) Florida Managing Partner, said, “A lot of people thought it was crazy. I had people in town tell me in 2011 and 2012 that they would never let their daughters walk down Gaines Street at night, let alone live there.” But McIntyre saw opportunity. He saw zoning and utilities, all in the shadow of the FSU stadium. He saw a pedestrianoriented area where students walk three blocks to campus. The district now widely called CollegeTown spans from FSU’s intramural fields and the FSU stadium to Macomb Street and Railroad Avenue. “I decided we needed to go big or go home. Building the Deck (student apartment complex) as an outpost wasn’t going to work; we had to create critical mass. Instead of turning the opportunity down, we doubled down. We built the Deck, the Block and Axis (apartment buildings) all at one time — $72 million worth of property, 790 beds at once.” McIntyre opened those properties in

Gaines Street, the first paved road in Tallahassee, and its surrounding real estate had experienced decades of decline. Even though the corridor ran between FAMU and FSU, there was little to offer the student population and it consisted mostly of warehouses and industrial-type businesses. The City of Tallahassee created a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) encompassing the 1.25-mile Gaines Street corridor and several large tracts of City-owned property. In 2005, the Tallahassee City Commission adopted a Gaines Street Revitalization Plan with the goal of rebuilding the corridor and creating a vital, pedestrian-friendly street blending commercial, resident and cultural uses. It hired Genesis, a Florida-based planning, engineering and landscape architecture firm, to fulfill those goals, according to a report by Genesis CEO Mark Llewellyn. The City was not alone in seeing the opportunity presented by a revitalized Gaines Street corridor.

2014 and said they continually experience 97 percent occupancy. “Students accepted this area. I don’t have a vacant bed right now, and that’s why I’ve continued to build,” he said. “We couldn’t just build the residences. We seeded (retail) with lower rents to get tenants in there, knowing as we continue to add beds to the district, retail will catch on,” he said. McIntyre said the new Publix planned for the corner of Gaines Street and Railroad Avenue and expected to open in 2018 will change the game for retail. He predicted within two or three years, the retail space will be full. North American Properties’ investment in CollegeTown is substantial. McIntyre explained the CRA gave NAP a $2.1 million tax incentive. NAP invested $66 million for Axis, Court and Lumberyard (a new student housing project) plus $51 million for the original phase. “So far, NAP has invested a total of $117 million, and I own property Pantone 542 to build two Pantone 3025

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PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTH AMERICAN PROPERTIES

more student housing projects (on Gaines between Court and Block and the Field House, south of the intramural fields) for a total of $188 million invested on Gaines Street. We have about two and a half years where I will start a new building every January. So, $2.1 million CRA money yielded a total investment of $188 million.” He said those figures do not include other developers in the area. He estimated the total economic impact of CollegeTown to be around $1 billion. “The same thing is gonna happen downtown,” he said, referring to NAP’s $158 million Cascades Project, expected to be completed in 2020.

Cascades Project This massive project will span two downtown blocks and connect to Cascades Park. Plans call for a five-story boutique hotel, retail space, apartments, townhouses and a restaurant. He said the residential area is designed to attract young professionals working in the downtown.

This rendering illustrates North American Properties’ intention to build a five-story hotel, retail space, a restaurant and residences downtown at Cascades Park by 2020. The targeted consumers are young professionals who work downtown.

According to McIntyre, NAP is building 320 apartments that can sleep 450 people, or approximately 1.5 percent of the 32,000person downtown workforce. He predicted, “Seventy percent of

residents will be under the age of 35. That’s what the city wants. “To have a vibrant 18-hour downtown, you can’t just build a restaurant and put it on the edge of a park. You have to build

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REAL ESTATE

something that is cohesive, that’ll work, and you build it in one phase and you take huge risk,” McIntyre said. With great risk comes the potential for great reward. “Practically all sectors of commercial real estate are active in Tallahassee. Value is up. Activity is up. Consumer confidence is up. Unemployment is down. All that is good,” Murray said. “A good, healthy, active economy is good for everybody,” he continued. Property values around new developments are rising. According to Doug Will, Chief Deputy with the Leon County Property Appraisers office, residential values north of Kerry Forrest Parkway increased 4 to 5 percent last year, with retail increasing 6 to 8 percent and offices 4 to 5 percent. Around the campus areas, apartments have increased 8 to 10 percent, retail 3 to 4 and office values were flat. Increased property value brings higher property taxes. McIntyre said, “Property taxes increased around CollegeTown, but so has rent and other revenue. I think it’s been disproportionate. Revenue has increased more than property taxes on a percentage basis.” A local business owner on Gaines Street who was not part of the massive development projects agreed. Sharod Bines, owner of Retrofit Records said, “We have seen an increase in foot traffic. More people results in more record sales, so yes, business has been good.” Increased property taxes, according to McIntyre and Murray, present their own rewards. “Accessed values are off the charts,” said Murray, “and that raises the tax base, which gives government more money to concentrate on areas of need.” McIntyre explained, “Without development in CollegeTown, Tallahassee expected about a 2 percent growth rate in property taxes. (Since the development of CollegeTown) we have experienced about a 200 percent growth rate. It created all this uplift of taxes.” He asserts that even when the CRA gives an incentive to a developer to defer taxes for a certain amount of time, the City benefits. During that time, tax revenue rises on all the properties in that area because of increased property values. Even after the deferment ends, property values and taxes should continue to increase. That money is available to the public budget and is utilized to support the social programs required to bring people out of poverty. “We need economic development to establish a tax increment, which increases ad valorem taxes, which allows funding sources for social programs that educate, empower and employee minority workforces.” Development potentially becomes the catalyst that not only changes the way Tallahassee looks, but changes the lives of all those living here, rich and poor.

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M.T. MUSTIAN CENTER

LOOKING AHEAD M.T. Mustian Center prepares TMH for future of medicine by JASON DEHART and STEVE BORNHOFT

n 1955, Dr. Lowry H. McDaniel, then chairman of the American Medical Association, said, “Medicine has made more progress in the first half of the 20th century than in the 6,000 previous years.” At that time, the average American could expect to live to the age of 68; since then, advances in technology and science have sent the field of medicine rocketing into a realm that even McDaniel, who made some extreme predictions about the future of health care, would’ve said could exist only in science fiction. Looking ahead, the next 50 years will bring even more advancements to the field of medicine, and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, in its seventh decade, is positioning itself to accommodate those advancements by building its new M.T. Mustian Center at the corner of Miccosukee Road and Medical Drive. The M.T. Mustian Center is named for the hospital’s first CEO, who settled in Tallahassee shortly after McDaniel made his medical predictions, and who saw a few of those predictions (such as radiation being used to treat cancer) come to pass. The Mustian Center stands five stories tall, covers 340,000 square feet and, by the time it opens its sliding glass doors in 2019, will have cost about $260 million to build and outfit with medical equipment.

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“It will be state of the art,” said TMH President and CEO Mark O’Bryant, comparing this design to facilities found in major metropolitan cities. Mickey Moore, President and CAO of the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Foundation, said the center will put TMH in a new league. “When you talk about transforming care, advancing health and improving lives, there will be nothing like it for miles and miles and miles,” Moore said, citing its capacity and the technology it will utilize. The Center will feature 28 operating rooms, four

“It will be state of the art.” TMH PRESIDENT AND CEO MARK O’BRYANT

outside its core service region. Dr. Hank Hutchinson, orthopedic trauma surgeon, said the new center will have the best operating rooms in the region. Construction of the center by Birmingham-based Brasfield & Gorrie employs nearly 300 local and non-local construction workers, generating local wages and non-local spending in the local economy. The Mustian Center will provide hundreds of new health-care jobs, which O’Bryant hopes to fill with graduates from local medical colleges including the Florida State University College of Medicine and Tallahassee Community College’s Ghazvini Center for Healthcare Education. TMH also will look to technical schools such as Lively Technical Center and the Southeastern School of Health Sciences to fill its employment needs. The center will need to hire doctors, around 500 nurses, CNAs, monitor techs and many other skilled employees. By the time the Mustian Center opens in 2019, its impact will be felt across the region and especially in Florida’s tight-knit capital city. O’Bryant forecasts it will be “a transformative facility.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE

The Mustian Center at Tallahassee Memorial is taking shape. Framing, elevator installation and exterior work are well underway. These renderings project how it will look when complete in 2019.

interventional suites and 72 intensive care beds — with plenty of room to grow. The smallest operating room will be 625 square feet, which is nearly twice as large as the smallest operating room that is currently at TMH. All necessary support services, such as perioperative services, CT imaging and blood banking, will be available at the Mustian Center, too. The facility will accommodate growth in the general population and the aging population and will expand the range of services available to a larger service area, O’Bryant said. As a regional hospital, TMH provides health care to residents of 17 counties, but it is increasingly receiving patients from additional areas in the Panhandle, south Georgia and Alabama. Its expansions in orthopedic care, neurosurgery, cardiology and reconstructive care have quickened the pace of referrals inside and

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 33

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CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

CRMC breaks ground on two satellite ERs in January. Facilities like the one depicted here are planned for the north side of the city, near North Monroe Street and I-10, and on the south side, near SouthWood.

MEETING NEEDS F

Capital Regional Medical Center expands with satellite ERs

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

by KIM HARRIS THACKER

or the past 40-plus years, Capital Regional Medical Center has built a reputation for providing high-quality, compassionate health care. While maintaining consistent standards, it has embraced change. Capital Regional has long welcomed improved health-care technology, advances in best practices and bright stars in medicine to its clinics and emergency rooms, the number of which will grow in 2018 to address the needs of an expanding Tallahassee. Mark Robinson, the medical center’s president and CEO, explained the plan: “There are four ERs in this

area. You have Capital Regional’s main ER at the hospital; our ER at the Gadsden Campus in Quincy, Florida, 20 miles away, and then there are two other ERs that aren’t affiliated with Capital Regional in Leon County. So why are we building two more ERs? First and foremost, we care about our community and the people that travel to visit our emergency rooms. We want them to get the medical attention they need, but also we believe that we’re the best at emergency care. A lot of people like to compare hospitals by size. Well, we’re not the largest, but we know what we’re the best at.”

“The new ER facilities represent our latest step to expand health care into the community … to provide critical healthcare services in convenient locations for our patients.” MARK ROBINSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 35

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In 2016, Capital Regional saw 101,000 ER visits — roughly half of the total visits made to area ERs. “There’s a reason for those numbers,” Robinson said. “It’s because we do a fantastic job. The quality of care our patients receive from our highly trained physicians and staff is phenomenal, and we’re fast. Anyone who goes online to look at the data can see that our two ERs already have the shortest wait-time of any ERs in the area. We’re at an average of eight minutes from the time a patient arrives until he or she is seen by a healthcare provider. The two new, freestanding emergency facilities that we’re building represent our latest step to expand health care into the community. … Our goal is to provide our patients with quality care in convenient locations, with little to no wait time.” To facilitate this goal, each of the 12-bed, 10,800-square-foot ERs will be staffed by approximately 31 individuals, including board-certified emergency physicians, nurses, paramedics, technicians and imaging providers, and they will be equipped with a trauma room, lab, CT scanner, ultrasound unit, X-ray machine and more. These ERs are intended to offer the community a full range of urgent-care services, including pediatric care, 24/7. “Understanding the needs of our community is what keeps people coming to us,” Robinson said. “We believe that these needs circle around a few things: access, convenience, quality and satisfaction. In building our new ERs, we are adding quality, convenient emergency services in an environment that focuses solely on the patient.” Data indicates there is a need for additional emergency services in particular areas of Tallahassee. That’s why Capital Regional will build one of its new ERs on North Monroe Street, right off the I-10 exit. The other will be built in a rapidly developing area close to SouthWood; Robinson expects patients will also come to this ER from Wakulla County. “In each of the new, freestanding ERs, we expect to see upwards of 13,000–15,000 visits per year,” he said. Capital Regional expects to break ground on both ERs by Jan. 1, 2018, and he plans for the centers to be open around the beginning of the fourth quarter. The expertise and resources of HCA, Capital Regional’s parent company and one of the nation’s largest private, for-profit hospital systems, will help get them built in this timeframe. Robinson says they’ve got the process down to a science. “Our two new ERs will be built upon the expertise that HCA has already acquired,” he explained. “We’re going to take that expertise and the quality of care that Capital Regional is already known for to our two new freestanding ERs so we can make sure they’re the best they can be. It all goes back to knowing what our community needs and providing for those needs.”

tallahasseedowntown.com

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ACCOMMODATIONS

ROOM AT THE INN

Investors identify Tallahassee as a hotel boomtown by ERIN HOOVER

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hen Bo Schmitz moved from Michigan to manage the Four Points by Sheraton, the cylindrical Tallahassee landmark on Tennessee Street, he was told by locals that in summertime, they “rolled up the sidewalks in Tallahassee.” A hotel couldn’t expect to do much business outside the legislative session and with universities on summer break. That’s no longer true, Schmitz said, crediting the growth of university enrollment, which brings prospective students to visit FSU and FAMU and new students to attend school orientations. “It used to be that visiting the Capitol, or lobbying, or coming to college were the primary things that brought people to Tallahassee,”

RENDERINGS COURTESY OF IDI+ (HAMPTON INN & SUITES) AND KANA HOTEL GROUP (TRU BY HILTON)

Hampton Inn & Suites on Railroad Avenue is expected to open Jan. 15. Other hotel projects in the works include the tru by Hilton on Apalachee Parkway.

he said. “Those reasons still exist, but there are many other opportunities to come to Tallahassee from a natural business perspective. Companies want to form their headquarters here, incubators are creating new companies — there’s a lot of optimism for business.” Visitors to Tallahassee will soon have more options to rest for the night, or longer. The Office of Economic Vitality has reported that seven new hotel projects are either under construction or proposed for Tallahassee, prospectively adding nearly 1,000 new rooms within city limits. Schmitz is now preparing to take the helm of one of them: a new hotel on

Railroad Avenue, Hampton Inn & Suites. The Hampton Inn & Suites is the farthest along of the new projects, with an anticipated opening of January 2018. Two other projects on Apalachee Parkway are under construction, include a new Hilton flag, Tru, and a Holiday Inn. The largest proposed project, Washington Square, will embed a 16-story conference hotel, three restaurants, condos and an underground parking area downtown, with a price tag of $90 million. The project’s ambitious site plan was approved in July 2016. “Right now demand for rooms exceeds supply,” said Kerri Post, director of Leon County’s Division of Tourism Development, also known as Visit Tallahassee. “That’s why we’re seeing development.” Research firms analyzing demand in Leon County have shown year-over-year increases in the number of people booking rooms and in room cost, resulting in higher revenue for hotels. Last fall the Leon County tax collector reported a 10.4% increase in revenues from the Tourist Development Tax over the previous fiscal year, at nearly $5.8 million total. In fact, last fiscal (2017) year’s data caps an unprecedented eight-year run for Leon County in year over year increases in income from the Tourist Development Tax, which has held steady at 5 cents on the dollar since 2009. A largely rebounded economy has meant that occupancy levels have hit record highs across the country. In Tallahassee and Leon County, the most recent data has shown hotel occupancy up 8.7% year over year.

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 39

ACCOMMODATIONS

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its January 15 opening. As Schmitz has prepared to open the property, he began by hiring a salesperson and creating rate strategies, a reservation system, and opening all booking channels, including online booking sites such as Expedia. In addition to hiring staff, he concentrated on networking in the community to make everyone aware of the new Hampton Inn & Suites location. “That’s huge in this town — Tallahassee is definitely a small town with strong relationships. That’s where you can really win, ” Schmitz said. “Hotels are a subset of the many development projects going on in Leon County,” Post said. “We all want to stimulate and secure more investment in our community, but the fact of the matter is that these hotels wouldn’t choose to locate here if the tourism economy wasn’t healthy.” Whether the bellhop has already been hired to take the business traveler’s bag or the construction company is preparing to break ground, for now, the biggest names in the hotel business are here to stay.

IN THE WORKS A list of projects, from“nearly completed” to “in the pipeline” HAMPTON INN & SUITES, 824 Railroad Ave.

124 rooms

HOLIDAY INN APALACHEE PARKWAY, 2003 Apalachee Parkway

103 rooms

TRU BY HILTON, 2814 Apalachee Parkway

90 rooms

DRURY INN & SUITES, 1680 Raymond Diehl Road

180 rooms

WASHINGTON SQUARE, 219 S. Calhoun St.

260 rooms

CASCADES MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT (INCLUDES A BOUTIQUE HOTEL), west of Cascades Park

128 rooms

WEST BREVARD ST., W. Brevard St. & Richmond St.

70 rooms

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

Visit Tallahassee has estimated 2.4 million visitors and $901 million in economic impact to the county from tourism last year. That’s bound to be attractive to investors, Post reasoned, explaining that rather than recruiting hotels to invest here, hotels responded to performance in the market showing that investment here would pay off. She also affirmed Schmitz’s experience at the Sheraton that Tallahassee is a year-round destination. Looking at quarterly data, Post explained that visitation levels are fairly even, rather than seasonal, although there are peak periods, such as football game weekends and graduations — times when bookings are at or over capacity. However, it’s the demand and annual occupancy that potential investors evaluate when determining where to build. “When you look at Cascades Park, South Monroe (SoMo) and Collegetown, developers are very interested to see that kind of energy and growth. As companies look to develop or expand, to build hotels, to open restaurants, they are looking for a healthy, thriving economy. The whole ecosystem is interconnected,” Post said. Developers typically meet with the Office of Economic Vitality and often with the Chamber of Commerce to get a better understanding of an area marketplace, Post said. Then they work on permitting and focus on building the physical property. “Once they know the project is feasible, and they’re ready to be part of the community, then they meet with us. How can our Meetings and Conventions Director help book their meeting space, for instance?” she continued. Unique locations and hotel brands serve different types of travelers. A boutique hotel near Cascades Park will attract a different kind of customer than the Drury Inn & Suites near I-10. The Hampton Inn & Suites, whose Gaines Street District location is convenient to downtown and the universities, is designed for the business traveler seeking clean and comfortable rooms with a strong loyalty program, Schmitz said. The Hampton Inn & Suites will begin booking December 1 in preparation for

Hampton Inn & Suites will add 124 rooms to the Gaines Street District.

850 850 850 422 422 422 0071 0071 0071

MEETINGS MEETINGS MEETINGS DONE DONE DONE RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT

Tallahassee’s Tallahassee’s Tallahassee’s Only Only Only L.E.E.D L.E.E.D L.E.E.D Certified Certified Certified Hotel Hotel Hotel We Wehave We have have everything everything everything you youneed you need need totoensure ensure to ensure a asuccessful successful a successful and andproductive and productive productive meeting meeting meeting with withexcellent with excellent excellent service service service inina acomfortable incomfortable a comfortable atmosphere. atmosphere. atmosphere. With With With over overover 7,000 7,000 7,000 square square square feet feetof feet ofupdated updated of updated space, space, space, we weare we are are the theperfect the perfect perfect fitfitwhether whether fit whether your youryour meeting, meeting, meeting, banquet, banquet, banquet, ororconvention convention or convention isisbig big isorbig orsmall. small. or small.

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PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISABILITIES

Dan Moore, at right, executive director of Ability 1st, both employs and serves people with disabilities. Program Assistant Richard Atherton connects clients with medical equipment and assistive technology that supports their home and workplace activities.

PUTTING SPECIAL ABILITIES TO WORK

y nearly every measure, Dan Moore has found the key to hiring employees that exceed expectations. Compared to the norm, his staff surpasses longevity records, has an incredible work ethic, and is more fully invested in their jobs. The secret to his success? Fifty percent or more of his staff are persons living with disabilities. “I get better employees and fewer HR problems with employees with disabilities,” he says proudly.

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He’s onto something big. According to longstanding research, the benefits of hiring persons with disabilities are really the intangibles: superior work ethic, loyalty and all-around great employees. For many business owners and managers, though, the prospect of hiring someone who needs accommodations is intimidating — and not just for the real costs of building codes and access ramps. According to Dr. J.R. Harding, an instructional specialist at Florida State University’s College of Business, employers

by TISHA CREWS KELLER typically harbor pre-conceived biases toward those with disabilities. Mainly, these are centered around health insurance rates, infrastructure improvement costs and cultural issues. Typically, employers believe they will experience higher employee-related costs, more absenteeism and higher insurance premiums if they employ individuals with disabilities. But in reality, these concerns aren’t borne out. Harding points out that research indicates employees with disabilities generally work harder, stay in jobs longer, have no

PHOTOS BY JOHNSTON ROBERTS

Employees with disabilities prove assumptions wrong

performance differences and help cultivate a better workplace culture overall. “When you’re finally getting a chance and you’ve experienced discrimination all your life,” Moore explains, “you can be so grateful.” Moore says it’s this gratitude that makes his staff such wonderful employees. As the executive director for Ability 1st in Tallahassee, 50 percent of his staff has some sort of disability, whether physical, emotional or intellectual. For him, it’s all about giving someone a chance to excel at what they can do, and matching the right person to the right job. For most people with disabilities, just getting an interview is the biggest hurdle they face. And there is a huge difference in the types of jobs for which they are considered good candidates. “There’s two kinds of ‘hiring those with disabilities,’ ” Moore points out. “The first is hiring for entry-level positions,” which several local companies do pretty well. “But in terms of choosing a professional with a disability, there’s a lot of discrimination there,” he says. Florida State University and the State of Florida tend to be the biggest local employers of professionals with disabilities in the Tallahassee area. However, only about 25 percent of differently-abled people who are collegeeducated are working in their field, and even those highfunctioning people with disabilities still experience everyday discrimination. Harding confirms this. In his Ramps and wheelchairs can view, there is a big gap between empower people abilities and job placements in with certain the professional world. These disabilities to put their talents include attitudinal problems, to work. Richard programmatic inconsistencies Atherton helps and the lack of opportunities bridge gaps between disability for people with disabilities to and potential. show their abilities to employers. Unfortunately, reports indicate that only about 30 percent of people with disabilities are in the workforce, compared with around 70 percent of the able-bodied. In addition, different disabilities — such as emotional or physical — tend to get different opportunities from the business sector. For instance, there can be a strong stigma against hiring someone with PTSD or some other emotional disability, whereas a person on the autism spectrum may be stereotyped as having a certain set of expected abilities like math or cognitive skills. But it’s never a good idea to generalize characteristics to people, and this is especially important when considering someone from an HR standpoint.

If you are a differently-abled person, “you shouldn’t have to be the best employee in the building to keep your job,” Moore says. From an employer’s perspective, small accommodations can make the difference for successfully employing those with disabilities. For instance, an employee using a mood stabilizer to stem the effects of traumatic brain injury may experience morning sluggishness. Flexible work schedules can solve that problem. Professionals on the autism spectrum may have a hard time reading social cues, but education and training on etiquette, social and office rules, etc. can help them blend seamlessly with customers and co-workers alike. For workers with emotional disabilities, low-traffic and quiet work areas that provide little external stimulation can be the key to a successful employee.

2018 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 43

PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISABILITIES

In much the same way, people with chronic pain, orthopedic issues or those using a power chair can be enabled by using standing desks, inexpensively raising a conventional desk a few inches higher off the floor and other simple modification investments. To Moore, these common-sense changes to the work environment are how employers committed to equality — and to getting the absolute best employees on the payroll — are a low-cost solution with big social and productivity benefits. Speaking to the concern that employees with disabilities will increase insurance costs, Moore points out that this simply isn’t true. “Someone with a chronic illness is gonna hit your insurance much harder than someone who has healed, is not in the acute phase of their disease, and has learned to live successfully with that disability,” he explains. Dr. J.R. Harding, who teaches “Lifestyle choices that lead to management in chronic disease are much more the FSU College risky (for employers) than visible of Business, says workplace or invisible disabilities” in terms investments of employer concerns. that empower Harding contributes to this employees with disabilities pay off. culture shift by sharing his own story and through his teaching at FSU. He was injured in high school and has been wheelchair-bound since he was a teenager. Today, he teaches a management class at the FSU College of Business that focuses on ability inclusion. He also guest-lectures at several other academic programs in the university.

Often, community development block grants and small business incentives offer ways to pay for accessibility improvements, and there are certain tax credits available for hiring these employees.

From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance Harding knows from experience that, as a whole, society has evolved pretty well from the days when people with disabilities were hidden and isolated from the world at large. But, there’s a long way to go. In terms of higher education, faculty members’ actions, awareness and initiative to make equal-access accommodations for students with disabilities is much higher than it used to be. And, even from the K-12 perspective, students with disabilities are used to being mainstreamed (integrated with regular classes and not segregated into “special ed”

It’s common to hear business owners gripe about the mandated ADA-compliance requirements for new building permits (the $50,000 elevator that must be installed), or the seemingly over-priced retrofits required for any building improvements. It’s an unfortunate fact that many businesses use the “undue burden” clause to circumvent these legally mandated ADA access requirements. But “barrier removal” only begins with adding a handicapped parking space to the lot. There are, of course, more expensive and in-depth provisions in the law. But in reality, we all benefit when elevators are made larger and sidewalks are made smoother. And for people living with disabilities, these accommodations counteract the everyday discrimination that extends far beyond job opportunities and into daily life. From a business perspective, there are financial incentives to employing people with disabilities.

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PHOTO BY STEVE BORNHOFT

ADA Paves the Way

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PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISABILITIES

groups) much more today than even 20 years ago. It’s not uncommon for children with ADHD, a learning disability or autism to be learning alongside their average-abled peers. But a major shift happens after graduation, when students have to learn to advocate for themselves. Jovany Felix, director for the Center for Disability Access and Resources (CeDAR) at Florida A&M University, explains that from kindergarten through graduation, lots of things are done for students with disabilities. But, in higher education, these same students must learn to be responsible for their own empowerment and advocating for themselves and the services they need. “We want to minimize the students feeling uncomfortable advocating for themselves and in the learning environment,” he says. Students at FAMU have access to countless accommodations and tools, everything from mobility vans to alternative testing locations/procedures to dictation software and text reading devices.

But for a small state university situated in historically valuable buildings, “physical access is still a huge problem,” Felix admits. Retrofitting is very expensive and is a major area of concern. Using a new program through the Toni Jo Mason Foundation, FAMU will soon be offering scholarships for students with physical disabilities, to the tune of $24,000 over the next four years. And this is just the tip of the iceberg for what CeDAR offers. The majority of the 400-700 students that CeDAR may be serving at any one time are dealing with the invisible disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder or learning disabilities (comprehension, speech, hearing, ability to write, etc.). To help these students access their education, Felix and his team tell instructors how to accommodate students’ needs. They teach instructors how to make curricula accessible and flexible, especially in terms of how it’s delivered. CeDAR helps transform presentations and handouts into

reader-friendly formats and assists students and professors with information exchange. At a historically black university like FAMU, chronic diseases such as Sickle Cell Disease (a group of inherited red blood cell disorders that strikes 1 in 365 black children) can be a major source of disability in the student population. Accommodating any chronic disease is just as important as doing so for the “visible disabilities” that are readily apparent. Perhaps one of the most valuable tools that Felix’s program offers is the FAMU Alternative Admissions Program. Perhaps the only such program in the state and funded by the Johnson Scholarship Foundation, it begins in the summer semester and allows students to take up to three classes to get acclimated to college life with disabilities — and to begin the hard process of self-advocacy that so many persons with disabilities would rather not have to learn. Harding explains this phenomenon well: At college, he didn’t want to register for services. He had to reconcile his own issues

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related to his disabilities, but he says he learned so much (especially from his peers) once he did. Navigating the challenges, learning about scholarships and advocating for his own accommodations was part of his — and every disabled student’—higher education experience. “I learned in college that I happen to be in a chair, but I want to do other things,” he says. “That was transformational for me and lots of other people.” Similar programs exist at Tallahassee Community College, where around 1600 students in the fall semester alone requested accommodations through the TCC Accessibility and Resource Center. Using perhaps a more one-on-one approach than the larger institutions, office manager Shawnique Turner not only secures services for the students that come to her with documentation, she also advocates for those that clearly need help in getting their needs identified. Turner says that when a student asks for help

from her center but doesn’t have the required diagnosis or evaluations, she helps them get across those barriers. If they show signs of a problem, she refers them to several low- or no-cost local agencies for psychological testing to document the need for accommodations.

A Brighter Future Ahead Felix and his CeDAR team are fully integrated into the FAMU career center, with the aim of getting fair employment opportunities for the students they help. Through a program called CeDAR Ambassadors, Felix increases the visibility of these well-qualified, college-educated adults with employers. The CeDAR student ambassador teams perform outreach and engage employers through publicity events. In addition, they work to encourage more student participation by talking to the student population at large about the services they provide. “We want to become a bigger part of the recruiting system at FAMU,” he explains.

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“We want FAMU to become the place where students with disabilities come to get the accommodations that they need, the education they want and the jobs they are qualified to land.” Under the ADA, the expectation is that everyone — regardless of ability — has a right to employment and to fully experience life because everyone has something to contribute. Harding speaks for all advocates of employees and persons with disabilities when he says, “Once your life has been touched by someone with a disability, it changes your perspective forever.” There are more than 5,000 people with disabilities in Tallahassee who are currently enrolled in college. They will soon be seeking meaningful, professional employment. Business leaders in this area and beyond should understand that making usually small investments in these people can mean huge dividends in terms of highly educated, professional, dedicated and grateful long-term employees.

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FSU RESEARCH

ECONOMIC STIMULUS Researchers and their salaries benefit community by TISHA CREWS KELLER

PHOTO COURTESY OF FSU PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES

ccording to the Brookings Institution, two-thirds of the most influential technologies of the past 50 years have been developed at national laboratories and universities. Consider the smartphone, autonomous vehicle technology and other innovations that are transforming our way of life. They all owe key technological components to research and development activities that are federally funded and reside in local communities. By fostering this research and advancements, the federal government plays a key role in economic development. As Brookings expert Scott Andres puts it, these investments “come to ground” in communities across the country, and these regions share in the economic benefits of research.

This is certainly true for Tallahassee and Florida State University. To date, FSU researchers have been awarded 506 patents — that directly or indirectly contribute to manufacturing, business processes, creative license and other positive effects on the economic health of the local area.

Bringing in the Funding In total, 6,374 local people were employed by FSU in 2014-15 (the latest available figures), and that doesn’t include faculty and parttime OPS positions. In addition to the sheer number of households supported by FSU’s payroll, research and development funds are a growing and important economic driver for the Tallahassee economy. Dr. Gary Ostrander, vice president for

A graduate student works at the High-Performance Materials Institute, which is part of the FSU Office of Research and is located in Innovation Park.

research for FSU, estimates FSU pulled in $200 million in funding from federal, state and other sources in 2017. In 2016, these grant awards impacted the local economy in many ways, but most heavily through the major salaries that are paid to faculty and research staff. Ostrander explains that typically, a lead researcher will earn about $75,000 in salary. A graduate student that works halftime will earn anywhere from $20,00030,000 per year. A medical researcher with an MD in the College of Medicine earns $100,000 or more, and at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, those salaries easily exceed six figures. In terms of economic development, this impact is huge. These salaries feed into the local economy in the form of taxes (local, sales

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Graduate research assistant Ted Worden works in the anechoic jet facility at the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, located in Innovation Park.

FSU RESEARCH ECONOMIC IMPACT SNAPSHOT FOR 2014-15* Total research and development budget expenditures by FSU exceeded $256 million Total amount of sponsored research was more than $200

million

FSU generated $6 billion of direct revenue or expense, with $9.94 billion worth of industry output and 94,160 jobs Revenue generated by FSU created an additional $3.82 billion of labor income, $1.78 billion of property income, and $501.8 million in business taxes *Most recent available data

and property), retail activity, philanthropy, and even entrepreneurial pursuits by these professionals and their families. The latest figures indicate a $3.50$4.50 per dollar multiplier into the local economy. Besides salaries and economic multipliers, FSU rewards faculty innovation through patent royalties and income, and profit-sharing from copyrights. In its current structure, for the first $10,000 in royalties/income, FSU allows 85 percent of that to go to the inventor(s) and the remaining 15 percent feeds back into the FSU research foundation. For proceeds over $10,000, it is split by 40 percent to the inventor(s), 30 percent to the inventors’ department and 30 percent to the research foundation. In a similar way, authors retain 50 percent of copyright proceeds and royalties, and the other half is split between the research foundation and the author’s academic unit. Through this incentive approach, FSU faculty are sharing in the fruits of their innovation, but they also enjoy additional funding for the programs in which they work, hopefully furthering their capacity for more and more research and groundbreaking creativity.

The Research Life Cycle The September 2017 Monthly Award Report from FSU’s Office of Research showed a total of $6,351,099 in total research grants revenue. Of those, the main funding sources were: National Institutes of Health ($3,190,599), State of Florida ($1,520,088), Department of Defense ($1,133,316), National Science Foundation ($271,176), and the U.S. Department of Education ($119,229).

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These numbers are the result of countless hours spent by dozens of researchers, faculty and staff that are writing proposals, finding funding, managing award dollars and sharing results of their efforts. This machine is a major part of what FSU’s Office of Research does, and it pays big dividends to the university and to the local economy. FSU offers help to researchers in the form of idea generation, collaborator matching, proposal writing, boilerplate material, training and workshops, and more. In October 2017, FSU announced it brought in $35.8 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal year 2017 (ending on Sept. 30), more than double the amount the university received five years prior. This grant award positioned FSU as one of the leaders in the state for health and biomedical research, ranking it fifth in the state for NIH funding — ahead of the Mayo Clinic and Moffitt Cancer Center. According to FSU, the Florida Legislature’s designation of FSU as one of the state’s two preeminent universities and the funding tied to that designation allowed the university to hire additional faculty in the areas of health science and more. This trickle-down effect means more researchers proposing more funding and an increase in awards from federal sources. The research labs, centers and institutes that report to the FSU Office of Research include: the Aeropopulsion Mechatronics & Energy Center, the Center for Advanced Power Systems, the National Magnetic High Field Laboratory, FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory, Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, Florida Climate Institute, Future Fuels Institute, High-Performance Materials Institute, and the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Ostrander points out that while larger projects come with major funding, smaller projects still employ students and staff. And many technologies don’t end up having the same impact as did Taxol (the famed breast cancer drug developed at FSU), which included residuals of $352 million that FSU used to build buildings, invest in endowment and is still using to further projects on campus. Many of the technologies these grants produce, he points out, don’t lead to company startups, but they are often acquired and provide royalties, income and money for salaries, buildings and more even after the grants conclude.

PHOTO COURTESY OF FSU PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES

FSU RESEARCH

TOP TEN FUNDED FSU RESEARCH PROJECTS The top 10 currently funded research projects alone at FSU bring in just under $258 million to the local economy. Beginning with the highest award, the projects are multi-year economic generators that promise not only millions in salaries, but potentially enduring revenue sources through patents, copyrights and licensing agreements. 1. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory – National Science Foundation (grant year ending 2017): $168,386,367 The only facility of its kind in the United States, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Mag Lab) led by Greg Boebinger is the largest and highest-powered magnet laboratory in the world. Annually, thousands of scientists from around the world travel to use its unique magnets with the support of highly experienced staff scientists and technicians. Because it is funded by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida, these researchers use the facilities for free, probing fundamental questions about materials, energy and life. Their findings result in more than 400 scientific publications a year in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Science and Physical Review Letters.

2. Reading for Understanding Research Initiative – U.S. Department of Education (grant year ending 2018): $20,000,000 According to the researchers led by Christopher Lonigan, the goals of this project are to “investigate the underlying cognitive and linguistic components that contribute to or that present the acquisition of well-developed comprehension skills.” They also aim to create and evaluate coherent, integrated and multi-component instructional techniques that are intended to build skills for students’ oral and text comprehension and reading for understanding. This is a longitudinal study and will explore the accumulated effects of instruction over multiple years of schooling. It involves pre-kindergarten through fourth grade students from schools in Leon, Bay, Liberty and other counties in north Florida.

3. Military Suicide Research Consortium: Toward a Gold Standard for Suicide Risk Assessment for Military Personnel – U.S. Army (grant year ending 2021): $14,189,843

FSU’s Dr. Thomas Joiner, along with coinvestigator Peter Gutierrez at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, wants to understand how great is the risk that an emotionally troubled patient will engage in some form of suicidal behavior in the near future. To this end, they believe it would be extremely valuable if clinicians had an accurate and easy way to assess the risk of imminent suicidal behavior in patients. These two are testing four common suicidal risk assessments to determine the best tool or combination of tools — the gold standard — that offers the most accurate prediction of suicidal behavior in the short-term future. Over the course of three years, they will assess these measures during their use in a total of 900 military personnel.

4. The Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion – Florida Legislature (grant year ending 2018): $11,028,922

Dr. Farrukh Alvi is a professor of mechanical engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and he directs the FCAAP, which was designed to “meet the needs of a rapidlyevolving and highly competitive aerospace industry.” The Center aims to train and sustain a vital, highly-skilled workforce; to develop new technologies and products for the aerospace industry; and to efficiently transfer this timely research into the aeronautics/aviation industry. The FCAAP is a technical incubator and partners with aerospace industry, government and other stakeholders.

5. Mobilizing Community Systems to Engage Families – National Institutes of Mental Health (grant year ending 2018): $10,328,408.00 Principal investigator Dr.

Amy Wetherby will focus on children at 18 months of age, which is the earliest age that autism spectrum disorder can reliably be detected. She will compare the effectiveness of screening and referral by three different community systems, including primary care, WIC services, and the National Black Church Initiative. Using the recent FSU Research spin-off company she pioneered, Autism Navigator, Wetherby will determine which of these modes most successfully captures autism markers at the earliest possible age. The Autism Navigator is an innovative, web-based diagnostic tool that offers training, diagnostic tools, mini-documentaries on autism, specialtydesigned video players, an exclusive video bank that illustrates effective evidence-based practice and practical advice for parents and professionals alike. Under the auspices of autism research, Wetherby has more than $16 million in grant funding through 2017 and 2018.

6. HZB Educational Research Agreement – FSU Magnet and Research Development Inc. (grant ending 2019): $9,057,318 In 2014, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory completed building the world’s strongest magnet for neutron scattering. They shipped the magnet to their partner, the Berlin Neutron Scattering Center. At 25 tesla, it is used to study the structure and dynamics of materials, primarily high-temperature superconductors. Principal investigator Mark Bird explains that neutrons are remarkable probes of phenomena within solids. The combination of neutrons and a very strong magnetic field will allow scientists to study the normal state of high-temperature solids and explore the hydrogen structure in both biological and hydrogen-storage materials. The project is funding primarily through the German government.

7. Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management – Florida Department of Financial Services (grant ending 2020): $7,945,054 Led by Lorilee Medders, the Florida

Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center provides researchers, policymakers, governments and other stakeholders with comprehensive information on catastrophic risk financing. The center organizes content for academics, researchers and others around the world. The organization was created and funded by the Florida Legislature in 2007 and it supports the state’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from catastrophic events. Activities include trainings, conferences, risk management research, information and helping the government and businesses prepare for the worst.

8. WFSU Operations – FSU Foundation (grant ending 2018): $6,275,000

This is the operating budget for WFSU, Tallahassee’s National Public Radio outlet. Because its funding comes through the FSU Foundation, it is included in the research and grants calculations for the university.

9. Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast – U.S. Department of Education (grant ending 2022): $5,420,454 Led by Dr. Barbara Foorman, the REL Southeast is a network of 10 laboratories that serves their regions by providing access to high-quality research through development projects, studies and related technical assistance activities for local educators and educational systems. The network of Regional Education Laboratories is a nationwide project funded through the U.S. Department of Education since the 1960s.

10. Electric Ship Research and Development Consortium – Office of Naval Research (grant ending 2021): $5,357,215 The Electric Ship Research and

Development Consortium combines the programs and resources nationwide that are working on leading electric power research to develop near to mid-term electric ship concepts. At FSU, Dr. Roger McGinnis leads this effort. The consortium addresses a national shortage of its electric power engineers by providing state-ofthe-art facilities and educational opportunities for students in those locations. FSU is one of many universities, including Michigan State, MIT, Purdue University, University of South Carolina, and more. The organization focuses on funding projects that model and simulate new equipment and systems, prototype testing and development for the Navy, technology and software development, and workshops on modeling, simulation, reconfiguration and power train technology for electric ships.

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OFFICE OF ECONOMIC VITALITY

OEV IGNITES ECONOMIC VITALITY WITH LAYERED, HOLISTIC EFFORT City-county agency aims to commercialize research, expand business capacity and bag a trophy by ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

n Tallahassee-Leon County, economic development by any other name … is a whole ’nother ballgame. Previously housed in the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and funded by city and county government as well as private dollars, past economic development efforts were described as “disjointed … with little indication of success” in a strategic plan from VisionFirst Advisors. In February 2016, the Office of Economic Vitality (OEV) was formed as part of a newly created city/ county department for Planning, Land Management and Community Enhancement — acronym PLACE. Guided by the strategic plan, a newly assembled staff has spent the almost two years since following the strategic goals outlined in it. The plan advised a “crawl, walk, run” approach to ramping up its operations. “The challenge,” the plan says, “will be moving quickly to implement immediate strategies and tactics while at the same time developing a system and process that supports a holistic approach to economic development — something that has never been done in the community.”

Community representatives have been recruited for three committees — a Leadership Council, a Competitiveness Council and a Citizen’s Advisory Council relating to Minority, Women & Small Business Enterprise (MWSBE) — and much of the staff’s early days have been filled with meetings, meetings, meetings and strategizing, strategizing, strategizing to implement six elements of the new OEV vision. Those cornerstones include the traditional attraction of businesses from outside the area but with an expansion to include business formation; business retention and expansion; technology transfer and commercialization (in other words, getting the research being done at Florida State University and Florida A&M University into the commercial marketplace); tapping into the creative economy; and developing a talent pipeline.

Brian K. Wyatt Jr., president and CEO of B-EZ Graphix, a veteran-owned, multimedia marketing agency, shares business know-how in a Minority, Women & Small Business Enterprise class offered through OEV’s Industry Academy.

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OFFICE OF ECONOMIC VITALITY

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revenue is earmarked for economic development. Shaving off allocations for Tallahassee International Airport and Donald L. Tucker Convention Center, the OEV’s share is expected to total $54 million. While the economic development process’ focus and budget is expanding, economic developers are still hoping to lure one of those rara avis projects — a huge distribution center, company headquarters, tech company expansion or manufacturing plant — to this community in the future. OEV Director Al Latimer estimates perhaps 20 such opportunities arise every year nationwide. With forethought, planning and discerning the best fit for Tallahassee-Leon County, he’s confident the area will get the nod. “You can count on us to put our name in the hat when we feel we strongly have the foundation to support an opportunity,” Latimer said. “That project is out there, and I think the way … we are approaching economic vitality now, it’s going to identify more of those opportunities,” he continued. “Part of our strategic plan calls for the creation of a marketing and communications plan … and it will allow us for the first time in Tallahassee-Leon County’s history to aggressively promote the region. We look forward to 2018 and beyond to tell our story.”

Carlos Wilder, CEO of CTW Broadcasting, benefited from OEV development initiatives in building his business, which produces digital audio-visual content.

WANT TO KNOW MORE? The TallahasseeLeon County Office of Economic Vitality has a robust website chock full of information at oevforbusiness. org. You can also find information on Facebook and Twitter: @OEVforBusiness and #FLCapital4Biz. In addition to general information about the OEV and its services, you’ll find a copy of the 126-page strategic plan and a wealth of data about TallahasseeLeon County and its workforce.

PHOTO BY RAY BENTON CREATIVE COURTESY OF CARLOS WILDER

It’s not just a wish list. Each of these areas includes specific, measurable goals and timelines for implementation. There are hard-number successes — 193 new jobs since April 2016, 18 active projects, two companies recruited, two company expansions and three leads generated through an existing business outreach program called CapitalLOOP. “This first year is kind of a networkbuilding year for this program,” explained Cristina Paredes, deputy director of the OEV. “Our goal is to sit down with you, the business owner, tell you who we are and — more importantly — learn from you what your experience is doing business in Florida’s capital community.” In the first six months of these efforts, the staff has already reached the plan goal of 50 such meetings. The office’s MWSBE program has also posted gains, with companies becoming certified to bid on city and county projects up by 25 percent. Tallahassee and Leon County have always sought to encourage minorities and women to make bids and, like most other governmental entities, it was historically affiliated with their purchasing departments. “Now, in addition to becoming eligible to bid on governmental projects, the OEV is putting programs into place to help these businesses grow and compete in the private sector, too,” said Darryl Jones, deputy director of the Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise Program. “We see part of our responsibility is to help them build capacity,” Jones said. “Through industry academies, additional source information, education, and networking opportunities, we’re putting them into the CapitalLOOP … making our minority- and women-owned businesses aware of the fantastic resources available to them.” Now operating with funds provided by the city and the county, starting in 2020 the OEV will have a steady source of support, thanks to a continuation of a local penny-per-dollar sales tax approved by voters in 2014. Estimated to generate about $756 million over its 20-year lifespan, 12 percent of that

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lmost a century ago, the old electric building located in what is now known as Cascades Park was the source of energy for our beautiful community. Today, after its transformation into The Edison Restaurant, the building serves as a bright and energetic source for our Tallahassee neighbors and visitors to gather, eat and make memories. The Edison is brought to you by a passionate group of local investors who are committed to our great city and its future. Every day our dedicated and hardworking staff made up of this city’s finest residents, students, sons, daughters, husbands and wives strive to bring you an awesome experience unlike anything else in Tallahassee The Edison is packed with history, surprises and all manner of unique places to meet, celebrate and have fun. Our open dining room with industrial designs and sweeping high ceilings is

one-of-a-kind. The restaurant and its park side patios offer regional cuisine sourced from vendors all over our great state as we strive to celebrate the best of Florida. Our private spaces include an intimate wine room featuring a wall of wine bottles; and the Chef’s table, an intimate nook in The Edison’s kitchen, offering an area for your special celebrations or a chance to look behind the curtain and interact with the restaurant’s staff while watching your dinner being prepared. For larger events, walk upstairs to Innovation Hall, a banquet room like none other in Tallahassee. The room features enormous arched windows with breathtaking views of Cascades Park. The high ceilings, exposed brick and strings of lights make this the perfect room for a wedding, rehearsal dinner or corporate event. During the holiday season, The Edison’s décor, including a large Christmas tree, makes Innovation Hall the perfect venue.

“TODAY ... THE BUILDING SERVES AS A BRIGHT AND ENERGETIC SOURCE FOR OUR TALLAHASSEE NEIGHBORS AND VISITORS TO GATHER, EAT AND MAKE MEMORIES.” – Mike Xifaras, Investor and Managing Partner of The Edison

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Outside, The Edison’s covered deck has great views and an incredible circular bar, but our favorite is the beer garden. The beer garden is an intimate space featuring a spiral stairway that was once located inside the building. Today it serves as a piece of art to remind us of prior elements of this beautiful building. Finally, the beer garden opens onto a large patio and grassy area that has hosted barbecues and weddings alike. It is a favorite location to sip a cup of coffee or to enjoy a grand celebration! With an indoor-outdoor atmosphere that welcomes all residents and visitors, dedicated service and a menu with great food and drinks, The Edison is the perfect choice for your next dinner, event or business meeting. We would be privileged if you, your family and friends would allow us the opportunity to seat you at The Edison Restaurant. I invite you to take in Cascades’ vibrant scene with a fresh cup of coffee, a relaxing glass of wine or a delicious breakfast, lunch or dinner. – The Edison Restaurant

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Dear Tallahassee, You probably have noticed Tallahassee has taken some hits lately. We understand what that feels like. Seeing a market through recessions, hurricanes and economic decline seasoned us with grit and determination. By FORGING partnerships with like-minded community enthusiasts, being opportunistic in our approach and not settling for “no” led to developments in a thriving community built on authenticity. We know many of you are working towards positive change for Tallahassee with a thirst for new ideas and SUCCESSFUL projects. Our team shares that mindset. We ask you to let us help with your efforts. What do we offer? A fresh, clear outlook on the marketplace with the expertise in real estate, property management and insurance to encompass the full life cycle of your business to get streamlined, actionable solutions. What are we doing? Pulling in exceptional local talent from FSU to retain bright professionals to the region, giving back to our communities with a guaranteed 10% of our profits donated to local charities and driving growth through strategic planning and partnerships. Our team of experts are committed to our client’s and community’s prosperous FUTURES. Maybe it’s time for a change? New eyes hungry for growth, ready to challenge the status quo. Let’s talk about what Tallahassee is doing right and where it’s going. The team is invested and hitting the ground running. We want to hear your ideas for moving this deep-rooted city with an upbeat vitality forward. Onward, Justin A. Beck

850.477.7044 + TeamBeck.com 60 / 2018 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

TOURISM

RACING TO THE TOP Cross-country venue earns national reputation PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISIT TALLAHASSEE AND LEON COUNTY COMMUNITY AND MEDIA RELATIONS

by LAURA CASSELS

star performer in Leon County’s tourism-development program is its cross-country venue, which is becoming known as one of the nation’s best. The 140-acre, digitally equipped Apalachee Regional Park will soon enhance its reputation by hosting and broadcasting four of the biggest, most prestigious events in the sport. Thousands of amateur and elite athletes running here will include celebrity professional runners and Olympians. Apalachee Regional Park was chosen to host the 2018 and 2019 USA Track & Field Cross Country Championships, the 2021

Division 1 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Cross Country Championships, and the USA Track & Field Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships that were held on Dec. 9. Landing these events — which was accomplished by the sports marketing team at Visit Tallahassee, a division of Leon County — is unprecedented in Florida and does more than even promoting visitation worth $20 million so far in tourism tax revenue and visitor spending. It makes Tallahassee-Leon County a celebrity in the national cross-country running world. “The races we can host there are massive,”

Competitors race past a throng of spectators in a Florida High School Athletic Association state championship at Apalachee Regional Park, off Apalachee Parkway just east of Williams Road. FHSAA has staged its premier event here six years in a row.

said Brian Hickey, who directed the sportsmarketing team for 12 years and was instrumental in developing Apalachee Regional Park, created in 2009. “There are really very few now in our class.”

Leon County investment The site of the cross-country course was once designated for future landfill usage but Leon County repurposed it in 2009 for trails and passive recreation. Four years later, the county invested $250,000 in strategic improvements — substantially widening the course and installing fiberoptic digital capabilities. “For that investment, the course has yielded $20 million,” Hickey said. “The ROI the county has achieved is phenomenal.”

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TOURISM

Partnership with FSU Bob Braman, Florida State head coach for track, field and cross-country running, and Brian Corbin, then on the Gulf Winds

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board of directors, were the first to scope out the site of the future running course and hacked through its brush and undergrowth with machetes to establish its first trail. They envisioned a dedicated course that would get their runners off of golf courses, road shoulders and public parks not as well suited for training, much less to accommodating large events involving thousands of athletes, spectators and their cars. Braman said Apalachee Regional Park lends itself to superior coaching and training and is a valuable tool in recruiting new athletes to Florida State. “This is the best collegiate course in America, and that helps out with recruiting,” he said. “When they come here, it lets us show off our city and the trails we have here. This is the home of the Florida State Seminoles. It’s a point of pride.” The 2018, the 2019 and particularly the 2021 championships will cement Apalachee Regional Park’s reputation as a national leader in cross-country racing, he predicts. “We’ll have 5,000 national championship spectators,” he said. Many thousands more will watch the events on livestream feeds, and at least two championships are expected to be televised by ESPN. Installation of fiberoptic tracking technology along the course — a brainchild often attributed to Heidecker, a competitive runner herself — makes livestreaming a simple plug-and-play operation that most courses lack. “No one else has it that I know of,” Braman said. “I’ve never seen it and I’ve been all over the country in 35 years as a coach.” The more the running world knows about the course here, the more runners and coaches will want to train and compete here, he said. All founders and developers of the course at Apalachee Regional Park credit Leon County’s Parks and Recreation Department for physically transforming undeveloped acreage into a premiere running facility. In particular, Dean Richards, Richard Fagan and Department Director Leigh Davis ensured that personnel and equipment were supplied to clear the land, create contours, divert groundwater, remove roots and obstacles, spray for mosquitoes, suppress dust with water-sprinkling trucks, and comb the

A pack fresh off the starting line hits the downhill slope during an FHSAA state championship. Runners and coaches give the course high marks.

course just before each event to remove all imperfections that could impede footing.

City of runners Corbin said Gulf Winds Track is proud of its role in the program. “We’re all about running, in as many ways as possible, at all levels. Cross country is one of those branches,” Corbin said. “Coach Braman and I were originally out there with machetes, cutting through thickets and putting streamers up. … Over the years, the project has grown more than any of us could have imagined.” Corbin applauds the partnerships and public investments that made Apalachee Regional Park possible. “When I heard about the national championships coming, I teared up. It’s such a big deal and it started from nothing and steamrolled along,” he said. One FSU alum in that league of elites is 2016 steeplechase Olympian and Bowerman Track Club professional runner Colleen Quigley, who won the women’s 6K in the 2016 USATF National Club Cross Country Championships at Apalachee Regional Park. As she raced toward the finish line, far in the lead, she did a signature FSU tomahawk chop for cheering spectators and remote viewers. “She left no doubt where she was from,” Coach Braman said proudly.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISIT TALLAHASSEE AND LEON COUNTY COMMUNITY AND MEDIA RELATIONS

In 2016 alone, 20,000 visitors spent $8.4 million here. An estimated 65,000 visitors are projected to attend the four upcoming national championships, spending $24 million. In November 2017, Hickey passed the reins of the county’s sports-marketing program to Amanda Heidecker, his assistant director for the past five years. As the new director, she will oversee the upcoming national championships, which will be live-streamed and/ or nationally televised. And she will oversee further improvements at the park intended to secure its reputation as the best in its class. “We will be investing over a million dollars in the course between now and the 2021 championship,” Heidecker said. The new amenities will include an operations building (replacing a trailer), a new stage for awards ceremonies with backdrops making the park’s name prominent in team photos and videos, concessions facilities, drug-testing facilities and more. The improvements will make Apalachee Regional Park even more of a magnet for events. It already has rare amenities including a Jumbotron that broadcasts races and runner stats in real time, and a private trail inside the circular course that lets coaches run alongside and call out instructions to their athletes. Spectators are kept at a safe distance from the runners and coaches but are encouraged to cheer on the sidelines. Teams and their entourages set up tents with streamers and banners on the park’s rolling hills, lending these events the feel of an Olympic festival. Running enthusiasts at Florida State University and Gulf Winds Track Club were the progenitors of Apalachee Regional Park. They made financial investments, and the credentials of their running programs empowered them as advocates. “They were the founders of this program. They saw the potential,” Hickey said. “The local running groups drove this, and obviously Florida State plays a role that continues to make a huge, national impact,” Heidecker said.

Offices in Pensacola, Panama City and 16 other locations across Florida and Georgia

TOGETHER WE CAN HELP HOMELESS, RUNAWAY AND AT-RISK YOUTH CCYSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; programs like emergency shelter, transitional living, street outreach and counseling not only provide important prevention and intervention services to youth and families. These services save taxpayers $5.50 for every $1 invested.

Visit CCYS.org to find out how you can help homeless, runaway and at-risk youth.

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Let us help you work ON your business! SMALL BUSINESS EXECUTIVE PROGRAM (SBEP) Participants in this program receive assistance in developing long-term strategies, creating practical action plans and connecting with fellow business owners and members of the Jim Moran Institute’s network. The goal is to provide guidance and support, helping entrepreneurs work “ON” their businesses.

NONPROFIT EXECUTIVE PROGRAM (NPEP) In collaboration with other nonprofit resources, this program helps nonprofits work “ON” their organizations with a focus on efficiencies. Graduates emerge from the experience as strong leaders.

CEO PEER2PEER GROUPS This structured peer program provides a confidential environment for CEOs and business owners wishing to share best practices, resolve challenges and support each other’s business growth.

CONTACT Mike Campbell Director, North Florida Operations P: 850.644.3372 C: 850.545.7354 mscampbell@JimMoranInstitute.fsu.edu jmi.fsu.edu/programs 64 / 2018 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

BUSINESS NEWS

REGIONAL

» Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet

inducted 20 individuals into the Florida Veterans’ Hall of Fame on Nov. 27, including five from northwest Florida. Inductees from Tallahassee are Capt. Dale W. Doss, U.S. Navy; John P. Folsom, U.S. Navy; Col. Bruce J. Host, U.S. Air Force; and John E. Thrasher, U.S. Army. From Fort Walton Beach, 1st Sgt. Thomas S. Rice, U.S. Army, was inducted. The Hall of Fame honors military veterans who, through their works and lives during or after military service, have made significant contributions to the state of Florida through civic activities, business, public service or other pursuits. Unlike a traditional military hall of fame, this institution recognizes post-military achievements.

DOSS

FOLSOM

THRASHER

RICE

HOST

» Sacred Heart Health System

will add Ascension to its name as part of a national effort to make it clearer and easier for patients to access the care they need and to navigate their health. Sacred Heart Health System will change its name to Ascension Sacred Heart and adopt the Ascension logo. Patients will continue to see their doctors, but those doctors will now have access to the expertise of other specialists across the state and country.

CAPITAL

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PROFILED INDIVIDUALS

APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR

» Gov. Rick Scott recently announced four re-appointments and six appointments to the Medicaid Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee, including Dr. John Bailey, 58, of Tallahassee, reappointed through June 30, 2019. Bailey is a psychiatrist at John Bailey, D.O., LLC. He received his doctor of osteopathy from the Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine.

SOUNDBYTES

» Richard Myhre, 38, of Crawfordville; Rodney MacKinnon, 41, of Tallahassee; and Elizabeth Moya, 36, of Tallahassee, appointed by Gov. Rick Scott, served last fall on the Committee on Early Grade Success. Myhre is the Executive Director of Just Read, Florida! within the Department of Education. MacKinnon is the Executive Director of the Office of Early Learning. Moya is the Legislative Affairs Director in the Office of Early Learning. LOCAL HAPPENINGS

» First Commerce

Credit Union’s Power Forward Speaker Series will feature Chip Conley, speaking CONLEY about his role with hospitality industry disruptor Airbnb. Conley, entrepreneur and business rebel, is a leader at the forefront of the sharing economy. He was head of Airbnb Global Hospitality and Strategy. Past speakers have included NFL legend Conle entrepreneur Jim Kelly; Randi Zuckerberg from the Facebook startup team; Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.; and Barbara Corcoran of the entrepreneurial hit “Shark Tank.” The event is on Jan. 31 at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. Tickets are available at tickets.fsu.edu.

PROMOTING GOODWILL In September, 14,000 pounds of food and household paper products were given to needy families in the Tallahassee area by Leon County Sheriff’s deputies, in partnership with Farm Share, a South Florida-based nonprofit organization that distributed nearly 2 million pounds of free food and supplies throughout Florida following Hurricane Irma. Participants included representatives from the office of state Rep. Ramon Alexander, the non-profit Living Stones International; and Tallahassee-based civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Participants included representatives of state Rep. Ramon Alexander, Living Stones International, Tallahassee attorney Ben Crump (left), and Farm Share representatives Verla LawsonGrady and Stephen Shelley.

» Tallahassee-Leon County

» Tallahassee-based civil-rights attorney Ben Crump hosted a debut screening of the feature film Marshall, in which he has a cameo role, as a fundraiser for minority law students at Florida State University and Florida A&M University. The movie is about a case early in the career of the late Thurgood Marshall, who became the first African American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Crump became known nationally by representing survivors of Trayvon Martin, killed in Sanford, Florida, in 2012 by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted on a stand-your-ground defense. The screening/fundraiser was attended by numerous attorneys, judges and criminaljustice authorities.

was one of five metropolitan areas in Florida selected to host showcase tours for the 8th Americas Competitiveness Exchange, or ACE 8, for 50 highlevel decision-makers visiting from the Americas and other parts of the world. Also chosen for the tour in December were Gainesville/Alachua County, Orlando/Orange County, St. Augustine/St. Johns County and the Space Coast. The tour, showcasing facilities such as Leon County-Tallahassee’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Danfoss Turbocor and the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, was arranged by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. Department of State.

» The Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship in the Florida State University

College of Business is accepting applications for its Small Business Executive Program (SBEP) Class VIII. Businesses that have been in operation for three years or more and have three or more employees are eligible to apply at jmi.fsu. edu (click on “Programs”). The application deadline is Jan. 30. The first session starts Feb. 21 and runs through May 16.

Memorial Healthcare. The auditorium is now called Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Auditorium, and the nursing lab is now called Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Nursing Lab.

LOCAL HONORS

» Leadership Tallahassee, a program of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, presented the 2017 Distinguished Leadership Awards in September to community members who have proven their investment in Tallahassee and its citizens. Proceeds from the event, attended by more than 400 people, went to the Youth Leadership Tallahassee program. Steve Evans, retired IBM executive, received the Lifetime Leadership award; J.R. Harding, disability leader and advocate with the State of Florida’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities, received the Servant Leadership Award; Audra Pittman, executive director of the Council on Culture and Arts and the owner and founder of Suite P Creative Studio, received the Leadership Pacesetter Award; and Andy Miller, president and CEO of Seminole Boosters, received the Leader of the Year Award. The Distinguished Leadership Awards were presented by Centennial Bank and were sponsored, in large part, by Tallahassee Community College.

» Tallahassee Community College has renamed the auditorium and one of the nursing labs at the Ghazvini Center for Healthcare Education in honor of Tallahassee

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

» Cathy Wool of

» Nan Baughman, a domestic

Balanced Books of North Florida, LLC, has been named a 2017 Top 100 ProAdvisor WOOL by Insightful Accountant, an independent news and information source. This is Wool’s fourth consecutive year making the list, which is voted on by colleagues and professionals in the accounting industry.

violence counselor with Jefferson County Outreach, has received the President’s Award at the Monticello Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Dinner and Election of Officers/Directors.

» Florida State University

football player Mavin Saunders was named to the 2017 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team for tutoring and mentoring children at John G. Riley Elementary School weekly for the past two years. Derrick Coles, director of Student-Athlete Development and Community Service, and Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna joined with Allstate agent Tom Paterson to present Saunders with a trophy at a surprise celebration at the school. Allstate also donated new books and FSU football memorabilia to the school.

» Four Tallahassee lawyers are among 255 statewide who recently earned Florida Bar Board Certification. Boardcertified lawyers are “evaluated for professionalism and tested for expertise.” Board-certified in the 2nd Judicial Circuit are Diane G. DeWolf, DeWolf, Akerman LLP, specializing in appellate practice; Stephanie A. Johnson, Legal Services of North Florida, specializing in juvenile law; Michael L. MacNamara, The MacNamara Law Firm, specializing in criminal trial law; and Kristen Coons McRae, City of Tallahassee, specializing in city, county and local government law. Of the more than 118,000 Florida lawyers, over 5,000 have earned board certification. Florida offers 26 specialty areas for board certification, more than any other state in the nation.

BEGINNINGS

» Brian Hickey,

former sports marketing director at Visit Tallahassee, HICKEY has been selected to direct the Florida Afterschool Network. Hickey was with Visit Tallahassee for 12 years and grew Leon County’s sports programs by 90 percent. Hickey brings to his new role a strong background in economic development, event management, grant development, fundraising and other experience beneficial to FAN’s school-age initiatives.

» Thomas Howell Ferguson

P.A. CPAs, headquartered in Tallahassee, congratulates Chandler Russell on receiving her CPA license and congratulates Tim Icardi and Jorge Rivera on passing the CPA exam. Russell, a Tallahassee native, began working for THF in October 2015 as a staff accountant in assurance services. She was promoted to senior accountant in October. Chandler is a member of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Icardi and Rivera have passed the four parts of the CPA exam and are working on the remaining work hours to satisfy the requirement for licensure.

ICARDI

» First Florida Credit Union celebrated the groundbreaking of its new Bannerman Crossing branch, located at 3339 Breech Ridge Court. The new branch is the sixth location to open in Tallahassee and the 14th to open in the state.

EMERALD COAST

APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR

» Gov. Rick Scott recently announced four re-appointments and six appointments to the Medicaid Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee, including Dr. Holly Neal Moreau, 45, of Miramar, who was appointed through June 30, 2019, to succeed Jill Hanson.

BEGINNINGS

» Bret Fisher, MD, of The Eye Center of North Florida was named a medical monitor for ReVision Optics, Inc. (RVO), a leader in implantable presbyopia-correcting corneal inlay technology. Dr. Fisher, one of two ophthalmologists chosen nationwide, will serve as a co-medical monitor to oversee the clinical performance of the Company’s Raindrop® Near Vision Inlay, a novel corneal inlay for the surgical correction of presbyopia approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2016. The Eye Center of North Florida has offices in Panama City, Panama City Beach, Chipley and Port St. Joe. » Studer Properties is planning a $6.5 million upgrade for the nine-story building at 220 West Garden Street in downtown Pensacola, formerly known as SunTrust Tower. Developer Quint Studer said the 95,000-squarefoot office building will be transformed into a place for community discussions and dialogue, hosting expert speakers on issues important to Pensacola, and creating an open public space for citizens to meet and enjoy downtown. » White-Wilson Medical Center now offers ophthalmology care at its new White-Wilson

investment, acquisition and development company, has purchased the Wyndham Garden Tallahassee Capitol hotel. Also in September, AD1 purchased the Quality Inn Royale Parc Suites Orlando by Choice Hotels located in Kissimmee. “We are in the strategic acquisition mode,” said President Daniel Berman. “This (Tallahassee) property like the others in our expanding portfolio appeals to the demand drivers in this market and is in a great location.” of Commerce kicked off a new fiscal year on Oct. 3 and named Heidi Otway its 2017-18 Board Chair. Otway, APR, CPRC, is vice

RIVERA

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

» A mentorship program with Jim Moran Institute students and Tallahassee Community College Veterans was launched in mid-November. A launch event, VEThursday, was brought to the public by the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at Florida State University and was hosted by the TCC Center for Innovation. It consisted of entrepreneurial sessions, an exhibitor space and networking opportunities. The goal was to connect local veterans with entrepreneurial resources and to help build a “vetrepreneur” network in Tallahassee.

Dr. Moreau is the director of pharmacy for Prestige Health Choice and received her doctor of pharmacy from Florida A&M University.

» AD1 Global, a hotel

» The Tallahassee Chamber RUSSELL

president for public relations and media at SalterMitchell.

850businessmagazine.com

EXPANDING TO TALLAHASSEE Commercial real estate and insurance company Beck Partners announced the opening of a new office at 930 Thomasville Road, Suite 106, in Midtown. “Expansion in Tallahassee has called for new faces and new spaces,” said Justin Beck, CEO of Beck Partners. “The new location provides room for our growing team.”

BUSINESS NEWS Ophthalmology Clinic in Fort Walton Beach and welcomed Dr. Andrew Mohammed, Scott Zastrow, Pa-C, and Jennifer Wilson, ARNP, to its team of health-care providers.

Center in Panama City Beach held an open house and invited the public to tour its new, larger facility and learn about its comprehensive adult and pediatric rehabilitation programs.

» Newman-Dailey Resort

LOCAL HAPPENINGS

LOCAL HONORS

$3,500 donation to Children in Crisis (CIC) from funds generated through its “Coins for a Cause” program and the Smoke on the Coast event. Destin Commons Marketing Director Heather Ruiz presented the donation to CIC President and CEO Ken Hair, CIC Development Director Allie Noah and CIC Volunteer and Events Director Laura Moore. Children in Crisis will use the funds to feed, clothe, care for and give a home to more than 100 children this year.

Properties welcomes Debbie Wooley to its real estate team. Wooley has been buying, selling and investing in real estate for the last 35 years and is a member of the National Association of REALTORS®, Florida Association of REALTORS®, Alabama Association of REALTORS®, Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS®, and Birmingham Association of REALTORS®.

» Fort Walton Beach Medical

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PROFILED INDIVIDUALS AND COURTESY OF DESTINCHAMBER.COM AND VISITPENSACOLA.COM

RICHARD LOTT (LEFT) WITH GULF BREEZE MAYOR MATT DANNHEISSEN

Apalachicola to Destin. His work on Strand vs Escambia County, argued before the Florida Supreme Court, established that counties are authorized to accomplish tax-increment-type financing under their homerule powers. Today, there are more than 200 Tax Increment Financing districts through Florida.

» Sacred Heart Rehabilitation

Center was recently recognized by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for applying scientific guidelines to stroke care. This earned the medical center a place in the AHA/ASA’s roster of hospitals recognized for achievement in the Get With The Guidelines®–Stroke health-care quality program.

» Former Escambia County

Attorney and bond-finance attorney Richard Lott, who played a significant role in growth in the Panhandle, recently retired from the firm Bryant Miller Olive after a distinguished career. Lott represented cities, counties, school boards and other public agencies as a bondfinance attorney throughout the Panhandle for more than 35 years. He helped create millions of dollars of bond-financed deals for projects ranging from construction of Pensacola’s City Hall to public schools from

drive for hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. They partnered with Sponsors of Hope and Good Samaritan Shipping Ministries to fill shipping containers full of supplies. A Superior Air Conditioning General Manager Payton Davidson said, “This project is close to home for me. … I have family living in Puerto Rico and it has been challenging to get them any of the supplies they need.”

» Emerald Coast Theatre Company (ECTC) received a $16,500 donation from St. Joe Community Foundation in support of the ECTC’s 2017-18 season and the ECTC Theatre for Young Audiences program, showcasing professional actors in shows selected for children.

» Foundations Medical Center

celebrated the opening of its Destin office with a ribboncutting on Oct. 10. The center is a comprehensive medical practice that uses traditional and alternative approaches to promote health, prevent disease and help patients manage chronic illness.

SOUNDBYTES

» Destin Commons presented a

» The Panama City Commission has hired GAC Contractors to renovate the former Trustmark building on Harrison Avenue to serve as the city’s new city hall. Completion is expected in May.

» This fall, Gulfarium’s C.A.R.E. Center released seven rehabilitated sea turtles at Langdon Beach in Fort Pickens at a special event attended by an estimated 350 locals and tourists. Released were four juvenile green sea turtles and three loggerhead sea turtles. Five of the seven were unintentionally hooked by fisherman at Navarre Beach Fishing Pier.

FORGOTTEN COAST

APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR

» Gov. Rick Scott recently announced one re-appointment and two appointments to the Florida Violent Crime and Drug Control Council, including Franklin County Sheriff. A.J. “Tony” Smith, 58, of Apalachicola. Smith, who received his bachelor’s degree from Barry University, succeeds retired Sheriff Ben Johnson and is appointed through June 30, 2019. BEGINNINGS

» Visit Pensacola has announced that Pensacola is slated as an official host port for the Tall Ships Challenge Gulf Coast 2018, set to take place April 12-16. This is the first time in history Tall Ships America will bring the races and port festivals to the Gulf of Mexico.

» Saul Rodriguez, MD, has joined the team of hospitalist physicians at Sacred Heart Hospital on the Gulf in Port St. Joe. Dr. Rodriguez comes to Sacred Heart Hospital on the Gulf with more than 20 years of medical experience in internal and geriatric medicine.

BAY FROM LEFT: NOAH, RUIZ, HAIR AND MOORE

» Over 900 volunteers donated

I-10

HAPPENINGS

LOCAL HONORS

» A Superior Air Conditioning Company launched a supply

» The Holmes County Chamber of Commerce awarded Holiday Restaurant in downtown Bonifay with the 2017 “Business of the Year” award. The award was presented at the chamber’s annual fundraiser banquet, held this year at Sage Field Farm in Bonifay.

hours of service valued at $81,720 for United Way of Okaloosa-Walton Counties’ 24th Annual Days of Caring. The United Way coordinators organized teams and projects for five days of community service in Fort Walton Beach, DeFuniak Springs, Niceville, Crestview and Destin/South Walton. Rick Owen, president/ CEO of the Okaloosa-Walton United Way, praised the volunteers as “benevolent, community-focused folks.”

LOCAL HAPPENINGS

» The Bonifay Kiwanis Club

recently donated $1,000 to Holmes County High School’s Project Graduation. —COMPILED BY KIM HARRIS THACKER

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

IS FOR ZEAL THE ZIMMERMAN AGENCY ENTHUSIASTICALLY DELIVERS IDEAS BY STEVE BORNHOFT

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

850businessmagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ZIMMERMAN AGENCY

→ Agency co-founder Curtis Zimmerman, at left, convenes a creative meeting on the balcony with corporate officers Rob Kerr, Kerry Anne Watson and Andy Jorishie.

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

arrie and Curtis Zimmerman had been pursuing American Airlines as a client for some time, to the point where neither had anything further to offer or say. Still, the potential customer had some reluctance about entering into a contract with an agency in a remote location, that is, Tallahassee. A marketing manager with American asked if it would be possible for him to visit the Zimmermans’ offices. No problem. As it happened, he would arrive on the day of the agency’s employee Christmas party. “Really, he flew here — he had to book a flight on Delta to get to Tallahassee at the time — to make sure we were legitimate, that we weren’t operating out of a trailer,” Carrie recalled. “We gave him a tour of our offices and I think he was relieved. He wound up giving us 10 tickets to any American destination in the country for us to use as prizes at the party.” And, yes, a contract was executed. The Zimmerman Agency was established 30 years ago when Carrie and Curtis moved from Atlanta, where the couple had been working for a prominent agency, he on the advertising side, she on the public relations side, to her hometown. (Curtis is from New Jersey, but in some contexts, he will say that he grew up “40 miles from New York City. It gives me more cred.”) They did not move to Florida intending to become entrepreneurs, but parents. In Atlanta, they were so consumed by their careers and the traffic of city life that they had substantially delegated the responsibility for rearing → Creative meetings are often their children, then 1 and 3, to a babysitstand-ups. Here, from left, Rob Kerr and Andy Jorishie ter, a woman in her 30s who could not confer with Lotenna Enwonwu have children of her own. and John Towler. “I turned to Carrie and said, ‘This is ↓ The management team, not why we became parents,’” Curtis from left: Ted Tagalakis, Jennifer Kennedy, agency recalled. He began to list in his mind co-founders Curtis and Carrie “agency towns” that he perceived Zimmerman, Andy Jorishie, Wendy Kerr and Rob Kerr. would be more conducive to raising a family. Richmond, Virginia, came to mind. Charlotte, North Carolina. Carrie, meanwhile, was thinking Tallahassee, an impulse that was strengthened by a trip home for Thanksgiving in 1986. “Carrie said, ‘Why don’t we move to Tallahassee?’ and I said I wasn’t sure there was even an agency there,” Curtis said. “If we were going to continue to make our livings in public relations and advertising, we were going to have to come out of nowhere with no clients, no money, no anything. And that’s what we did.” The couple that headed the agency in Atlanta understood and assured the Zimmermans, “If it doesn’t work out, come back.”

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

850businessmagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ZIMMERMAN AGENCY

The Zimmermans had worked in Atlanta on the Domino’s Pizza account covering restaurants in the Southeast. Just days before packing up to move, they encountered their Domino’s contact riding a bicycle as they were walking to their neighborhood pool. He, as it happened, was about to move himself — to Domino’s headquarters office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “I understand that you are starting your own agency,” he said, presumptively. “You should come see me in Michigan.” The Zimmermans weren’t sure they were ready to make that trip, but were convinced otherwise. “Forty minutes after we got to Domino’s headquarters, we found ourselves in front of Tom Monaghan, the company’s founder,” said Curtis, who was wowed by an office whose appointments included a World Series trophy and two “leather baseball glove chairs signed by Joe DiMaggio.” Nonetheless, before the conversation was over, the Zimmermans had been placed on retainer. Another client would soon follow: Marriott Hotels.

Marriott had been displeased with the work of its agency leading up to the opening of the first resort it had ever built from the ground up, the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa, located in Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville. Carrie entertained a call at noon from Marriott corporate in Washington, D.C., and was asked if she could get to a meeting in Jacksonville at 2. “Sure,” she said, not at all certain that she would make it on time. At the meeting, she offered Marriott personnel a frank assessment of their agency’s work. She was asked if she could take over and she did. Next came Citicorp Diners Club, the inventors of the credit card. As was the case with Domino’s, the Zimmermans has done work for both Marriott and Citicorp in Atlanta. Marriott would wind up awarding the Zimmermans eight segments of their business, including Marriott Worldwide. Rather suddenly, this accidental agency in an off-the-beatenpath location had landed three large, nationally recognized

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

pieces of business. The Zimmermans resolved to focus on got started, they were like we had been. They were focused large clients, only, and to stay away from contracts limited to a on the projector.” project. They wanted to forge relationships, instead. Digital, of course, would arrive at the agency, which pro“We never purposely took any business away from the agenduced the first website promoting Florida before Visit Floricy in Atlanta,” Carrie stressed. “We could have, but this wasn’t da was established and before, Carrie pointed out, there were like Mad Men.” individual email addresses. Today, the agency has 164 employees. Annual billings total “We were sending items to editors@nytimes.com, addressabout $165 million. Clients include Hunter fans, Firehouse es like that,” Carrie recalled. subs, the island of Aruba, Pilot pens, Hard Rock Worldwide The agency was an early adopter of social media, too. It inand Ritz Carlton Destination Clubs. The Zimtroduced the Aflac insurance duck on Facemermans have clients in 24 countries and one book and infused it with a personality when “We work to make what we locally — Visit Tallahassee, Leon County’s ofmost others were “using social to announce a provide our clients more ficial tourism marketing organization, which 20-percent off sale.” insightful and smarter by fueling it with observations was created by a bed tax whose passage the “The differentiating feature for us is that about the world. We Zimmermans helped promote. (They rolled here advertising, public relations, digital and make it our business to hospital beds down the streets of downtown social media all come together under one understand all that we can to attract attention to the issue.) roof,” Curtis said. “Other ad agencies have a litabout consumers and how they behave.” The Zimmermans, given their backtle bit of PR and social. We make recommenANDY JORISHIE grounds, engaged in interactive marketing at dations to clients based on what they need EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, a time when IM referred not to PR and adver(and what they can afford). We are not bound IDEAS & INNOVATION tising, but to a shot in the keester. by the limitations of the traditional agency.” “Thirty years ago, there weren’t a lot of Added Carrie: “We ask clients where they agencies that successfully tried to integrate PR want to get and then we figure out the best “My role has changed and advertising,” Carrie said. “An advertising mix of disciplines to get them there. If you every few years in the 17 years I’ve been at agency might do a client a favor by writing a run a shoe store and a customer comes in Zimmerman. When I news release, but that was about it.” and says his back hurts, you’re going to say started, our focus was In 1995, Zimmerman added digital media to it must be his shoes, not that his hat is too concentrated on the its mix of services. An intern, then attending heavy. We explore alternatives. We like hospitality industry, but now it’s socks, submarine Florida State University, approached the Zimpeople to be as integrated at they can be, but sandwiches, pens, laser mermans, saying he had a concept he wanted each discipline is strong enough to stand on spinal surgery and more.” to introduce to them. It wasn’t called “digital” its own. And the lines are getting blurred.” KERRY ANNE WATSON then; the term was instead “interactive.” Most of the Zimmermans’ clients come to PRESIDENT, PUBLIC RELATIONS “We were thinking that if we met with evthem as the result of referrals. A business faery intern who thought he had a great idea, miliar with their work, approach and personwe would never get anything done,” Carrie ality recommends them to another business. “We’re known in the said. “But this kid was persistent, persistent, “Think about it,” Curtis said. “Assume you industry for our energy, persistent.” He was close, Curtis said, to a have a business and you’re looking for an agenour enthusiasm and our “poster child for a nerd before, you know, they cy. If no one has mentioned us to you, you’re passion. I look for those started to rule the world.” not going to begin by saying to yourself, ‘Let qualities in prospective employees. I can’t make The intern pitched his concept with someme see what Tallahassee, Florida has to offer.’ ” someone energetic; that thing called PowerPoint. The Zimmermans, In San Diego, a group of 12 restaurants, comes from within. We who had never seen such a presentation beUrban Plates, went agency hunting. They have a diverse team here, but high energy is a fore, scarcely heard what the intern said, but interviewed several and didn’t find anyone common denominator.” they were fascinated by his new generation of they liked. Someone recommended the SHEILA SIMPSON projector. Zimmerman Agency. SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT As to digital, they had been assured by a re“We got a call and they said, ‘We hate to do HUMAN RESOURCES mote access software company whom they had this to you, but what are the chances you can as a client that the internet was nothing to worry be here in two days?’ ” Curtis said. “We flew about; it was going to be reserved for the military and the governto California, made our presentation and on our way back ment. But this PowerPoint; now, it was something. to the airport, we were notified that the account was ours. “The first time we used it was for a presentation to RenaisUrban Plates hadn’t found an agency that provides the comsance Hotels in Costa Rica,” Carrie said. “When we moved the bination that we do. And we had good chemistry with them. overhead projector and the slide projector off the table, they We didn’t impress them as arrogant. They liked that we acwere afraid we had arrived without a presentation. Once we tively listened to what they had to say.”

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ZIMMERMAN AGENCY

↑ In the social media command center are, from left, Jennifer Kennedy, Ted Tagalakis, Kerry Anne Watson and Cole Zimmerman.

Some predicted that digital would be the death of agencies, but Curtis finds that the reverse has proved true. “This is the most exciting time for agencies that we’ve ever experienced,” he said. And the fastest paced. Gone are the days when businesses marketed themselves on the basis of yearlong plans and budgets, and campaigns were developed and tested for months before they were introduced. “We have dashboards that help us recalibrate strategies every day,” Carrie said. “We know how many purchases should be made in an hour in response to something we’re doing and, if that isn’t happening, we make adjustments.” Not long ago, the agency undertook a survey of its clients aimed at discovering what they most like about the agency. Curtis dismissed the project as a waste of time, confident that he knew what the results would be. Surely, clients would most like the agency’s creativity, Curtis thought, but creativity finished fourth behind enthusiasm, determination and integrity. “I was over the moon,” Curtis said. “Those qualities are exactly what we try to present to people.” In that connection, Curtis shared an email message he received from a junior social media designer at the agency. Curtis had relayed a compliment from a client to the designer, who replied: “Curtis: I just want to say thanks again for the call this afternoon. I have been thinking about it a lot and I know it will continue to motivate me to keep grinding away to do the best I can do. You and the agency have given me so much, so being able to contribute in meaningful ways is huge to me.

I have always found that ‘Z’ has granted me every opportunity as long as I am willing to put in the work. I am going to use what I’ve learned from this epic creative department and from you and Carrie so that you and the agency can be proud. I try to remind myself every day not to take anything for granted. Every day is an opportunity. Stay confident.” “Coming from a kid who’s 25 years old, that’s amazing,” Curtis beamed. “We like to say we live locally and work globally,” Carrie stressed. “We love Tallahassee. We tell people it’s beautiful and green and lush with its canopy roads. It’s highly educated. It’s a research center. And people making millions and people making thousands carry themselves the same way. Maybe I’m blind, but I don’t see any snobbery here. In Atlanta, it was all about, ‘Where do you work? Where do you live?’” “I wouldn’t live a foot north of where I’m living,” Curtis said. “I was a Little League coach for 16 years and after a game, I’d find myself hanging around with a contractor, a plastic surgeon, a plumber and an insurance man, all of us eating hotdogs from the concession stand. “I don’t bitch about the hassle of flying in and out of here because I get to come home here.” And fly the Zimmerman Agency does. The last time they did the math, they found that the agency had spent $678,000 with Delta Airlines in a single year. “And, you know, we’ve never heard from Delta. They’ve never contacted us to say ‘thank you,’” Carrie shook her head. From a public relations perspective, perhaps they should.

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

EMERALD COAST CORRIDOR

Coastal Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa + Walton Counties

Coming Home and Giving Back Bubba Watson makes major gift to children’s hospital By Steve Bornhoft

s he embarked on his career as a touring professional, Bubba Watson had the confidence that he would one day become not just a golfer, but a business. “Randall and I always had a number in mind and we told ourselves that if we reached that, we would be a business,” Watson said. Randall is Randall Wells, who serves as Watson’s money manager, and who was, as it happens, the valedictorian of Watson’s high school class. Watson, a two-time Masters Tournament champion, achieved the number some time ago. Today, the business employs a coterie

LEADING FOURSOME Quint Studer, namesake of the Studer Family Children’s Hospital (left) and golf champion Bubba Watson collaborate as hospital philanthropists and co-own the Pensacola Blue Wahoos minor league baseball team. With them here are Watson’s wife, Angie, and Sacred Heart President/ CEO Susan Davis. Watson, in photo at top right, gazes at the splendor of the grass at Blue Wahoos Stadium.

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

that includes Wells, a manager, two assistants, a caddie and a therapist who stretches Watson out in the morning during tour events and massages him at night. Too, Watson respects his wife, Angie, as his leader, the woman who “keeps me grounded and sees to it that I am resting when I need to rest.” Watson has never had a swing coach or a sports psychologist, preferring to play golf his way. That’s unusual, he concedes, then adds, “But I’m unusual; I’m from Bagdad, Florida,” in Santa Rosa County, a tiny town of 1,490. Having achieved “business” status, Watson began exploring the possibility of establishing a foundation and the name, Quint Studer, soon came up. Wells introduced the two men to the major benefit of the Sacred Heart Health System, headquartered in Pensacola. For Watson, the relationship with Studer led to opportunities to give back to his hometown after straying for a time. While living in Arizona and then Orlando, Watson fell subject to the magnetic influence exerted by the Gulf of Mexico on many who have experienced Northwest Florida. And, for Watson, that pull was joined by a powerful homing instinct. Those combined forces proved irresistible and Watson, relenting, assured himself that if LeBron James could go back to Cleveland, surely he could return to his roots. (It stood to reason that Watson would have an easier time going home again than James did. When James traded Cleveland for Miami, Cavaliers fans burned his jersey.

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No one was bending pink drivers over their knees because Watson left Pensacola.) Watson is satisfied that he and his wife, Angie, who played professional basketball in the WNBA, made the right move and now he and his family and his foundation are engaged in very publicly embracing Pensacola, working generously to make it a better place and, in particular, doing what they can to bring about the realization of The Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Sacred Heart. With two gifts made in August and September, Watson donated a total of $2.1 million to the Children’s Hospital project. “We will be eternally grateful,” said Henry Stovall, president of Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola. “Bubba is one of the biggest supporters that this hospital has ever had.” Work on the $85 million, 120,000-squarefoot children’s hospital began in March. “In my business, winning a trophy is

great,” Watson said. “I do that, and on Sunday night, I’m a hero. But, as of Thursday morning, when the next tournament starts, people are looking for the next hero. So, you begin to ask yourself where you can best put your love and use your connections to provide for generations to come.” Watson acknowledged that there are a “million good causes out there,” but he was especially inclined to give to one with which he had a personal relationship. Watson’s connection to Sacred Heart in Pensacola is lifelong. He and his sister were born there and his late father underwent cancer treatments there. “When I came back to this town, it was about becoming part of this place,” Watson reflected. “I asked myself how I could become not just a golfer, but a helpful citizen. My kids will be at the children’s hospital — they’ve already been there — so it’s going to be a lifelong goal to remain part of that facility.

Photos by TODD DOUGLAS PHOTOGRAPHY

“I won’t always be Bubba Watson the golfer, but, as a person, I will always be a representative of this town and indebted to it,” Watson said. “People here helped me become better at the game of golf and shaped who I became as a person.” Watson is an admirer of Studer, a health care consultant with whom he now coowns the Pensacola Blue Wahoos minor league baseball team. Upon first meeting Studer, Watson had no idea he might wish to involve him in the baseball team, but he soon found himself buying into the consultant’s reasons for bringing Double-A ball to Pensacola. “When I was growing up, golf was a family experience for me,” Watson recalled. “My dad played, my sister (three-and-a-half years older than Bubba) played and my mom was my caddy. I wasn’t allowed to have video games as a kid; I bought my first game system after I turned pro. “Wahoos baseball is a family event, too.

It’s fun and exciting. It’s like a big kids party. Kids are kids and adults are kids again.” As half-owner, Watson takes care not to be too intrusive, but he occasionally stops by batting practice at Pensacola’s Bayfront Stadium and pops into the locker room once or twice a season to play some pingpong with team members. Studer introduced Watson to his vision for the children’s hospital, first at a Wahoos game and subsequently at his home. Those conversations got Watson to thinking and led to prayerful consideration and conversation at the Watson house. “The Lord has given us an amazing platform with which to be helpful, and we want to see this dream of a children’s hospital come true,” said Angie. She said that, in her experience at Sacred Heart, nurses, doctors and staff have always been very much attuned to what families need and want. “When we picked up (our adopted daughter) Dakota, we were at the hospital for four days, and we enjoyed a sense of relationship with hospital personnel at every level. We felt like we were very much involved in everything that was going forward.” Angie said that the children’s hospital undoubtedly will have a regional impact. “It’s not a stretch to say that people from a large radius will come to Sacred Heart for services and many of them will fall in love with Pensacola while they’re here. As a parent of two children (the Watsons also have an adopted son, Caleb), I know that health care, along with schools, is one of the things you think about when you decide where to raise a family. Having one of the best children’s hospitals in the country here will be a big factor for people.” To Bubba, supporting the hospital feels like acing a par 3. “I am far from perfect,” he said. “I make a lot of mistakes, as a parent, as a husband, and especially on the golf course — I make a lot of bogeys. The goal for me is always to get better. I benefitted from a community that supported junior golf and enabled me to make progress toward living my dream. Now, it’s good to be able to give back.”

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

BAY CORRIDOR

Panama City, Panama City Beach + Bay County

Gearing Up Advanced Technology Center synchronizes specialized training with job arrivals By Hannah Burke

hen Dr. John Holdnak worked for the Division of Florida Colleges under the Florida Department of Education, he found himself in a quandary. Huge companies — think Microsoft, IBM — would flock to his office in Tallahassee, complaining about the “skills gap.” Meaning, there were more jobs than sufficiently trained workers to fill them. When Holdnak asked how many of those

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

jobs were currently open in Florida, the company representatives were baffled. Why would they bring jobs to Florida in the absence of a readily available, skilled workforce? That sounded to him a lot like the chicken-or-egg question: Which comes first? The training or the jobs? Essentially, employers were asking schools here to train students for jobs that might never exist in Florida, potentially

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forcing graduates to move away or be left jobless with a useless education and student-loan debt. Fast-forward to 2017 developments in Bay County, where GKN, an international, multi-billion dollar automotive and aerospace manufacturer, constructed its first Florida aerospace manufacturing facility in Bay County. When representatives of GKN first approached Holdnak, he discussed with them the quandary about training and jobs. If they committed to building a site in Florida, then he would provide trained workers by the time they were ready to open. How would he deliver? Holdnak said, “Through a cooperative effort.” Holdnak upholds his part of the bargain by serving as president of Gulf Coast State College, where training programs

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GULF COAST STATE COLLEGE

LOFTY GOALS A remote-controlled blimp over the Advanced Technology Center is evidence that the center is preparing students for future jobs involving such vehicles.

for GKN are one of the paths students may choose at the college’s Advanced Technology Center. Since its launch in 2013, the ATC has been focusing on the future of cutting-edge technologies and eradicating the skills gap by preparing students for immediate work with both corporate giants and homegrown businesses in Bay County. “When the ATC was in its beginning stages, we wondered how far we could go to support industries with these advanced technologies and how this would impact our community,” says Holdnak. “I can tell you, we’re now really coming into our own and promoting the growth of economic development in Bay, Gulf and Franklin counties.” During the 2017 fall semester orientation, Holdnak spoke to students and faculty about new companies that are planning to relocate to the region, providing an estimated 75 to 150 tech-oriented jobs. Holdnak is meeting with some of these manufacturing businesses to demonstrate how his college can provide trained employees. “When you think about manufacturing, you may picture these huge buildings belching smoke and covering everything in soot, but that’s not what manufacturing is anymore,” stresses Holdnak. “These are all clean, non-polluting industries that focus on the use of brand-new technology to produce things that are, in my mind, unreal.” Unreal. Straight out of science fiction. Take a tour of the ATC and you’ll find chefs creating treats with one of the few 3D printers in the country that prints entirely in chocolate. Yes, chocolate. The engineering department of the ATC

also dabbles in 3D printing by experimenting with additive manufacturing — 3D printing with metal and other industrial materials. In typical subtractive manufacturing, workers start with a hunk of metal and carve away at it until becomes a desired part — generating from 100 pounds of metal about 6 pounds of parts and 94 pounds of scrap. In contrast, specialized additive manufacturing reverses that ratio, allowing businesses to boost productivity and prevent waste of resources.

unmanned submarines and land-to-water vehicles to assist with missions. Suspended over the lobby of the ATC is a 20-foot-long blimp that can be flown remotely by program participants. Equipped with high-resolution cameras, it can take photographs of Bay County from a bird’s-eye view. “Experts will tell you that unmanned vehicles will eventually replace everything people do that’s dangerous, dirty or dull,” says Holdnak. He is particularly passionate

“WE’RE BUILDING WHAT WE ANTICIPATE WILL BE A MAGNET FOR SOME OF THE BEST THINKING AND MANUFACTURING IN THE WORLD.” DR. JOHN HOLDNAK “We are substantially expanding our engineering technology program to include additive manufacturing because it’s absolutely where businesses are headed,” Holdnak explains. “There are companies in some parts of the world right now using this method to make auto parts. Some places print plastics and polymers that go into airplanes.” That’s another reason Bay County landed GKN, as the company plans to utilize additives by laminating carbon fibers with titanium and electroforming parts to lengthen durability. But that’s not the only program that’s drawing attention to the ATC. Currently, it is the only public institution in Florida to host an accredited unmanned vehicle systems program. Transportation that pilots itself, but not like the robotic “Johnny Cab” from Total Recall. Bay County’s Tyndall Air Force Base launches unmanned aircraft as large as F-16’s for target practice. If you see an F-16 with an orange tail flying overhead, Holdnak says it’s likely nobody’s home up there. Likewise, Naval Support Activity Panama City is in the process of designing and employing

about a new vehicle designed to help first responders locate missing persons. To search for a lost child in the woods, the vehicle can be programmed to identify him or her based on physical attributes. This is made possible through the use of geo-fencing and thermodynamic technologies. Other responders can launch their own search vehicles and cover a far wider area than, say, 100 hunting through dark thickets with flashlights. Holdnak estimates that the unmanned vehicle systems program will perfect this technology and release it in about 12 months. Speaking of new developments, plans are underway to expand the ATC into the college’s old science building, where the center will increase in both size and scope to promote an influx of even more opportunities. “We’re building what we anticipate will be a magnet for some of the best thinking and manufacturing in the world,” Holdnak asserts. “Due to the accessibility and breadth of the ATC, it’s become clear that the future of this college and the region will be in growing more of these technologies and all related careers.”

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

FORGOTTEN COAST CORRIDOR

Gulf, Franklin + Wakulla Counties

Remote “ W Possibilities TCC’s Wakulla Environmental Institute teaches students about new rules, news uses of drones By Erin Hoover

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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e were like a deck of cards,” Carl Fuqua said of the other students in his spring semester drone class. “Everyone came to the class for different reasons.” A few of Fuqua’s classmates were in law enforcement. Another worked for an environmental science company. Others were drone hobbyists considering career changes. As the owner of a Tallahassee-based insurance company, Fuqua hoped to become a licensed agent for Global Aerospace, the leading international aviation insurer. He also knew that drones could help him perform structural inspections.

PHOTO BY RYANKING999 / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

UP AND RUNNING The institute’s 12-week course on “unmanned systems” is designed to train students for certification by the FAA.

Tallahassee Community College’s Wakulla Environmental Institute has offered its “Introduction to Unmanned Systems” class on its campus in Crawfordville each spring for the past two years. The Unmanned Technology Applications program is based in Crawfordville because Bob Ballard, the institute’s executive director, approached TCC’s president and made a case that drones had significant environmental uses despite

their prevalent association with military operations. For instance, they’ve replaced helicopters in the monitoring of prescribed burns and wildfires, and eliminated the need for a ladder when checking out the nests of red cockaded woodpeckers. “We started the drone program based on it being an environmental tool,” Ballard said. “But if you train for the environment, you can do anything with it.” The 12-week course prepares students to pass the newly implemented Part 107 exam, earning the certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration necessary to fly drones commercially. “Prior to August 2016, you had to jump through a lot of hoops to operate commercially. Now the FAA has narrowed it down to a 60-question multiple choice exam,” said Rob Hall, who teaches the “Introduction to Unmanned Systems” course. In June, Fuqua and three others from his class passed the exam, proctored at FL Aviation Center near Tallahassee International Airport. Their certificates to fly small UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are good for two years, at which point they must retake the exam. Commercial applications can be as complicated as aerial analyses of crop draught or algae blooms, or as simple as taking a photo of Lake Jackson using a drone and selling it. In addition to teaching the drone course, Hall co-owns an aerial photography company and calls drones “flying tripods.” “My partner and I have done some great stuff with large-scale real estate projects,” he said, noting that larger properties are easier to see in videos taken from the air. The Part 107 exam is comprehensive, covering flight regulations, operating requirements, weather effects, crew resource management, emergency response, radio communication, pilot physiology, and more. “You feel like you’re getting an actual pilot’s license,” Fuqua said, noting the heavy emphasis on legal and safety regulations. He recalled that the exam tested his ability to read airspace charts — a reminder that the air is a shared resource. In fact, the regulations for small UAVs have much in common with those for model aircraft. For

instance, the operators of both types of aircraft must contact the airport and control tower before flying within five miles of an airport. “It’s a steep learning curve,” Hall said. “But once you get the basics, operating the drone is the simplest part. They have all sorts of sensors to make sure you stay safe.” Hall estimated that 70 percent of class time is devoted to classroom instruction and 15 to 20 percent to flight practice. He encourages students to bring questions for discussion during the remainder of the time, he said, such as concerns about legal issues or news of recently released hardware on the market. Wakulla Environmental Institute has two computer-based drone simulators for practice use, but most students have opted to bring their own equipment on the days when the class meets in a local park to fly. Previously only available to the military, drone technology has expanded significantly in the last five years due to a reduction in cost to create very small electronic components, Hall said. But the concept of flying a vehicle remotely isn’t new. Radio-controlled airplanes have been around since airplanes were first built, and the inventor Nicola Tesla unveiled a radio-controlled boat at Madison Square Garden in 1898. Wakulla Environmental Institute will offer “Introduction to Unmanned Systems” again beginning in January 2018, at a cost of $500. Hall looks forward to the potential for the drone program to expand, with an additional class on real-world applications of drone technology. “We’re piloting a project with the Chaires Volunteer Fire Department, who is pursuing a grant to get a drone with an infrared camera to use for search and rescue and for visual confirmation that wildfires and other fires are out. They have 10 to 12 students lined up to learn how to fly and what the regulations are.” Fuqua has already used his drone license to sell insurance when an underwriter required pictures of an older roof on the home of a customer. He was able to use his drone to get them. “It makes me a more valuable agent because I can lawfully provide these inspections as part of the my services.”

850 Business Magazine

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

The Last Word

SCAN ARTIST Today more than ever, standing still is not an option

“Boarding passes?” he accurately presumed. “Just use your phone. It’s easy.” “I’d prefer not to. My phone isn’t always reliable.” “I will not enable your intransigence.” Thus shamed, I went to my email, downloaded the boarding passes to my phone, and copied the QR code to my photo gallery, yielding to a man who is Brookstone to my SEARS. (Central to Andrew’s home is a turntable worth thousands of dollars and a Sous Vide machine — you can look it up — that admittedly produces the juiciest, best burgers of all time. One day soon, he will own a massage chair.) In the morning, I would fly home from my hometown of Minneapolis, where I had spent a few days visiting my brothers and Andrew and his brothers. Together, we took in a concert performed by Bob Dylan — that is, the latest Bob Dylan — across the river in St. Paul. Businesses could learn a lot from Dylan, who has never exhausted his capacity for reinventing himself. Among the stages in a business’s life — start-up, growth, maturity, decline — Dylan is forever alternating between stages 1 and 2 and, at 76, he soldiers on. He’s a crooner now, as you may have heard, covering songs popularized by Old Blue Eyes. His band’s instrumentation, these days, includes a bass fiddle, a pedal steel guitar and a violin that combine to produce a haunting sound as Dylan, eerily slow-dancing with a standing microphone, coughs up: Once upon a time A girl with moonlight in her eyes Put her hand in mine And said she loved me so, But that was once upon a time, Very long ago. Another Bob, unlike the last Bob, and then I found direction home. So it was that a few days after returning to Tallahassee, I visited Capital Regional Medical Center where President/

DECEMBER 2017–JANUARY 2018

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CEO Mark Robinson and members of his management team introduced me and the boss man, Brian Rowland, to technologies and applications that have CRMC billing itself as a “Hospital of the Future.” (The same applications have been introduced to another member of the HCA family, Gulf Coast Hospital in Panama City.) We learned that wheelchairs are electronically tagged so that, with a quick check of an iPhone, staff can immediately discover where an idle chair may be located. (I said then and I will say now that such technology should be applied to luggage carts at hotels.) Also, Robinson has access to a dashboard that tells him how many patients are in the Emergency Room at any moment and for how long they have been there. If Robinson finds that a patient has been languishing in ER for an hour, he is likely to investigate. I respect the factors that are driving the innovations and rendering clipboards so once upon a time. They include a quest for increased accuracy, accountability, efficiency and patient safety and for an improved patient experience. And it seems that the technological advancements are not coming at the expense of the personalization of care. Now, I will get personal with, well, a confession. At the airport in Minneapolis, when I checked in my bag and paid my $25, the kiosk afforded me an opportunity to print my boarding passes, and I did. And, when actually boarding, the woman in front of me couldn’t get her phone to scan and was pulled out of line. I felt so validated. But, Andrew, last night when my wife and I went to the movies, I bought my tickets online and, at the theater, walked past all the losers in line at the ticket window, went directly to the ticket taker, whipped out my phone and was in like Flynn. Small steps. Onward,

STEVE BORNHOFT, DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES sbornhoft@rowlandpublishing.com

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

“I’m gonna need access to a printer,” I told my nephew, Andrew.

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