2017 Santa Rosa County Business Journal by Rowland Publishing, Inc.

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SANTA ROSA COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL 2017 AN 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE SPECIAL REPORT

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CONTENTS

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND

CREATIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Lawrence Davidson DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Saige Roberts ART DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Charles Bakofsky, Shruti Shah GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Meredith Brooks, Sarah Mitchell DIGITAL PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Chelsea Moore SALES & MARKETING VICE PRESIDENT/ CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT McKenzie Burleigh Lohbeck DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS Daniel Parisi AD SERVICES COORDINATORS Tracy Mulligan, Lisa Sostre ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Julie Dorr, Darla Harrison, Rhonda Lynn Murray, Dan Parker, Linda Powell, Sarah Scott, Brianna Webb, Lori Magee Yeaton EVENTS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Mandy Chapman INTEGRATED MARKETING SPECIALIST Jennifer Ireland INTEGRATED MARKETING COORDINATOR Bria Blossom SALES AND EVENTS ASSOCIATE 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 ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Lisa Snell RECEPTIONIST Alyssa Cunningham

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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Steve Bornhoft EDITOR Linda Kleindienst SENIOR STAFF WRITER Jason Dehart EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Rebecca Padgett ASSISTANT TO DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL SERVICES Kim Harris Thacker COPY EDITOR Barry Ray

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Home to one of the largest and most active naval aviation bases in the world, Santa Rosa County’s economy gets a major boost from businesses that cater to or work with the military. With hundreds of defense contractors, land available for development and a sizeable trained workforce, the county’s economic development office is making a push to get the word out that the county is at the “heart of a growing aerospace cluster.”

An area known for its blue-green waterways and rich ecosystems, Santa Rosa County is currently working on a project that could improve the quality of marine life — and perhaps economic development — for years to come. The county has been working with scientists at the Nature Conservancy since 2015 on the Pensacola East Bay Oyster Habitat Restoration Project — a multi-phase endeavor that’s being funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund.

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If you thought tsunamis couldn’t happen along the Gulf Coast — you were wrong. Santa Rosa County has prepared a safety plan for tsunami preparedness — the first of its kind in the region.

Santa Rosa County sits in the midst of a six-county area of Northwest Florida that has the highest concentration of military retirees in the U.S., providing a trained and ready workforce. There are more than 31,000 military retirees in Santa Rosa alone — and approximately 100,000 military veterans in Santa Rosa and neighboring counties combined.

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ON THE COVER: Two T-6 Texan II fixed-wing aircraft trainers fly above Naval Air Station Whiting Field. The installation’s North Field accommodates the T-6s while TH-57 Sea Ranger helicopters depart from the South Field. In all, NAS Whiting Field and its 12 Navy Outlying Landing Fields provide support for more than 1.1 million flight operations each year.PHOTO COURTESY U.S. NAVY

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AEROSPACE PITCH

COURTESY U.S. NAVY

Sitting in the middle of a highly active aerospace neighborhood, Santa Rosa County launches a program pointing out why it’s a good choice as a home for aviation-focused companies. by DAVID TORTORANO, GULF COAST REPORTERS LEAGUE

NAS Whiting Field’s South Field serves as home to more than 120 TH-57 helicopters where approximately 600 students complete their advanced flight training to become helicopter pilots. The installation supports the training requirements for 100 percent of all Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard helicopter pilots.

range and white Navy planes and helicopters are a common sight in Northwest Florida’s Santa Rosa County — home to one of the most active naval aviation bases in the world. On top of that, it’s right in the middle of a three-county neighborhood with five aviation-focused military bases and two commercial airports, and centrally located between five aircraft manufacturers in the Southeast. With hundreds of defense contractors, land available for development and a sizeable workforce, the county’s economic development office is making a push to get the word out that Santa Rosa County is at the “heart of a growing aerospace cluster.” It’s doing so in part through a new brochure, and eventually a special section on

its website that will highlight aerospace and aviation in the county. Shannon Ogletree, executive director of the Santa Rosa County Economic Development Office, said the outreach is designed “to increase awareness of Santa Rosa County and the region.” He said he hopes people “will see our locations and our area as a good place for doing business.”

MILITARY FOOTPRINT Santa Rosa County along with neighbor Escambia County make up the PensacolaFerry Pass-Brent Metropolitan Statistical Area. The MSA is one of the Navy’s most active training areas where pilots, flight officers and aviation maintenance personnel are trained at Naval Air Station Whiting Field and Naval

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Air Station Pensacola, home of the Naval Air Technical Training Center, the Navy’s largest. It graduates 15,000 students a year. The military jewel for Santa Rosa County is NAS Whiting Field, just north of the county seat of Milton. The 4,700-acre air station is west of Blackwater River State Forest in a sparsely populated area of Santa Rosa County. Across the state line in Alabama is Conecuh National Forest. Whiting Field, one of the Navy’s two primary pilot training bases, provides services and material support for the training of U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and international student aviators. With two separate primary fields and 13 outlying fields, it trains 1,200 students every year and is the busiest air station in the world with 1.5 million flight operations and over 160,000 annual flight hours, 14 percent of the Navy’s total. The county values the base so much, it has an Encroachment Partnering Program with the base, county and state. More than 3,000 acres have been buffered/conserved around Whiting to protect its mission. The replacement value of the Whiting is considerable, according to the Department of Defense fiscal year 2015 base structure report. NAS Whiting has a plant replacement value of $708.2 million. To the west, NAS Pensacola has a plant replacement value of $2.57 billion. In addition, the Navy’s Corry Station in Pensacola, which trains information warfare personnel, has a replacement value of $813.8 million. The MSA’s bases are close to three other aviation bases. Neighboring Okaloosa County has R&D powerhouse Eglin Air Force Base, which also trains F-35 pilots and maintainers, Hurlburt Field, home

COURTESY U.S. NAVY

Naval Air Station Whiting Field is one of the unsung gems of Naval Aviation. The installation manages more than 50 percent of the Navy’s inventory of outlying landing fields, supports more than 140,000 flight hours annually and serves as the home to the Navy’s largest training wing, Training Air Wing FIVE. Approximately 60 percent of all Navy, Marine and Coast Guard pilots receive their primary flight training at TRAWING 5, and 100 percent of all helicopter pilots from the three maritime services gain their Wings of Gold at the air station.

of Air Force Special Operations Command, and Duke Field. Beyond those are Tyndall Air Force Base, which trains F-22 pilots, and the U.S. Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mobile, Alabama. Also in the region is Fort Rucker, where Army aviators train. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of contractors in the area who do work for the military here and elsewhere. In 2015, Santa Rosa County had 200 defense contractors who won 124 contracts that year valued at $14.5 million. Between 2000 and 2015, contractors in the county were awarded 1,491 contracts valued at some $353 million.

were all in the top 10 counties in the state for defense spending in 2015. Okaloosa County accounted for $1.7 billion (3rd), Escambia accounted for $1.5 billion (6th) while Santa Rosa accounted for $459.7 million (10th). Florida has a total Department of Defense payroll of $6.6 billion and 126,292 personnel. Of those, Escambia County is second in the state with 19,900, Okaloosa County third with 14,048, and Santa Rosa County fifth with 7,466. And it’s clear many of the former military opt

to stay in the region. According to the brochure, about 34,000 military retirees and a wealth of civilian DoD contractors provide a unique workforce ideal for aerospace, defense and information technology. The number of military retirees grows by roughly 2,400 each year. Santa Rosa County boasts a workforce of over 70,000 people. Half of those people travel to jobs away from their homes, outside the county. From high school forward, aviation-specific education programs are in place across the

Military Aviation Bases

IN GOOD COMPANY Santa Rosa County and its neighbors are highly active in a state that is a hot spot for defense. And the military impact goes beyond aviation. Florida’s $52 billion military and defenserelated industries are the state’s third top economic sector. It tops the list in Santa Rosa County. In fiscal year 2015, Florida was ranked No. 5 in the nation in defense spending at $17.6 billion, 2 percent of the state GDP and 4.3 percent of the total U.S. defense spending. Okaloosa, Escambia and Santa Rosa counties

Fort Rucker

USCG Aviation Training Center

NAS Whiting Field

Duke Field

NAS Pensacola

Eglin AFB Hurlburt Field

Tyndall AFB

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MILITARY

region, including the University of Florida Research and Education Engineering Facility near Eglin Air Force Base.

OTHER AVIATION PricewaterhouseCoopers for two consecutive years ranked Florida best in the nation for attractiveness to aerospace manufacturers, and No. 2 in the 2016 survey. Florida is one of the most dynamic of a broader trend bringing aerospace to the Southeast. Santa Rosa County is using that to its advantage. It helps that the county is located centrally for five aircraft manufacturers: Airbus in Mobile, Alabama; Embraer in Jacksonville and Melbourne, Florida; Gulfstream in Savannah, Georgia; and Boeing in Charleston, South Carolina. In Santa Rosa County, qualified aviation and aerospace manufacturing companies can receive Incumbent Worker Training (IWT) Grant funding. Incentive programs also are in place for companies purchasing lands owned by the county. Santa Rosa also has three shovel-ready Certified Florida First Sites: Santa Rosa Industrial Park East, Vic’s of Navarre and Northwest Florida Industrial Part at I-10. In addition, the aerospace-specific property at Whiting Aviation Park has limited access to Navy runways at Whiting for testing and development opportunities. Transportation infrastructure includes two commercial airports. To the west is Pensacola International Airport, the busiest commercial airport in Northwest Florida, and to the east Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport. Santa Rosa County’s public use airport, Peter Prince Field, is located south of NAS Whiting Field. Interstate 10, U.S. 98 and U.S. 90, major east-west highways, run through the county, which also has access to CSX rail and the Port of Pensacola, a designated foreign trade zone. And on top of all that, the county is known as a vacation hot spot. Not bad. Reprinted with permission from the Gulf Coast Aerospace Newsletter, a bimonthly covering the I-10 aerospace region between Southeast Louisiana and Northwest Florida. 6 / 2017 S A N TA R O S A C O U N T Y B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L SB0156 850 Mag half pg_Commercial Lending.indd 1

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or nature lovers, fishing enthusiasts and commercial oystermen, there is reason to celebrate. Santa Rosa County, an area known for its blue-green waterways and rich ecosystems, is currently working on a project that could improve the quality of marine life — and perhaps economic development — for years to come. The catch? It all hinges on one tiny, goopy critter. “I think oyster restoration is a priority not just for Santa Rosa County but for the whole region,” said Erica Grancagnolo, the county’s grants and special programs manager. Grancagnolo and her colleagues have been working with scientists at The Nature Conservancy since 2015 on the Pensacola East Bay Oyster Habitat Restoration Project — a multi-phase endeavor that is being funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund. It’s part of a big-picture approach that leaders are taking to improve the state’s overall ecological health. “This is a large project,” said Ann Birch, The Nature Conservancy’s marine conservation manager for Florida. “It’s the largest oyster restoration project in the state of Florida that we’re aware of right now.”

The project is focused on approximately 6.5 miles along East Bay’s undeveloped Escribano Point. While the entire length isn’t completely made up of oyster reef, Birch and her team believe it’s a model location to support such a habitat. “The primary objective is to restore oyster habitat in that bay system,” she said. According to Birch, the bay has been on The Nature Conservancy’s radar as an ideal spot to direct their resources for some time. “The Pensacola Bay region came out as an area of priority because of the biological diversity, the amount of plants and animals that are in this system,” she said. “And really, the opportunity for restoration as well. The bay system has been improving over the years because of a lot of good work the state and local governments have done for water quality. That’s what really showed that it’s time to start restoring this natural habitat.” Birch and The Nature Conservancy have teamed with local environmental specialists to map out their next moves in the project, which is still in its infancy. Davy Crawley, of environmental consulting service Ecology and Environment Inc., was one of their first points of contact. After months of communication, Ecology and Environment Inc. was

8 / 2017 S A N TA R O S A C O U N T Y B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

COURTESY THE NATURE CONSERVANCY / ERIKA NORTEMANN

The Nature Conservancy is leading a new, multi-phase oyster-habitat restoration project in East Bay. by CHAY D. BAXLEY

The funding for the Pensacola East Bay Oyster Habitat Restoration Project came from a plea agreement following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Between 2013 and 2018, BP and Transocean will pay a total of $2.544 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Now in its fourth year, that money has funded 99 separate projects along the Gulf Coast.

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contractually brought into the project in the third quarter of 2016, according to Crawley. Until this spring, its work centered around planning and “team coordination.” Crews officially started monitoring the area in March. For his part, Crawley is helping scientists get a better understanding of what kind of condition the bay is in right now, so they can better chart any successes going forward. “We are conducting two years of pre-construction monitoring for the project to establish the baseline of what the environmental conditions are,” said Crawley, whose job is to find out exactly what happened to the bay’s previous oyster populations so history doesn’t repeat itself. “I suspect it’s a combination of things,” he said. “You could have over-harvesting,” he continued, “you could have water quality issues. And those could have been historic. Part of our pre-construction monitoring is to determine that. We’ll be figuring that out over the next few years.” Other members of the private sector, including design firm CH2M, have also been brought into the project. Their work is contingent on Crawley’s findings. It will be years before residents and visitors of Santa Rosa County see an impact from the project. The initial phase, which includes monitoring, planning and engineering the would-be habitat, is expected to take scientists until February 2019 to complete. After that, more funding will likely be needed to make their hard work a reality. “We may have to end up phasing it or, if we’re fortunate, we may get enough funding to construct it all at once,” Birch said. “But that’s a big question mark — we’re not there yet.” Birch said her team is working with the county to keep the community up to date. As progress is made, they will be hosting information sessions to answer any questions residents and business owners may have. Whenever the project does get its sea legs, though, locals can expect slow but positive effects, including improved water quality and better sport fishing. “Fishing is a really large recreational sport in the state of Florida, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and in this region especially,” Birch said. “By restoring oyster habitat, which is really a fish-making habitat if you want to think of it that way, you restore blue crab, shrimp, and habitat for juvenile fish, which grow into sport fish. That has a trickle-down effect into the economy.”

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TSUNAMI READY

SANTA ROSA TAKES PROACTIVE APPROACH TO TSUNAMI THREAT If you thought tsunamis couldn’t happen along the Gulf Coast, you were wrong. by CHAY D. BAXLEY

WILLYAM BRADBERRY / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (WAVE) AND COURTESY SANTA ROSA COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR (GRAPH)

evere weather-wise, Santa Rosa County has lucked out over the past few years. Hurricane Hermine swooshed by as it terrorized neighboring counties — and the most recent tropical depressions and storms have all failed to shake the nearly 200-year-old community. No ship is unsinkable, though. And hurricanes aren’t the region’s only threat. According to weather experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tsunamis in the Gulf of Mexico are possible and, though unlikely, could directly impact the county’s coastal communities. “The overall threat is low,” emphasized Jason Beaman, a warning-coordination meteorologist at NOAA in Mobile, Alabama. “But in the modeling of a worst-case scenario — a reasonable worst-case scenario, I should say — there was significant potential inundation around the immediate coast.”

According to Beaman, a tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico would look different from its Pacific cousin. Instead of being caused by an earthquake, our version would, in theory, occur after a shift along the Gulf ’s floor. “It’s what we call underwater landslides,” said Beaman, “where essentially you have a lot of sediments that have been dumped out to the Gulf of Mexico from river systems for years, for centuries. Sediment shifts can cause these underwater landslides, and that could be the source of a tsunami.” It’s a threat Santa Rosa isn’t willing to risk. Taking pointers from Beaman and his team, county leaders recently put into place a safety system for tsunami preparedness. It’s the first of its kind in the region, and has earned the county the designation of “Tsunami Ready” by NOAA. “Essentially, it recognizes those communities that have taken the steps necessary to be prepared for tsunamis,” Beaman said.

“It’s very much like our Storm Ready program, in the fact that to be recognized as Storm Ready, you have to have established an emergency operation center, a 24-hour warning point, multiple ways to receive and disseminate information and, most importantly, to have a plan in place for your county to react when hazardous weather strikes.” Santa Rosa County’s tsunami preparedness plan can be viewed online at santarosa.fl.gov/ emergency/CEMP/SRC-Tsunami.pdf.

←HIGHEST POTENTIAL LANDSIDE LOCATIONS WITHIN THE GULF OF MEXICO Tsunamis are a dangerous natural phenomenon that have had disastrous effects on communities along the Pacific Ocean for millennia. The word itself is Japanese in origin and directly translates as harbor (tsu) wave (nami).

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BY THE NUMBERS

ALL ABOUT SANTA ROSA

Santa Rosa County is in the midst of a six-county area of Northwest Florida that has the highest concentration of military retirees in the U.S., providing a trained and ready workforce. There are more than 31,000 military retirees in Santa Rosa alone — and approximately 100,000 military veterans in Santa Rosa and neighboring counties combined. Four military installations are located 45 minutes or less from the county sites that are certified as shovel-ready. And, Santa Rosa County is only 70 miles from the new Airbus facility in Mobile, Alabama. More than 36 percent of the county’s population has an associate’s degree or higher. Local schools are among the best in the state of Florida — the school district, and the vast majority of local public schools, consistently earning an “A” grade from the state. Local business incentives can provide up to $800 per position per year.

2016 (ESTIMATED) — 167,009 MEDIAN AGE (2015) — 39.3 years UNDER 18 YEARS — 29.3% 65 YEARS AND OLDER — 12.9% 18 TO 64 YEARS — 57.8%

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT TAX COLLECTION DECEMBER 2016 — $107,992.05 (18 percent higher than December 2015)

EMPLOYMENT MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME — $58,923 +/- $2,469 MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME — $66,156 +/- $1,774 UNEMPLOYMENT (JANUARY 2017) — 4.4%

MAJOR EMPLOYERS (2014) PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS Wal-Mart Stores (4)

INDUSTRY

# EMPLOYED

Retail

1,285

Baptist Healthcare Systems

Health Services

543

Santa Rosa Medical Center

Health Services

400

Private State Prison

400

Grocery

380

Financial Services

340

Blackwater River Correctional Facility Publix Navy Federal Mediacom Goldring Gulf Distributing AppRiver, LLC Lifeguard Ambulance Service PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Internet/Cable

300

Warehouse/Distribution

240

Internet Security

220

Ambulance Service

160 # EMPLOYED

State Government

1,282

Santa Rosa County School District

2,750

Federal Military

1,336

Santa Rosa County Government

949

Federal Government

751

Sources: Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, U.S. Census Bureau, Santa Rosa Economic Development Office

14 / 2017 S A N TA R O S A C O U N T Y B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

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