850 Business Magazine Fall 2020 by Rowland Publishing, Inc.

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO Power couple raises exotic chicken breeds for fun and profit

NEW DOMI DIRECTOR

Tallahassee business incubator taps into Bill Lickson’s experience

FRONT-END INVESTMENT

Leon County voters consider merits of Children’s Services Council

Career Educator Ann Leonard leads technical center’s efforts to contribute to economic development work

SPECIAL REPORT

BAY COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL

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IN THIS ISSUE Madeline Pumariega, executive vice president and provost at Tallahassee Community College, intends that the college be helpful to students preparing for their first careers and to people who have lost jobs and need to retool for second careers. TCC students seeking certificates in high-demand fields are often recruited while still in school.

850 FEATURES 56

Supplying the Workforce Tallahassee Community College estimated that some 12,000 people were unemployed in its service area in late spring. But some sectors are hiring, notably health care. Nurses, emergency medical technicians and firefighters are in demand. So, too, are welders, truck drivers and probation officers. TCC filled a dental office’s request by providing candidates for employment from its hygienist program, filling 10 spots. TCC is making it possible for students to qualify for jobs that pay well by completing programs that may require only a few months. By Bob Ferrante

Educating Educators Teachers must be willing

to evolve, says Wiliam Crawley, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of West Florida. Teachers may have varying degrees of comfort with options for instructional delivery but must choose the right tool in order to reach their students. “When you teach and you learn, the vehicle is the relationship — empathizing with each other, finding where you are and moving forward together,” Crawley said. “Nothing can replace that, but technology can surely support and complement it.” By Hannah Burke

On the Cover: Ann Leonard, director at the Haney Technical Center in Bay County, has dedicated herself to career and technical education for decades in North Carolina and Florida. She finds the relationships between students and staff to be extraordinary. Photo by Mike Fender

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DOD CONTRACTING

14 Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Defense has made support to small businesses a priority, reports the Defense Leadership Forum.

12 Bill Lickson is a versatile guy. A consultant, entrepreneur, business owner and former FSU decathlete, he now takes over the Domi Station business incubator in Tallahassee. Incubators, he says, will be key to postpandemic recovery.

GOING DIGITAL

20 The pros at Compass Marketing & Consulting offer tips on how to ensure that digital marketing efforts are targeted, effective and captivating.

BUSINESS ARENA 17 At their Greenfire Farms in Havana in Gadsden County, Paul and Sally Bradshaw aren’t content with garden-variety chickens. As their contribution to maintaining the world’s biodiversity, they raise for sale exotic breeds, some of them as improbable as a platypus.

PERSPECTIVES

In This Issue 08 From the Publisher 49 Sound Bytes 82 The Last Word from the Editor

Special Sections PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

67 Familiarize yourself with some of the leading professionals in our area, representing a variety of disciplines and specialties. We summarize the credentials and experience that make them regarded and reputable.

PHOTOS BY DAVE BARFIELD (MADELINE PUMARIEGA) AND FREDRIK BRODEN (17)

DEAL ESTATE

80 Available on Panama City’s 23rd Street and immediately adjoining Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center is a spacious medical condo, well-suited to a variety of practices. Check out, too, a lakeside estate on the market in Tallahassee.

22 In November, Leon County voters will decide the fate of a proposed property tax whose proceeds would be used to fund a Children’s Services Council. While some believe that government is devoting enough money to early childhood programs, others are convinced that more needs to be done.

Corridor CAPITAL 64 The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a spike in business at the Red Hills Online Market, a business dedicated to providing locally produced, organic foods. Its managers expect business to remain brisk no matter what the new normal comes to be. People are discovering an appetite for freshness that isn’t likely to wane just because a virus recedes.

TOP BUILDER

42 ReliantSouth, a commercial general contractor and construction management firm, has completed projects throughout Northwest Florida.

PARK PLACE 51 Santa Rosa County is home to shovel-ready industrial parks with ready access to transportation arteries.

MEETING NEEDS 53 Phoenix Coatings, a structural restoration company, immediately attends to the interests of its clients when disaster strikes.

PLAY TO WIN

76 Consultant Ryan Giles of Traction Strong finds that by mounting an aggressive offense, businesses can succeed even during economic downturns.

TURNKEY SERVICE 78 Rowland Publishing Inc. is equipped to take your publishing project from concept to completion and deliver it to your target audience.

Special Reports

BAY COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL

The St. Joe Company, in concert with Minto Communities and Margaritaville Holdings, is moving forward with an age-restricted active adult community that at build-out, may include 170,000 homes. St. Joe et al anticipate that a sales center and model homes will be open next spring at the project site north of Panama City Beach on State Highway 79. Meanwhile, Suzuki Motors has made plans to establish a research and testing facility in Panama City, and the Bay County Economic Development Alliance is making it possible for prospects to virtually tour what the county has to offer.

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Sniffen & Spellman, P.A. announces the opening of its Pensacola office. Sniffen & Spellman, P.A. is a full-service law firm representing clients statewide in civil litigation and corporate law.

THE FIRM’S PRACTICE AREAS WILL EXPAND WITH THE ADDITION OF

Vickie A. Gesellschap

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Vol. 13, No. 1

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR Steve Bornhoft MANAGING EDITOR Jeff Price CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Hannah Burke, Bob Ferrante, Rebecca Padgett, Audrey Post, Wynn Parks CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut EDITORIAL DESIGNER Lindsey Masterson SENIOR PUBLICATION DESIGNER Shruti Shah PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Sarah Burger, Jordan Harrison GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sierra Thomas CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Dave Barfield, Fredrik Broden, Mike Fender, Desireé Gardner, Scott Holstein, Saige Roberts SALES, MARKETING & EVENTS VICE PRESIDENT/CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT McKenzie Burleigh SALES MANAGER, EASTERN DIVISION Lori Magee Yeaton SALES MANAGER, WESTERN DIVISION Rhonda Lynn Murray DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, EASTERN DIVISION Daniel Parisi DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, WESTERN DIVISION Dan Parker AD SERVICES COORDINATOR Tracy Mulligan ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES David Doll, Julie Dorr, Darla Harrison MARKETING MANAGER Kate Pierson SALES AND MARKETING WRITER Rebecca Padgett SENIOR INTEGRATED MARKETING COORDINATOR Javis Ogden OPERATIONS CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER Sara Goldfarb PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Amber Dennard

Vickie A. Gesellschap is licensed to practice in both Florida and Alabama. In addition to defending clients in employment related matters, Ms. Gesellschap advises clients on business matters, such as corporate structure and governance, contract review and litigation, commercial landlord-tenant matters, homeowner and condominium association issues and the development of corporate compliance programs and training. Vickie earned her Juris Doctorate from Florida State University and an M.B.A. from The University of Alabama.

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From the Publisher

STRIKE UP THE BRAND This is no time not to be seen We inhabit a fast-paced world in which we are bombarded at most every waking moment with advertising messages.

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American economy, are reeling. Many have reacted by scaling back on their messaging as part of survival strategies, but at the end of the day, their brand is their backbone and consistency is the key to brand reinforcement and viability. Businesses that continue to promote their brand will be in the best position to rebound quickly when the virus relents or a vaccine is developed and the economy ramps back up to speed. So, I encourage businesses to keep waving their flags. Take steps to be seen and not forgotten. I encourage consumers to shop locally and compassionately. The local economy and the businesses that make it up need your support. It is hard to ignore an ugly present, but businesses that anticipate and prepare for a brighter future are the ones that will survive and flourish. Stay healthy and be smart,

BRIAN ROWLAND browland@rowlandpublishing.com

PHOTO BY SCOTT HOLSTEIN

How many? A marketing research firm, Yankelovich, calculated in 2007 that the average person in a modern society was exposed to around 5,000 ads a day. Today, Clario, a digital security business, estimates that that figure has doubled to ı0,000. Our phones and other devices to which we are continuously attached, including the latest watches, host a roaring stream of advertising content. One might theoretically refrain from looking at his phone for a time, but so given are we to FOMO, the “fear of missing out,” that few of us can go no-tech for an hour, never mind a weekend. It’s as if we require permission or assurances from our phones that it is OK to take the next breath, the next step. There are times when I yearn for the days when “handheld” referred to a sandwich. Admittedly, I am an old school guy. I still watch the news at 6:30, and the ads that I am most likely to remember are TV spots, although I try to forget the ones that run over into the next time slot. Some spots run so often that they lose effectiveness and wear me out. Since March, when the music stopped, advertising in many cases has become less abrasive, less loud. Countless businesses are all disseminating their versions of the “we’re in this together” message. The pandemic has had the effect of putting all of us in the same boat in an uncharted sea. Once, not so long ago, officials in Florida were confident that the state had somehow dodged a bullet and would not become a COVID-19 hotspot as New York City had. That confidence, as we have learned, was misplaced. As I write this, the words, “new epicenter,” are being applied to the Sunshine State. Things might have been different had Americans more closely heeded the advice of our new Walter Cronkite, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Instead, they flocked to Florida beaches en masse and unmasked, thinking themselves somehow invulnerable. Our shopping habits and opportunities have been dramatically altered, and small businesses, the strength of the

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850businessmagazine.com 7th Annual Pinnacle Awards Sept. 29

Join us virtually, on Sept. 29, 2020, as we honor the 2020 Pinnacle Award recipients and hear from keynote speaker Lisa Walters, general counsel of The St. Joe Company.

EntreCon Business and Leadership Conference | Nov. 18–19 ®

Visit 850BusinessMagazine.com/ pinnacle-awards for more info.

Visit 850businessmagazine.com/calendar/ entrecon-business-and-leadership-conference for more information.

Air Force Contracting Summit

An Emotional Medium Today, many consumers want to have more than a purely transactional relationship with sellers of goods and services. They are looking for an emotional connection, and video can be a powerful medium for bringing that about. Visit 850BusinessMagazine.com/ marketing-insights to learn more.

Feb. 8–9 The 2021 Air Force

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Contracting Summit will be held at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa in DestinMiramar Beach, close to Eglin Air Force Base, Tyndall Air Force Base and USAF Hurlburt Field, on Feb. 8–9. The summit brings together members of Congress, Pentagon officials, military base commanders, contracting officers, contracting experts and business leaders nationwide.

Visit eventbrite.com/e/2021air-force-contracting-summitregistration-106134097944 for more information.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ENTRECON®, COMPASS MARKETING (MARKETING INSIGHTS), AIR FORCE CONTRACTING SUMMIT AND THE ST. JOE COMPANY

If you’re ready to soak up the latest leadership trends, feel inspired and achieve results at the next level, surround yourself with forward-thinking leaders at EntreCon in downtown Pensacola on Nov. 18–19. EntreCon is presented by the Studer Community Institute, whose mission is to help businesses improve the skill sets of their workforce, grow jobs, retain top talent and, by extension, make communities better. At EntreCon, you will hear from outstanding speakers and join in breakout sessions on leadership, growth, marketing, mindfulness, social media, innovation and much more.

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Executive Mindset

The (850) Life GROOMING ENTREPRENEURS

Building the Next Economy Bill Lickson believes business incubators have a role to play in shaping a post-pandemic world

s the new executive director of Domi Station, Bill Lickson aims to build upon the successes of his predecessors and make the Tallahassee business incubator and co-working space the hub of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. “I want to serve entrepreneurs who are struggling and create a financially stable place for people with ideas to pursue their dreams,” Lickson said. “Domi is not competitive, it’s collaborative, and because it is, the whole economy wins.” Lickson succeeded Antonio Montoya about whom he speaks highly. “Antonio did an excellent job in seeing to it that Domi curriculum can be distributed virtually,” Lickson said, citing one of Montoya’s contributions. As a result, Domi has been better able to weather the COVID-19 pandemic than other incubators.

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“Many places could not continue because they rely on a traditional classroom structure,” Lickson said. “Domi was able to continue to offer curriculum and conduct mentorship activities because the program had evolved.” Lickson also noted the creation of the Tallahassee Mentor Network — TLHmentors.org — a platform that connects mentors to entrepreneurs and is used by Domi alumni, the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship, Innovation Park and others. “It is designed to truly be a community asset,” he said. So, Lickson has solid shoulders to stand on and established programs at his disposal, but he checked into Domi Station with a substantial tool kit of his own. Lickson is a 50-year Tallahassee resident who earned a degree and completed graduate coursework at FSU, where he was a scholarship track athlete. He competed in the decathlon and won a Metro Conference championship in the javelin throw his senior year.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL LICKSON

BY STEVE BORNHOFT

“That tells you how weak the Metro Conference was at that time,” he joked. Far more recently, Lickson was the chief operating officer at Jinglz, a technology company that employs proprietary programs to assess the effectiveness of video campaigns. “Anyone producing video who is accountable for results is a potential user of its Campaign Tester product,” Lickson said. The product analyzes the faces of volunteer subjects and their “micro-gestures” to verify levels of engagement with videos and to measure emotional reactions to them. “There is a bit of a creep factor,” Lickson conceded. Too, he served as a contract CEO at Autism Navigator, a provider of web-based resources for parents of children with autism and professional development courses that offer training in evidence-based practices to physicians and early intervention specialists. Lickson said that his Autism Navigator experience taught him a lot about the licensing of technology and technology transfer at a research institution such as the FSU College of Medicine. “Our universities are spinning up information technologies that have great revenue potential,” Lickson said. “That is a key unlocking a great deal of entrepreneurship in our region.” Over his career, Lickson has both started companies and helped others start them. At this writing, he had closed his health-food retail stores and was in the process of redeploying the 20-year-old business online. In 2010, he launched a consultancy, Strategic Media Arts, that worked with conventional and student entrepreneurs. “I help people solve problems and connect them with subject matter experts,” Lickson described his work as a consultant — work of a sort that he will continue to do at Domi. “I often am not the right person, but because I have been doing this a long time, I can connect entrepreneurs with the right people. “I see Domi as the center point in the region’s entrepreneurial system. It is a destination literally in the middle of town where you can go to start or accelerate a company. You can go to FSU, FAMU or Tallahassee Community College, and when you graduate, Domi is a place where you can take the next step. Or, if you are a scientist soliciting grant money, Domi is a great

place to be before you are ready to go to the wet lab at Innovation Park.” According to research led by Dr. Julie Harrington at the FSU Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis and made public in June, Domi, since its inception in 2014, has served 181 startups and 223 entrepreneurs who have attracted $18.3 million in investments and produced 212 direct jobs. That same research calculated that Domi-assisted businesses and entrepreneurs had produced $199.4 million in economic output and $39.4 million in income or wages. “It’s great to see an ROI like that,” Lickson said. “Some folks have the perception the Domi is just a cool place to hang out, and it is that, but it is also spinning up substantial companies and helping to create a culture of entrepreneurship. And just learning about entrepreneurship makes someone a valuable member of a team whether or not they actually start a company.” Gestation and maturation periods for startups vary, Lickson said, comparing them to crops. “Green beans reach harvestable maturity in a few weeks,” he said. “Trees might take years.” He cited tech companies as among those that have the capacity to scale virtually and grow rapidly. “They are the green beans,” he said. Maybe even radishes. Domi’s entrepreneur application asks applicants to supply, among other information, three customer personas, market analysis, an assessment of the competitive landscape they plan to enter and their unique value proposition. Many established businesses would struggle with the questionnaire, Lickson said. “Successful mentorship involves asking the right questions,” he said. “For example, the more precisely you define customer personas, the better you will be at targeting those folks, be they business owners, readers or political constituents.” Lickson readily summed up for him the appeal of his new job. “We are living in what is arguably one of the most important times in our history to be a part of salvaging our economy,” he said. “I saw an opportunity to get involved.”

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CUSTOM CONTENT

Resources for Small Business Defense Contractors

ith the pandemic hitting small businesses especially hard, the Department of Defense (DoD) has made it even more of a priority to assist and support small businesses. “Small- and medium-sized businesses nationwide now have a wide range of opportunities in defense contracting,” states Charles Sills, the program director for the Defense Leadership Forum (DLF). “The Defense Department and the services have initiated special programs to identify and rapidly fund innovative technologies that the warfighter needs now — from drones to AI to satellite comms. They are holding ‘industry pitch’ days and writing sole-source checks on the spot. These outreach initiatives complement the traditional but still robust SBIR/STTR R&D programs. In addition, the DoD has rejuvenated its MentorProtégé Program, encouraging Fortune 1000 prime contractors to partner with smaller firms in their sector.” 14

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In Northwest Florida, there are small business offices on military bases ready to assist small businesses interested in military contracts. “With the Korean Armistice Agreement, followed by the military drawdown, came the creation of the Small Business Administration by Congress,” states Howard Snow, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy and the national moderator for the defense conferences hosted by the Defense Leadership Forum. “Knowing that the military would have to rely on the private sector for goods and services in the future, military installations started opening small business offices to provide companies access. After attending a defense contracting summit by the Defense Leadership Forum, these offices should be everyone’s first stop for information when doing business with the military.” See the sidebar on the next page for a list of small business offices at Northwest Florida’s military bases. There are additional resources for all

small businesses in Northwest Florida, including small business defense contractors. “We have a focus on the set-aside community of small businesses, like veteran-owned, woman-owned, minority-owned, and 8(a) companies,” said Edward Spenceley, Bank of America’s Senior Vice President for Government Contracting and a veteran-owned business specialist. “Bank of America is the No. 1 lender to the government contracting industry with over $5 billion in loan commitments, including $3 billion to small- and middle-market government contractors nationally.” “Small businesses play a vital role in the success of our communities, and because of this we are always looking for ways to support them,” said Gulf Power President Marlene Santos. “Earlier this year, we were honored to provide financial assistance to local businesses by giving a total of $500,000 to the Small

CUSTOM CONTENT

Northwest Florida Small Business Resources List BANK OF AMERICA Edward Spenceley SVP, Government Contracting edward.spenceley@bofa.com Above: “We’re making smart investments on behalf of our customers that are delivering cleaner energy, more reliable service and an enhanced customer experience, with the ultimate goal of lowering costs for our customers,” Gulf Power’s Marlene Santos said at the Gulf Power Economic Symposium. Courtesy of Gulf Power News. Left: Helping small businesses is a top priority of Congressman Matt Gaetz. Courtesy of Fletcher Isacks

Business Development Center at the University of West Florida to distribute to local businesses that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe these one-time grants were one of the best ways we could quickly provide much-needed support to businesses that were experiencing heavy losses in revenue. We were very pleased that all of these grant dollars were successfully distributed to Northwest Florida businesses by the SBDC, and our Gulf Power team will continue to look for innovative ways to help small businesses in our communities.” And Enterprise Florida’s statewide network of professional trade counselors provides free export counseling to small- and mediumsized companies interested in expanding globally. See the list in the sidebar for its Pensacola office. Although it is not exclusively a small business event, hundreds of small businesses are already planning to attend the 8th Annual Air Force Contracting Summit, scheduled for Feb. 8–9, 2021 at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa. The small businesses will have opportunities to meet prime defense contractors

for subcontracting arrangements and will be able to receive the latest information on DoD and Air Force mission and contracting priorities. For more information, visit DefenseLeadershipForum.org/ airforcecontractingsummit. The Defense Leadership Forum is also hosting a series of virtual defense events. When COVID-19 became a national pandemic emergency, DLF launched immediate free webinars on SBA assistance to small businesses, followed by defense contracting webinars and virtual defense summits involving the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army. Now, DLF has launched a series of National Defense Subcontracting Summits, which will team small businesses seeking subcontracting opportunities with prime defense contractors. If you are interested, please contact: subcontracting@usdlf.org.

» DEFENSE

LEADERSHIP FORUM

(202) 552-0179 info@defenseleadershipforum.org

GULF POWER One Energy Place Pensacola, FL 32520 (800) 225-5797 ENTERPRISE FLORIDA Andrea Moore Manager, International Trade & Development 418 W. Garden St., Suite 107 Pensacola, FL 32502 (850) 469-8989 TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE CONTRACTING OFFICE 325 Contracting Squadron (325 CONS) 501 Illinois Ave., Suite B Tyndall AFB, FL 32403 Base info: (850) 283-1110 x 0 EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM OFFICE 205 West D Ave., Suite 449 Eglin AFB, FL 32542-6863 (850) 882-2843 HURLBURT FIELD SMALL BUSINESS OFFICE Air Force Special Operations Command 427 Cody Ave., Suite 212 Hurlburt Field, FL 32544 (850) 884-1250 NAVAL SURFACE WARFARE CENTER PANAMA CITY SMALL BUSINESS OFFICE 110 Vernon Ave. Panama City, FL 32407-7001 (850) 235-5328 NAVAL AIR STATION PENSACOLA 190 Radford St. Pensacola, FL 32508-5517 Contracts Office (850) 452-3609 850 Business Magazine

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ongressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) hosted his first Virtual Defense Day on June 18, 2020. The unique online 4½-hour event included presentations by Congressman Gaetz, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Congressman Francis Rooney and Congressman Don Bacon, as well as leaders from Eglin Air Force Base, Tyndall Air Force Base, Air Force Special Operations Command, the Doolittle Institute, the University of West Florida and more. With the support of the Defense Leadership Forum, the Gaetz Virtual Defense Day was seen by more than 2,300 viewers by the end of June. During his presentation, Congressman Gaetz emphasized that the federal ban on oil drilling off the Florida coast needs to be reauthorized before it expires in June of 2022, stressing that, “Offshore oil drilling would impair our military

BY WILLIAM LOIRY

Brig. Gen. Scott Cain, Commander of the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, echoed Congressman Gaetz’s concern about the expiration of the ban on oil drilling off the coast of Florida. Brig. Gen. Cain stated, “If the ban is not extended, that is going to be a threat to us executing our mission on the Gulf Testing Range.” Brig. Gen. Cain also said cyber testing is a priority at Eglin. He also praised the new Eglin Intrepid Spirit Center, a treatment center for post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, associated pain conditions and psychological injuries in regional active duty service members. Col. Brian Laidlaw, Commander of the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, discussed rebuilding after the tremendous damage Hurricane Michael caused. “We’re rebuilding Tyndall as the Air Force Base of the future,” Laidlaw said. “We’re on a three-tofive year timetable to replace 300 destroyed buildings,” he added. Congress has passed $3.4 billion for Tyndall reconstruction.

mission and would have a devastating impact on our economy.” Congressman Gaetz also said that small business defense contracting in Northwest Florida is one of his major priorities and that his No. 1 economic strategy in Northwest Florida is to grow the militaryrelated workforce. He also lauded the growing Coast Guard mission in Pensacola and said he will continue to support Northwest Florida as the “Cyber Coast.” Captain Nate Nelson, the Military Affairs Director for Congressman Gaetz, discussed his vision and Congressman Gaetz’s vision for a Futures Park near Eglin AFB. “Through the Futures Park, we’re trying to enhance the defense industry’s capabilities in Northwest Florida,” Nelson said. The Futures Park will bring government, industry and academia together to especially collaborate on enhancing weapons technology and will support the further development of the military workforce in Northwest Florida.

William Loiry is an American business leader, defense and security facilitator, and philanthropist. More than 100,000 government, military and business leaders have attended his conferences on defense, homeland and global security, and disaster reconstruction. For more information, visit WilliamLoiry.com

WILLIAM LOIRY

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GREENFIRE FARMS Preserving the grande, ancient lineage de poulet BY WYNN PARKS

n 1999, Paul Bradshaw, after an unsatisfying foray into cattle ranching in the karst hills north of Tallahassee, read a haunting passage from ecologist Aldo Leopold’s Sand Mountain Almanac. The ecologist had been forced to shoot a wolf and, with a smitten heart, watched the “fierce green fire” dying in its eyes. The passage caused Bradshaw to reflect with sadness upon diminishing biodiversity, and it stayed with him. At the time, Bradshaw and his wife, Sally, presided over a “one-acre Eden” that was home to a few pedestrian farm animals. A greenhouse garden dominated the backyard. The couple’s energies were devoted mostly to their consuming jobs, his as a lobbyist and hers in high-stakes politics. How that mini-Eden in Havana, Florida, grew into present-day Greenfire Farms is serendipitous. The big epiphany came when Bradshaw made the acquaintance of a Coronation Sussex chicken.

Photography by FREDRIK BRODEN

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The Coronation is a venerable breed, pale gray of feather and succulent of flesh, and specially developed, back in the day, to honor England’s King Edward VIII. Introduced to just one Sussex beauty, Bradshaw became fouled in chickens. His tiny hobby farm evolved into a 45-acre Ararat for dry-docking a spectacular collection of rare and beautiful birds. Ah, chickens! When they are mentioned, what American’s first thought doesn’t go to the primeval Chicken Riddle, a joke so universal that few would fail to recognize even an allusion to it: A chicken sees a duck about to cross the road. “Don’t do it,” says the chicken. “You’ll never hear the end of it!” “Chickens! Can’t live with ’em; can’t live without ’em!” Anyone who has ever walked barefoot through a backyard full of free-ranging Henriettas or chowed down on hot wings knows the truth of that proposition. But stereotyping Gallus gallus as nothing more than a silly, barnyard critter to be found either pointlessly crossing thoroughfares or adorning rotisserie spits is doing the ancient order of the chicken a great disservice. Contrary to a kindergarten fable profiling Chicken Little as a hysterical wimp fleeing the collapse of the sky, the chicken’s original domestication may not have been inspired by its succulence but its fierce, inborn combativeness. Ancient historian Herodotus reports that the chicken may have saved Western civilization. In the fifth century B.C., the Greek general Themistocles, leading his army to confront a vast Persian host at Marathon, encountered along his way two roosters squared off and fighting. Themistocles, a blunt commoner, told his soldiers to watch the avian battle: “Behold these who do not fight for their household gods, or for the monuments of their ancestors, or for glory, liberty, or the safety of their children, but only because one will not give way to the other.” Given that feathery inspiration, the Greek hoplites then ruled the day in Marathon with that same gut-level intensity. The ancient mystique regarding the noble characteristics inherent in Gallus gallus has come home to roost in the breast of Paul Bradshaw. According to modern ornithologists, if today’s domestic chicken were to log on to Ancestry.com/henny-penny, it could trace its lineage back to the dinosaurs. Eight to 10,000 years ago, the line, having long survived the extinction of its progenitors, manifested as Southeast Asia’s red jungle fowl. DNA studies have tracked the ancient domestication and diaspora of the chicken through India to the Mediterranean. There, in seven-hilled Rome, the chicken pecked out a unique status in public life. In important questions of state, the chicken’s part in divining the will of the gods — either with its blood, or choosing one pile of grain over another —imbued it with an almost sacred aura. Two millennia later, Greenfire stewards 53 breeds and, individually, 1,200 “rare hens and roosters” collected from every

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clime: chickens like the Tomaru, dating to the Tang Dynasty in China, with its luxuriant, ninja-black plumage; the Brown Red Game Cock, Alabama’s fighting bird from Irish stock; the Pavlovskaya from Russia, saved from extinction and cold hardy with a punk-rock explosion of feathers on its head; the Ayam

Ketawa or “Laughing Chicken”; and the Ayam Cemani, both from Indonesia. The latter is a chicken black, literally to the bone, organs and flesh. Bradshaw says it’s his most requested bird ever. Apropos Florida, Greenfire Farms is a gated community, more akin to stables of pedigreed racehorses than any commercial hatchery. Bradshaw avows that Greenfire selects and raises its own breeding flock rather than buying and

BIRDS OF MANY FEATHERS Paul Bradshaw grew disaffected with cattle farming but found in chickens his husbandry niche. His breeding habit is consistent with his outlook on the importance of biodiversity.

incubating anonymous eggsin-the-poke from industrialized eggatoriums. Bradshaw so seriously takes his mission to preserve chickenhood’s variations and provide exotic chicken growers with healthy, top-dollar chicks that Greenfire’s hatching areas resemble a NASA

Photography by FREDRIK BRODEN

sterile-room facility. Buyers are supplied by mail; if they were to visit the facilities, they might introduce contaminants. A day after hatching, the on-order chicks are put in a special Postal Service box (winter heat pad, optional). Greenfire advises buyers to order no fewer than three chicks. Shipped together, each chick has at least two other shock-absorbing fluff-balls in the box during something like a stagecoach ride through the Badlands to wherever their journey takes them. Back home, the 1,200 adult chickens at Greenfire can be found, mostly dallying, in the sunshine and fresh air of Panhandle Florida. Greenfire ships out some 50,000 chicks a year. Cream Legbars, which were brought to the U.S. from England and lay blue eggs, are currently popular. Male chicks go for $19 and the females for $29. All black Ayam Cemani chicks, when in stock, fetch $199. Wherever, there are no chickens without eggs: Which color does Monsieur or Madame prefer. Classic white? Blue? Green? Or perhaps a sophisticated, chocolate-brown, preferred, according to Ian Fleming, by none other than Bond, James Bond. To folks fancying colored eggs, Greenfire will dispatch its Rainbow Egg-Layer Mix — at least three different breeds of chicks to produce eggs the envy of the Easter Bunny. Bradshaw’s goal of preserving diversity within the ranks of a muchtaken-for-granted animal friend is foremost a labor of love. Actor Bill Murray once said, “I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.” Could Paul Bradshaw’s fondness for the birds someday make it so?

BEYOND IMAGINING The seemingly endless variety of chickens at Greenfire Farms includes birds that make excellent table fare, birds that laugh like maniacs, birds with frankly exquisite plumage and birds on the verge of vanishing.

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PROMOTION

DIGITAL MARKETING 5 Keys to Success that Businesses Need to Know

t is said that golfers who have not learned how to control the distance and direction of the ball are reduced to “hitting and hoping.” Businesses new to digital marketing may have a similar experience. They “put something out there” and hope that it works. Katie Booker, the digital marketing strategist at Compass Marketing & Consulting in Tallahassee, and Bria Silver, a social media strategist, advise businesses to actively approach their marketing efforts, engage with their target audiences and keep the following tips in mind.

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PROMOTION

KNOW WHICH SOCIAL PLATFORMS ARE APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

• You don’t have to be on every platform to successfully market your business. • A restaurant doesn’t need to be on LinkedIn, and a law firm shouldn’t be on TikTok. • Different platforms appeal to different audiences. USE AN INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN

• Your social media and Google Ads campaigns should mirror the content on your website. That is, everything you are putting out in the world for your audience to consume should have a similar look and feel. • Cohesive content will make your brand more recognizable and easier to understand. Each component of a marketing campaign should reinforce other components. • Compass put together an integrated marketing campaign for a college in 2019. It used student testimonials on platforms including social media, email campaigns and traditional marketing efforts. All marketing messages featured images of students, and wherever people encountered the campaign, the branding was uniform. Booker and Silver emphasized that businesses and marketers should not, for example, post one message to Facebook and a contrasting message on Instagram. Consistency is paramount. ALWAYS OPTIMIZE

• Actively evaluate your campaign’s metrics. • Determine what is and isn’t working. “Optimizing is super important,” Silver said, noting the failure on the part of some businesses to pay attention to data. “The platforms will take your money even if your ads aren’t working.” Added Booker, “We get into the weeds with clients instead of just looking at the big picture and the number of posts. We determine which key words will work best for the business. We

look at budgets and the cost per click or per engagement with an app.” • A great place to start: Look at metrics from campaigns on sites such as Google Ads, Google Analytics and Facebook Business Manager. SOCIAL LISTENING

• Be aware of what is going on in the world. • There is a time and a place to post. Context is important and can affect the way in which people interpret marketing messages. Reputational harm may occur if a business is seen to be insensitive to the current environment. • Monitor trends and talk about what your business relationship to them may be. BE AWARE OF YOUR AUDIENCE

• Listen to what people are saying, and note what they are not saying. Gauge what interests them and disinterests them. What do they like and dislike? • Actively engage with them as a way to help you evaluate the success of your campaign. • Reply to and like comments on your posts; it’s a good way to maintain contact with your audience. People, when they seek information about a particular product or service, offer clues to what a campaign might best emphasize. There is no need to throw your money away with ineffective messaging. Knowing your audience, evaluating your data, cohesive messaging, optimizing and listening will allow you to effectively market your business digitally. Bear in mind that some of the most critical work associated with a marketing campaign occurs after the campaign is launched. The digital environment offers distinct advantages to businesses because content posted there can be readily tweaked in response to results. Follow these tips, and you will not have to “hit and hope.” You will be able to clearly assess your marketing efforts.

COMPASS MARKETING 1711 Capital Circle NE | (850) 878-3370 | CompassMAC.com 850 Business Magazine

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Executive Mindset

Perspectives TAX PROPOSAL

An Uneven Playing Field Proponents say Children’s Services Council would extend the reach of programs for kids BY STEVE BORNHOFT

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teve Uhlfelder concedes that it is a lot easier to win voter approval of a half-cent sales tax than a half-mill property tax levy.

Uhlfelder, a Tallahassee attorney, helped lead the effort in support of a sales tax benefitting Leon County Schools. Today, he’s promoting passage of a property tax levy that would fund a Children’s Services Council and, he said, provide badly needed support for early education facilities and programs. Leon County commissioners voted unanimously in June 2018 to place the creation of a Children’s Services Council (CSC) on this November’s general election

PHOTO BY MONKEYBUSINESSIMAGES / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

ballot. If approved by voters, the council would have the authority to levy a property tax of up to 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed value to fund services for children beginning at birth. It would cost the average property taxpayer less than $50 per year and raise about $8 million per year in revenue. “This proposal will not solve all our problems, but it will help fill in gaps that existing programs do not meet,” Uhlfelder said. “We desperately need more high-quality early education facilities, and they need to be held to high standards.” Uhlfelder said that programs receiving CSC funding would be given a prescribed amount of time to demonstrate that their programs are working in order to qualify for continued funding. He pointed out that among counties with a CSC, none has ever voted to non-renew the council. “There is a solid indication that where you do evidencebased programs and providers are required to demonstrate results, people will support those programs,” Uhlfelder added. Lobbyist and consultant Barney Bishop, however, is not satisfied that voters are in a position to know precisely what they will be supporting if they choose to vote for the levy in November. “The advisory Children’s Services Council Planning Committee failed to produce a budget of how the money generated by the tax would be spent,” he said. “When you are selling a tax increase, especially in a challenging economic environment, it behooves you to supply a spending plan. “Local, state and federal governments are already spending $200 million annually to attack the problem of poverty and enhancing kids’ lives and improving families’ lives so that they can help their children — and we aren’t even moving the needle. Why does the committee think that another $8 million is going to make any difference?” In any event, Bishop questions the need to “create a whole new bureaucracy” to benefit children. “We have an organization in Tallahassee, Big Bend Community Based Care, that has already provided for oversight, administration, contract renewals, quality assurance and utilization management, and they’ve been doing it for 12 years. They are the experts for delivery money for substance abuse, mental health and the foster care system.” Finally, Bishop is concerned about accountability. “Why would we invest unelected individuals with taxing authority?” he asked. “How are we going to hold them accountable? We don’t even do a very good job of holding our elected officials accountable.”

For land-rich Tallahassee businessman DeVoe Moore, 81, the proposed Leon County CSC smacks of socialism. For Dr. Mimi Graham, director of the FSU Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy, such a council has the potential to help lift at-risk youths out of stubborn generational poverty by preparing them to benefit fully from what schools have to offer. Moore is far from the average taxpayer. Government, he said, “has plenty of money and plenty of programs, even on the local level. I came to Tallahassee with $250 in my pocket. Now, I own quite a few properties, and I would take a large hit if this new tax were imposed.” Moore, whose interests include the Tallahassee Automobile Museum, views traditional education as a key to improving lives, but he questions whether a CSC would be effective. He laments what he sees as a diminished work ethic in America. “I work six days a week, and ‘retirement’ is not in my vocabulary,” Moore said. “I’ve been in business since 1965. I feel sorry for the next generation of young people coming up. They have never learned how to work. Everything has been given to them. They don’t understand that it may be OK to ask for something, but don’t expect it. Be prepared to earn it.” Moore is given to quoting his grandfather and father “who told me that nothing is free; somebody has got to pay.” He sees Tallahassee as a city dominated by public-sector government and university employment and one that is doing too little to make itself attractive to prospective businesses. (According to the Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Development, the private sector accounted for 61 percent of GDP in the county 2001, a figure that grew to 69 percent in 2017.) In an open letter written in early March, Moore cited Tallahassee’s low unemployment rate and noted lists in which the city figured as a top location for career opportunities, getting a fresh start and wage growth. He pointed to Tallahassee’s status as “One of the South’s Best Cities,” as selected by Southern Living magazine. “If all of that is true,” Moore said, “why are we considering a new tax?” Graham is prepared to answer that question. She is acutely aware of truths that Moore may find inconvenient, including the fact that 42 percent of Leon County children under age 5 live below the poverty line. Graham was a member of a Children’s Services Council Planning Committee noted by Bishop, a group empaneled to assess the needs of children in Leon County and to gauge the potential benefits of a CSC.

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parents. For those children who do succeed in attending a three-hour program, “It can be like giving kids one pill of penicillin instead of an adequate amount.” According to Graham, “Early Head Start and Head Start serve only 3 percent of the eligible poor kids in our community.” For Graham, then, it is not surprising that more than half of Leon County’s children do not show up for school ready for kindergarten and that, as third-graders, more than half of students are not reading at grade level. “If we do a better job early, we can have better outcomes later,” Graham stressed. “Eighty percent of the brain is developed by age 3, and 90 percent by age 5.” Graham believes that progress toward school readiness should begin at conception. “At the FSU Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy, we focus on the first ı,000 days of life, beginning with conception,” Graham said. “I have spoken in Cape Town, South Africa, and other places in the world where they also focus on the first thousand days. We have scientists globally and world economists who say, absolutely, that the prenatal-to-age-3 period is the best time to invest in children.” As a guardian ad litem, Graham is helping to look after the needs of two small children. She became involved with an infant who was dropped off at the home of a single mother. A short time later, she also began helping out with that woman’s eighth child, when it was born. The newborn and her mother had cocaine in their systems. The mother had no shoes, no car seat. Graham said a CSC in Leon County might provide a program, like one that exists in Sarasota, which would enroll mothers in drug treatment programs and provide them with birth control before they leave the hospital. “We see many innovative, wonderful programs around the state, and we really don’t have the funding for them in Tallahassee,” Graham said. “If you don’t make the necessary front-end investment, costs invariably are incurred down the line.”

STEVE UHLFELDER “We desperately need more high-quality early education facilities, and they need to be held to high standards.”

BARNEY BISHOP “Local, state and federal governments are already spending $200 million a year to tackle the problem … and we aren’t even moving the needle.”

DR. MIMI GRAHAM “If we do a better job early, we will have better outcomes later. Eighty percent of the brain is developed by age 3.”

DEVOE MOORE “I came to Tallahassee with $250 in my pocket. Now, I own quite a few properties, and I would take a large hit if this tax were passed.”

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS (MOORE), DAVE BARFIELD (UHLFELDER) AND COURTESY OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES COUNCIL (GRAHAM) AND BARNEY BISHOP

The committee, after meeting for a year, established six priorities in the summer of 2019: ■ Investing in early childhood education programs to ensure that children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. ■ Investing in summer and afterschool programs designed to help at-risk youth. ■ Providing health education and support for parents and children to reduce infant and maternal mortality, increase infant health, improve oral health and improve early identification of health problems. ■ Providing mental health support for parents and children. ■ Investing in youth development programs to provide occupational opportunities that can build job skills and support families facing poverty. ■ Reducing the consequences of food insecurity by ensuring that children in Leon County have adequate year-round access to healthy food. A CSC, Graham believes, can be an integral part of meeting those objectives. “I have had the pleasure of working with CSCs around the state and have been jealous of them for my entire career,” she said. With the exception of Orlando, big cities in Florida (accounting for more than half of the state’s population) have a CSC. Alachua County, in 2016, was the last county to create one. In 2014, five councils statewide were up for renewal. “In each case, more than 75 percent of voters favored reauthorization,” Graham pointed out. “They have proven their accountability and their value.” While there are a lot of services in Leon County, Graham said, they are not sufficiently reaching the children they were designed to serve. She is confident that a CSC would make it possible to expand and enhance existing programs and add new ones as may be necessary. She noted that only 40 percent of eligible children are enrolled in school-readiness programs. Pre-k programs that operate for three hours a day present what can be insurmountable logistical problems for well-intentioned

SPECIAL REPORT

2020 Bay County Business Journal AN 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE SPECIAL REPORT

LATITUDE MARGARITAVILLE WATERSOUND | HANEY TECHNICAL CENTER CAPITAL CITY BANK | ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT UPDATE DRONE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS | NORTHWEST FLORIDA BEACHES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT PHOTOS BY MIKE FENDER (DRONES AND CAPITAL CITY BANK) AND COURTESY OF THE ST. JOE COMPANY (MARGARITAVILLE)

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Bay County Business Journal SPEC I A L R EPORT

FOOD, FUN, MUSIC, ESCAPISM St. Joe Company, Minto Communities building project of municipal proportions By Steve Bornhoft

fter successfully undertaking the development of age-restricted, active-adult communities in Daytona Beach and Hilton Head, South Carolina, the master builder Minto Communities USA commenced looking around for its next large-scale opportunity. “We have learned that there are four or five elements that every successful active-adult community must have,” said Bill Bullock, a Minto division president. Enumerating them, Bullock touched upon the need for sufficient land, proximity to an airport, a coastal location, convenient retail and service businesses, and a nearby medical facility. Inevitably, one might suppose, Minto found itself sizing up the vast land holdings of the St. Joe Company, now headquartered in Panama City Beach, and especially its real estate along ı5 miles of the Intracoastal Waterway close to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. Minto approached St. Joe with an interest in buying some dirt, but a relationship that might have been transactional became a partnership instead. Today, the parties are united in a joint venture — the third Latitude Margaritaville community in the United States — a project of a scope so large it is not easily comprehended.

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The hook-up represented a merging of like visions. St. Joe had been considering an active-adult component as part of its Bay County plans for more than ı0 years. “They had the land asset teed up, they had done their strategic research and believed in the concept,” Bullock said. “And we already had grabbed a tiger by the tail in teaming up with Margaritaville Holdings.” Margaritaville Holdings, in which the beachy balladeer Jimmy Buffett has an ownership interest, is the brand licensee and brand steward for what will be known as Latitude Margaritaville Watersound, currently in development on ı00,000 acres north of Panama City Beach and west of State 79. The project’s first phase will encompass 3,500 homes, most all of them ranging in price from the low $200s to about $450,000, on 50-foot and 60-foot lots. Homes will range in size from ı,200 to 2,400 square feet. To date, Minto has not sold any lots to other builders on its Latitude platform, and it has no plans to do so at this time. The notion of Margaritaville resonates well, Bullock said, with people seeking lives of “food, fun, music and escapism” — the lifestyle embraced by the brand — and old enough to remember the prominence of “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” as a motto.

“To engage with a partner like St. Joe, which is so fully in sync with our longterm vision for Latitude Margaritaville Watersound really was a perfect alignment,” Bullock said. “We have always said that we make money with our partners, not off our partners.” A sales center is under construction and will open next spring, Bullock projected, but not before model homes are ready for inspection. Minto started clearing land for its first production lots in June. Customers will be able to buy a house at the development’s grand opening and can expect construction to begin immediately. “It’s a massive undertaking when you are talking about laying the groundwork for a city that, based on plat approvals, will include upwards of ı70,000 houses

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ST. JOE COMPANY

The St. Joe Company, Minto Communities and brand licensee Margaritaville Holdings have teamed up on an active-adult development, Latitude Margaritaville Watersound, located north of Panama City Beach on State 79 opposite its intersection with what will be rerouted State 388.

when it is built out,” Bullock said. “It doesn’t happen overnight.” The Paradise Club provides subscribers with monthly updates on the Daytona Beach, Hilton Head and now Watersound projects (see LatitudeMargaritaville.com). Among 400,000 club members, ı5,000 have expressed interest specifically in Watersound. “That’s pretty eye opening, to have that level of interest at this stage,” Bullock said. “At Daytona, we’re in our third year of home sales. We sold 60 homes last month (June), and we expect to do even more volume at Watersound.” Bullock said visitors to the sales center will be introduced first to the JV partners, their strength and their history with a presentation he expects to be confidence-inspiring. As they

“We have carved out approximately 40 acres on a bluff that overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway. You look out from there, and you feel like you have stepped back 200 years in time. Developers say you should never fall in love with a parcel of land, but I love that piece of dirt.” —Bill Bullock, Minto Communities proceed through the center, visitors will learn how the development incorporates the Latitude lifestyle. They will hear the familiar strains of Jimmy Buffett standards. Amenities — marina, bandshells, restaurants, retail, fitness center, miles of walking, bicycling and multi-modal trails — will be described. Environmental aspects of the property will be showcased. “People start asking themselves,

‘Why would I go on planning vacations when I could live every day on vacation?’ ” Bullock said, speaking from experience. “When people realize that the development checks all of their boxes, they ask, ‘Where do I sign?’” Bullock said residents of Latitude Margaritaville developments readily find common ground. “It isn’t about how much you paid for your house; it’s about a whole bunch of 850 Business Magazine

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Latitude Margaritaville Watersound’s developers anticipate opening a sales center — and model homes — in the spring of 2021. The first phase of the project is planned to include 3,500 homes.

people having a great time and forming some of the best friendships they have ever had,” Bullock said. “I’m stunned at some of the prices paid for properties along the Emerald Coast, but that’s not the market we’re after. How are you going to get through tens of thousands of houses if you’re trying to get a million bucks a piece for them?” Bullock said Latitude Margaritaville Watersound will be able to separate itself from The Villages in Central Florida and the best adult communities in Arizona on the strength of its “worldclass amenities,” its location ı5 minutes from Florida’s best beaches and its Intracoastal Waterway setting. There is no waterway in Scottsdale. Amenities will reflect current desires. “If you ask people what they want and you deliver it, you really can’t go wrong,” Bullock said. “It used to be that golf was No. ı, and other things were down at the bottom. In the last ı0–20 years, we have seen almost a complete reversal. Wellness, exercise and walking trails are the top three or four. We will have an extensive trail network where people can exercise, maintain their health and appreciate the environment.” 28

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“The marina location has been identified, and it will be open to the public,” said Bridget Precise, St. Joe’s senior vice president for residential real estate. A Marina Village including retail, food and beverage will adjoin the waterfront amenity. A second commercial “village” will be developed along State 79. “People hear about the development, and they come to us and try to figure out if it represents an opportunity for them,” Precise said. “We work very openly with anyone who has an interest. We are not going to solesource everything with pre-determined people — and it’s not going to be ı00 percent organic. We have spoken with multiple medical services providers, including Ascension and HCA. We try to be inclusive. Those conversations are ongoing, and there has been a lot of interest from different corners.” Bullock noted that extensive private amenities will be reserved for residents. “We have carved out approximately 40 acres on a bluff that overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway,” he said. “You look out from there, and you feel like you have stepped back 200 years in

time. Developers say you should never fall in love with a parcel of land, but I love that piece of dirt.” The bluff, Bullock said, will be home to a two-story restaurant with rooftop dining, a resort-style pool and activity centers. “They will be the first collection of amenities to be built, and we will add more as our footprint expands,” he said. The developers plan to leave undisturbed natural areas of a character that hasn’t changed for thousands of years while also employing new technologies. “We are working on autonomous vehicles,” Bullock said. “We’re going to deploy them at Daytona first and quickly add them to Watersound as soon as we get everything figured out.” The vehicles, Bullock anticipates, will be used first as delivery vehicles and eventually will carry passengers. “The Villages is an amazing place,” Bullock said. “You can’t knock what they do. But why wouldn’t you go to the Panhandle? We have a unique opportunity here in a setting that people enjoy, and we are proceeding from scratch with sound masterplanning techniques. And we’re going to put a lot of people to work.” Bullock said Minto believes in using local tradespeople, until the supply runs out. “To get the trade base built up to where it needs to be for the kind of volume we are going to be doing, you have to start pulling regionally, for sure,” he said. Precise spoke to the development’s future economic impact on the community. “Our economy has always been tourism and hospitality dependent.” Precise said. “Latitude Margaritaville Watersound will bring more yearround stability to our economy. Businesses will have a bigger base of year-round residents.” Added Bullock: “Our residents don’t have school-age children, but they all will pay ad valorem taxes. That will be a huge benefit to local government.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ST. JOE COMPANY

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Bay County Business Journal SPEC I A L R EPORT

Ann Leonard, the director at Haney Technical Center in Bay County, sees the school’s aviation program as among those with the potential for significant expansion.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPER Haney Technical delivers career-oriented instruction By Steve Bornhoft 30

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aney Technical Center works to maintain close ties with businesses that are established in Bay County — and some that may be on their way. In association with each of its occupational programs, the school empanels an advisory committee made up of business owners in the fields of, for example, cosmetology or welding. “The committees meet twice a year and keep us current regarding what they need to see in potential employees,” said Ann Leonard, Haney’s director. “And we work closely with the Bay County Economic Development Alliance so that we are aware of the projects they have in the pipeline and how we might relate to them.” Officials with Suzuki Marine, which has committed to building a research and testing center in Panama City, toured Haney’s marine mechanics program as part of its site selection consideration, and Leonard looks forward to the day when Haney graduates will go to work at that facility. Becca Hardin, president of the Bay County EDA, said Haney often figures in the alliance’s recruiting efforts. “When prospects ask about workforce development, Haney is our answer to that question,” Hardin said. “We are working with the Airport Authority, Haney and our aviation recruitment team to build an aviation center of excellence at the Panama City Beaches International Airport.” Haney students completing Federal Aviation Agency-certified airframe and power plant training at the airport might simultaneously participate in internships and co-op programs offered by employers located there, Hardin said. At this writing, she was hopeful about landing two aviation companies with maintenance, repair and overhaul operations. In Leonard’s view, Haney’s role includes efforts to make Bay County more attractive to prospective employers. Photography by MIKE FENDER

The welding program at Haney has long been among its strengths, and it supplies talent to employers including Eastern Shipbuilding. The unmasked man is instructor Eric Johnson.

Leonard left Asheville, North Carolina, where she was career and technical education director (CTE director) for the public school system, to accept the same position in Bay County. She was named director at Haney in 20ı5. In her tenure, she has been confronted by two anomalies, as she called them — Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm that made landfall in Bay County, and the COVID-ı9 pandemic. “Prior to Hurricane Michael, enrollment was steadily growing and was the highest it has been in a long time,” Leonard said. “Today, we’re still trying to recover from the storm. We have buildings on campus that remain unusable.” Fortunately, Haney, before the storm hit, had secured $906,000 in Triumph Gulf Coast (BP reparations) funding with which to renovate the space for its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) program. That project was nearing completion this summer.

And a new building will house the computer systems, nursing, office administration, medical administration and massage therapy programs. Traditionally strong programs remain so. A national boilermakers association has cited Haney’s welding program as one of the best in the country. Haney welding students consistently perform well in testing that qualifies them to go to work for national companies. “Our nursing program is excellent,” Leonard said. “Students consistently earn high scores on the National Council Licensure Examination. In our computer system program, students have earned a record number of highlevel industry certifications that lead to high-paying jobs in Bay County.” Haney’s enrollment dropped after Michael, but Leonard was encouraged by enrollment in the fall of 20ı9. “It’s hard to identify trends in enrollment and completion for the past two

years because there have been such anomalies,” Leonard said. With Leonard at the helm, Haney has added industrial pipefitting, plumbing and power equipment technology programs. She has worked to establish articulation agreements with both public high schools and Gulf Coast State College, which helped fund her position as district CTE director and furnished her with office space. CareerSource Gulf Coast also was a partner in the CTE position. That triad, Leonard said, made a lot of sense. Over the past couple of years, a growing number of high school students have dual-enrolled at Haney. “I am very encouraged that the K-ı2 system is working hard to implement more career and technical education programs,” Leonard said, praising the work of Beth Patterson, the district’s new CTE director. Patterson is a former administrator at Rutherford High School and taught in a career academy. 850 Business Magazine

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“She has a good sense of the importance and relevance of CTE programs,” Leonard said. “We are working closely to find articulation areas where we can develop agreements between the high school programs she offers and the programs that we offer. They are getting ready to open a welding program at Rutherford, and we hope that students from that program will matriculate into ours.” Going forward, Leonard said, “We want to see our aviation program expand. That’s a component of the local economy that is very important, and it’s also a career field where students can go anywhere. Our aviation program benefits from extremely strong instructors and leadership. Our HVAC program is really growing. Our welding program is thriving and has close ties to Eastern Shipbuilding.” As of late June, Leonard anticipated that Haney would open back up on Aug. 4, pursuant to a hybrid virtual/ classroom instruction plan that was approved by Bay District Schools. “We plan to stagger classes so that we have no more than half of our students on campus at any given time,” Leonard said in June. “Those who are not on campus will be engaged in distance learning via Canvas (a learning management platform).” COVID-ı9 significantly disrupted programs in the spring, especially those requiring a lot of hands-on skill development work. The popular cosmetology program was placed on hold because it could not be migrated to an online option. All things considered, however, Leonard said her job at Haney is the best she has ever had. “It’s a great school, and the work we do here is so important,” she said. “I am incredibly proud of the staff. There is a special camaraderie here and close relationships between instructors and students.” 32

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Nursing program students at Haney consistently achieve high scores on licensure exams.

Photography by MIKE FENDER

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Rachel Greynolds, handpicked by her boss, is the experience manager at Capital City Bank’s Bay County location.

CAPITAL CITY GOES COASTAL

Bank develops Bay County office and commits to one in South Walton By Steve Bornhoft 34

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n hour after the federal government rolled out its Paycheck Protection Program, extending forgivable loans to help small businesses make payroll during the COVID-ı9 epidemic, Capital City Bank mobilized. “Bank leadership jumped on it immediately, discussing how we were going to integrate the program and exactly what we were going to do,” said Ryan Davis, the bank’s Bay County market president. “We recognized that our clients were relying on us in their time of need, and it wasn’t going to matter to us if we worked 20 hours a day for three weeks. It was going to be all hands on deck, and we were going to get those loans approved, processed and funded as quickly as we could.” Working at home, Davis was among bank officers who saw loans from application through to funding for Photography by MIKE FENDER

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPITAL CITY BANK (DAVIS)

activity that makes Davis proud of his association with Capital City. Capital City is new to Bay County, having opened its first banking office at the St. Joe Company’s Breakfast Point development on May ı — it had previously established a Panama City Beach toehold in the form of a loan production office. But for Davis, Bay County is the only home he has ever known, save for his years as a student at Florida State University’s main campus. Late in 20ı7, Ed Canup, a co-chief operating officer at Capital City and Ramsay Sims, the executive for metro banking, contacted Davis in the course of looking for the right person to lead the bank in Bay County. “The cornerstone of the bank is relationship banking,” Canup said. “A lot of people use that phrase, Market leader Ryan Davis, above, welcomed the cusbut what that means to us tomer acquisition assistance is that we are really there of former Florida House to take care of our clients’ Speaker Allan Bense, a needs, and we are commitCapital City board member. ted to our communities.” Canup said that in assessing potential new markets for Capital City, the bank looks for communities that will embrace its business approach. “We quickly determined that Bay County and the Emerald Coast were such communities,” Canup said. “The market in Bay and Walton counties clients in his market and in locations is so vibrant. The impression is that including Tallahassee, Gainesville and only older, retired people move there, Macon, Georgia. but that’s really not the case. Many “This was not an opportunity for the newcomers are people who can live bank to make money,” Davis said. “We and do their jobs or run their businesses want our business clients to stay in wherever they want to, and they have business, and we want their employees chosen Northwest Florida.” to have jobs.” In Davis, Canup and Sims had their PPP, then, was an activity wholly man. He is a community guy in extremis consistent with what chairman Bill and subscribes wholeheartedly to Smith emphasizes as a fundamental Capital City’s quest for relationships tenet of the bank’s philosophy: Build that move beyond transactions. a strong community, and you build Davis has served as a Panama City a strong bank. And it was the kind of Beach Chamber of Commerce board

member and, in 20ı7, was board chairman. He is currently serving his second three-year term on the board of the Bay County Chamber of Commerce. He is an Ascension Sacred Heart Bay hospital trustee; sits on the FSU Panama City Development Board; and is on the executive leadership team for the American Heart Association Heart Walk in Bay County. His wife of 23 years, Kara Davis, is a mortgage consultant for Capital City Bank subsidiary Capital City Home Loans, and is located along with her husband at the Breakfast Point office. Prior to joining Capital City, Davis worked for Wachovia Bank, before it merged with Wells Fargo, and for Regions Bank, where he was a senior commercial relationship manager and then Bay County market president. He handpicked Rachel Greynolds, with whom he had worked previously, to serve as the client experience manager at Breakfast Point. “Throughout 20ı8, we looked all along Highway 98 in Panama City Beach for a site and felt that Breakfast Point was the right place,” Canup said. “About a month after Hurricane Michael, (St. Joe CEO) Jorge Gonzalez and I talked and he said the community needed for us to get started quickly. Two months later, construction was underway.” The Great Recession claimed several Bay County community banks as victims, including Peoples First Community Bank, Vision Bank and Coastal Community Bank. By contrast, Capital City, now ı25 years old, made it through the downturn without laying off any employees, without accepting Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) assistance all while continuing to lend money to customers including builders. Capital City, which exited the recession with more capital than it had when the real estate bubble burst, was the only Florida chartered bank not to receive TARP funds. “That’s important, because when you go in and talk to somebody — a builder, 850 Business Magazine

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Capital City Bank’s Breakfast Point office delivers personal service along with the latest customer-contact technologies.

a developer or an auto dealer — we can tell them we never exited the business,” Canup said. “That’s a powerful relationship statement.” The Breakfast Point office, including its four Interactive Teller Machines (ITMs) providing for face-to-face exchanges between clients and Call Center personnel, represents a significant capital investment. “It’s a manageable space,” Davis said, noting that banks are getting away from large brick-and-mortar edifices. “I have the space that I need and little more. As a market president who needs to balance the balance sheet, I don’t want to have to pay for a big building.” Technology, he said, equates to convenience, and ITMs preserve a human element. Davis said the customers visiting ITMs can make deposits, make payments, cash checks, change addresses on accounts, transfer funds, place stop-payment orders, reset online banking passwords 36

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— almost everything other than opening an account. Canup manages the lending and wealth management sides of the bank and said he is seeing strong loan demand, a testament, he finds, to the confidence that people have in the economy of Bay and Walton counties. Davis concurred. “We are heavily invested in several large acquisition and development projects,” he said, “and there is nothing that we are not willing to look at. If it’s the right client and the right opportunity and it makes sense, we’ll do it. Once we engage, we’re extremely competitive.” Capital City, with assets of more than $3 billion, is not done with its westward expansion. Already, it has established a Capital City Home Loans and private banking shop next to Dune Lakes Elementary School in Santa Rosa Beach, and it has signed a land lease with St. Joe with plans to develop a full-service

banking office at the Watersound Origins development. Canup said that branch will be a duplicate of the Breakfast Point office and will be located directly in front of a future Publix supermarket. Both Canup and Davis noted contributions made by Bay County resident, former Florida speaker of the House and bank board member Allan Bense to establishing Capital City in the Bay County market. “He has been extremely influential in helping me and opening doors,” Davis said. “I’m a familiar face, but he’s a really familiar face. I am thankful that he has lent his name to our bank. A lot of people wouldn’t do that. This is not his day job, but I can’t count the number of hours that he and I have spent together brainstorming, strategizing and identifying who we want to bank. “This community will never know all that Allan Bense has done for people and organizations anonymously.” Photography by MIKE FENDER

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GOING ELECTRONIC With travel curtailed, Bay EDA revises its marketing approach

he Bay County Economic Development Alliance ordinarily conducts its employer recruitment activities in theaters around the world: Europe, Asia, Canada, Central America. The emergence of the COVID-ı9 pandemic, with its impacts on international travel, forced the EDA to shelve travel plans and similarly affected several businesses that have committed to projects in Bay County. “We have shifted our priorities under the circumstances,” said EDA president Becca Hardin. “We are doing a lot to help out our existing businesses where we can, and we have been fortunate. The big players in our manufacturing sector — Berg Pipe, Oceaneering, Trane and Eastern Shipbuilding — were able to maintain their operations and avoid layoffs. They got really creative in

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modifying workstations to comply with social distancing recommendations.” Recruitment efforts continue but in new ways. “We are placing an intense focus on our electronic marketing,” Hardin said. “We are creating virtual site visits for companies who want to know more about Bay County but don’t feel comfortable traveling. We shot aerial video of our business parks and supersized our buildings and sites on our website. And we have started a social media campaign.” Monthly EDA board meetings were being conducted via Zoom. The pandemic halted progress that two manufacturers new to the county had been making. Both were working to retrofit and equip existing buildings for their operations. Air Temp, an auto parts manufacturer based in Merida in the Yucatan Peninsula

of Mexico, announced plans in May 20ı8 to establish as U.S. headquarters in Panama City and acquired the former Boyd Brothers printing plant on U.S. 98. “They have renovated their building, and they had installed a crane system, were receiving equipment and were well on their way to hiring people when COVID-ı9 hit and everything was put on pause,” Hardin said. “But they are still moving forward. They have contracts with Volvo and Volkswagen that they have to fulfill, and they are anxious to get back to work.” The pandemic affected but did not halt Air Temp’s operations in Merida where the business employs 850 people. Shifts were streamlined, but the company was fully operational in Mexico as of late June. Air Temp was launched as a designer and manufacturer of air conditioners

PHOTOS BY DESIREÉ GARDNER (BECCA HARDIN) AND COURTESY OF EDA (BERG PIPE, ACMT) AND CASA LAXMI

By Steve Bornhoft

Rendering, above, depicts campus of international boarding school planned by the Casa Laxmi Foundation; drawing at right depicts the future of the one-time Honeywell building in Lynn Haven. ACMT, an aerospace contractor, has built out about half of the manufacturing space there.

and heat exchangers for the automotive industry. Renault Mexico was an early customer. Volkswagen came on board in ı987. Air Temp’s product line has been expanded to include condensers, evaporators, heaters, radiators, refrigerant gas and fans, and fan motors. “As soon as international travel opens back up, they will come back up here and get things going with the Panama City facility,” Hardin said. Renovation work has been confined to what was the newer building on the Boyd Brothers campus. “Things look rough on the outside mostly because another building that they aren’t using was heavily damaged from the hurricane,” Hardin said. “They are trying to decide what to do with it. They may just take it down and build another warehouse over there.” Hardin maintains regular contact with company owner Jorge Habib, who told her this summer that his two sons would be moving to Panama City temporarily after international travel resumes and will oversee the startup of manufacturing. Advanced Composites and Metalforming Technologies had built out about half of the manufacturing space at the

old Honeywell plant in Lynn Haven when COVID-ı9 slowed progress. The 33-year-old, Connecticut-based aerospace company specialized in its early days as a maker of adhesives and chemicals for aerospace applications such as bonding rubber to sheet metal parts. As of 2004, ACMT moved into areas including fabrication work. With products ranging in size from an inch to 20 feet in length, ACMT operations employ robotics, lasers, waterjet cutters and computer numerical control (CNC) machining equipment, the latter involving computer software that dictates the movements of tools. Work on office space has been completed, and ACMT was pursuing Federal Aviation Administration certifications required before they can start manufacturing. “They are sitting on go. They have done as much as they can while waiting for activity to open back up,” Hardin said, adding that she anticipated that hiring would start early in the fall. Hardin said that despite delays related to the pandemic, the Casa Laxmi Foundation, registered in Florida and headed by Kiran Kulkarni, a private equity investor who lives in Toronto,

remains committed to establishing an international boarding school in north Bay County. “The plan hasn’t changed,” Hardin said. “The biggest thing is that they have closed on the property (260 acres on Fanning Bayou). They hired a local architectural firm to do the site planning and they are starting on the permitting process.” Students will be hand-picked by the school, according to plans, and enrollment will be limited to 300 students. Casa Laxmi had hoped to enroll its first students in grades 6–8 in 202ı, a goal that factors including the pandemic have placed beyond reach. Clark and Son, Inc., a custom kitchen cabinet business, has located its distribution and final assembly headquarters in ı00,000 square feet of leased space at the Intermodal Distribution Center owned

“We are placing an intense focus on our electronic marketing. We are creating virtual site visits for companies who want to know more about Bay County but don’t feel comfortable traveling.” —Becca Hardin, EDA President 850 Business Magazine

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Coming soon

Suzuki Motor of America Inc. announced in March plans for Suzuki Marine Technical Center USA to be built on a 20-acre waterfront property at the foot of Frankford Avenue in Panama City. “We are planning a state-of-the-art Suzuki marine technical center that will help us develop, test and refine the best possible Suzuki outboard products for today and tomorrow,” Max Yamamoto, president of Suzuki Motor of America, said in a news release at the time. The Suzuki project team visited Panama City before and after Hurricane Michael made landfall in Bay County and, said Hardin, “commented on the resilience of our community and how everyone is working together to build a better Bay County.”

Suzuki Motors of America has announced plans to establish a research and testing facility in Panama City (drawing at top). A spec building, right, has been added to the St. Joe Company’s VentureCrossings commerce park. 40

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An official groundbreaking has been postponed by the pandemic. “We had been planning a big groundbreaking ceremony at the site," says Hardin, "and we will still do something when international travel opens up and Suzuki’s executive delegation from Japan will be able to come over and help celebrate.” At this writing, Hardin was optimistic that two aviation-related companies would commit to Bay County, one at Panama City Beaches International Airport and the other at the nearby VentureCrossings commerce park owned by the St. Joe Company. Both prospects were approved for Qualified Industry Tax Credits before that opportunity sunsetted in June.

St. Joe and the EDA were disappointed last December when GKN Aerospace, celebrated as an anchor tenant at VentureCrossings, pulled up stakes, leaving its 60 Bay County employees without jobs. GKN’s departure came as a second big blow to the EDA, after Hurricane Michael and before the pandemic, arriving as a third challenge, validated what had been the fears of epidemiologists. Hardin is nonetheless irrepressible. “In Bay County, we are so lucky because we have a great public-private partnership,” she said. “Everybody gets along, and we all know where we want to take our community. The hiccups have not diminished our resolve to make Bay County a great place to live and work.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EDA (VENTURECROSSINGS) AND SUZUKI MOTORS

by Port Panama City. It had just begun to receive product via the port when COVID-ı9 shut down manufacturing operations at a plant owned by a partner in Merida. “But their activity is heating back up,” Hardin said in June, “and they are working with CareerSource on hiring.”

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ReliantSouth: A Commercial Contractor You Can Trust

hen businesses have commercial construction needs, they often rely on the construction professionals at ReliantSouth Construction Group. A full-service, commercial general contractor and construction management firm, ReliantSouth has offices in Panama City and Miramar Beach. Led by professional engineer Richard Dodd, ReliantSouth has successfully completed numerous projects throughout Northwest Florida and the entire Southeast. Starting his construction career 37 years ago in Northwest Florida, Dodd has been

leading successful and award-winning construction companies for 30 years. When asked about the primary mission of ReliantSouth, Dodd stated, “Our mission is quite simple: We provide solutions and value to our clients in a collaborative fashion.” By offering comprehensive construction solutions, Team ReliantSouth’s diverse portfolio includes retail, restaurants, offices, banks, schools, industrial, entertainment venues, and governmental projects. ReliantSouth is blessed with a rich legacy and is comprised of seasoned and integrityfilled construction professionals who have worked as a team for years. “My partners and I, as well as our entire team, are incredibly passionate about our clients’

needs and strive to make our community stronger,” Dodd explained. Wayne Lindsay, an owner of Sonny’s BBQ and longtime client of ReliantSouth, shared the following: “I have been in the restaurant business for 35 years. Once I found ReliantSouth, I knew I could quit looking for a contractor who was honest and had my best interest at heart. They do business the right way, and are extremely transparent. Their attention to detail is second to none.” It is ReliantSouth’s continuous mission to provide their clients with solutions, value, and trust. Whether a client needs a general contractor, a design-builder, or a construction manager, ReliantSouth has the expertise to make a dream become a reality.

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FLIGHT TRAINING FSU, GCSC add drone curriculum By Bob Ferrante

he technology is still in its infancy. But the sky is the limit for unmanned vehicles. Hobbyists fly small drones that may be equipped with a high-definition camera. Beyond that modest activity lies an emerging business with air, land or sea devices that assist in a variety of fields: real estate, insurance, emergency management, agriculture and ecology. Gulf Coast State College and Florida State University administrators realized about five years ago the value in launching a drone technology program, seeing a need for personnel who could fly, build and maintain the vehicles.

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“That’s when the college, along with Embry-Riddle, decided to start the program to provide the skills that will be needed in the future,” said Jose Lopez-Baquero, who is an assistant professor at Gulf Coast State and the Unmanned Vehicle Systems Operations program manager. Lopez-Baquero is a retired diving instructor who was once based at Tyndall Air Force Base. He was working on his graduate thesis on unmanned aerial systems when Gulf Coast concluded that he would be a good candidate to lead its two-year associate of science unmanned vehicles program. With

face-to-face classes, labs and the opportunity to fly drones, it’s easy to see why this has become a popular endeavor for students and the college. Why is the field taking off? One reason is that the cost of drone photography is significantly less than the cost to send a photographer up in a helicopter. What could be a costly few hours for a pilot and professional photographer is instead around $ı50 for an unmanned aerial vehicle. “From the beginning, it was really big in real estate,” Lopez-Baquero said. Realtors, contractors and insurance companies were early adopters of Photography by MIKE FENDER

Jose Lopez-Baquero, an assistant professor at Gulf Coast State College, is a former diving instructor who discovered an affinity for flying machines.

the technology. Insurance companies would often demand aerial photos of construction sites as part of progress reports. What an unmanned drone could do in less than an hour, and at a fraction of the cost, was evident. Some environmental groups have used unmanned devices for monitoring, tracking and research. A drone can also fly over a pine tree plantation and assess the soil content. “Say you had a 40-acre plot of pine trees, and you have to identify what areas are the healthier ones,” LopezBaquero said. “It would take you a long time if you are doing it on foot. But with a flight, it would take maybe ı5 minutes and two hours of processing the data. In one day, you have an answer.” FSU professors in the Emergency Management and Homeland Security program felt the unmanned vehicle studies were a natural complement to

their curriculum. Led by David Merrick, FSU’s team has worked every hurricane since 20ı6 — including storms making landfall in Florida, Texas or the Bahamas. When they arrived in Mexico Beach a day after Hurricane Michael’s landfall there in October 20ı8, emergency managers were without communications. With roads often blocked by debris, Merrick’s team sent up a fixed-wing drone. “That was the first drone imagery that the county-level decision makers had seen of exactly how bad that area had been hit,” Merrick said. “That was critically important. We ended up running air operations for three days.” Even with the limitation of a 90-minute flight time on the fixed-wing drones, they landed the aircraft throughout the day to swap out batteries and send them back up in the sky. Quadcopters have even less battery capacity, often just enough for a 20- or 30-minute

flight, but are easier to fly and land. Fixed-wing aircraft also need a long and wide field, similar in size to a football or soccer field, for landing. But the drones, costing just a few thousand dollars each, helped provide information that was critical in decisionmaking as Bay County officials looked to help residents as best they could. “The difference between a good disaster response and a bad disaster response is typically going to come down to what decisions emergency managers and government officials make throughout that disaster timeline,” Merrick said. “In order to make a good decision, you have to have good information about the situation. “Our goal has always been, through whatever technology we have, to speed up that information-gathering phase so that we have better information faster and can make better decisions.” Fire departments have also sent in devices to determine if the air quality is harmful. A sensor detects harmful gasses, ensuring that firefighters aren’t put into a situation that compromises their safety. Drones also are used in various law enforcement applications. “Anything that is dull, dirty and dangerous, we use unmanned systems,” Lopez-Baquero said.

Want to Learn More? For information on unmanned systems studies at Gulf Coast State College, visit gulfcoast.edu/academics/ programs/unmanned-vehicle-systemsoperations-as/index.html. Information on FSU’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Program is available at em.fsu.edu.

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ECP GETS READY FOR MORE As Bay County grows, so does its airport By Hannah Burke 46

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everal times a year, Parker McLellan, the executive director at Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP), pitches Panama City Beach to prospective carriers. To convince them, he is never without a hand-sized treasure chest containing a sample of the powdery, bright white sand unique to Panama City beaches. McLellan encourages airline reps to sift the sand through their fingers while he assures them, “The coast makes us who we are, but we have abundant inland attractions, too.” It’s a soft sell with a sharp impact as ECP’s steady growth in its first decade in operation reached new altitudes in 20ı9. “You look at where ECP started in 2009, and there were two signatory airlines carrying about 25,000 passengers

through our gates each year,” McLellan said. “Last year, we saw a record-breaking number of ı.3 million. Our current partnerships with Delta, Southwest, American and United Airlines give us four legacy airlines, and with new flights to Denver, Kansas City, Chicago and Washington D.C., we’re able to broaden the spectrum of travel destinations for our residents, as well as encourage tourism.” While much of ECP’s success is attributable to visitation from the addition of more than ı6 non-stop routes in major hub cities, McLellan counts as factors Bay County’s economic development and the airport’s efforts to make travel “ECP” — that is, easy, convenient and painless. “It’s important to us that our facility remains modern, that we are still attractive and an easy airport to travel in and Photography by MIKE FENDER

Passengers approach the terminal at Northwest Florida Beach International Airport via a covered walkway; masks have become part of the uniform for security personnel.

out of,” McLellan said. “As tourism grows, so must we.” In a June interview with 850 Business Magazine, McLellan noted that the airport was finalizing a 7,000-square-foot terminal expansion, which provided all seven of its gates with its own loading bridge. The airport is in the early stages of implementing a 20-month master plan that addresses runway systems, parking, surrounding business development and environmental issues. Year to year, travel at ECP was down in April by 95 percent due to the COVID-ı9 pandemic, an event that McLellan views as a “speed bump, not a wall.” Traffic rebounded in June after beaches were reopened and a ban on short-term vacation rentals was lifted. The airport has adopted “ECP Ready” procedures to “instill the highest level

of confidence that ECP is the safest, cleanest, and most secure airport for our employees and passengers.” Key components of the plan call for aggressive facilities maintenance, clear communications, organizational resilience and achieving economic recovery. ECP’s social distance markers for travelers are placed as a recommendation but are not a requirement. Abundant hand sanitizing stations, McLellan believes, will likely stick around, but it’s still too early to predict any permanent changes to ECP etiquette. “As for new marketing efforts, our No. ı priority right now is to instill confidence in passengers again,” said Katie Spillman of Moore, a Tallahassee marketing agency. “Safety and security of passengers and staff have always been priorities, but now more than ever we need to be communicating 850 Business Magazine

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Bay County Business Journal SPEC I A L R EPORT

that message so people feel comfortable, ready and know what to expect when they arrive.” “We are all moving forward,” added McLellan. “We had two or three projects that were underway prior to COVID-ı9

and that we’ve kept going. We continue to work with the Bay Economic Development Alliance in attracting new jobs so that we can diversify our region’s economy and seek funding for future projects.”

Projects outlined in an airport master plan include runway systems, parking, business development and environmental mitigation; Southwest Airlines has been providing service to Bay County since 2010. 48

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Meanwhile, the state Department of Transportation is rerouting and fourlaning State Road 388 from State Road 79 to the airport. That project will include a two-lane roundabout at the airport’s entrance for facilitated accessibility. The project, estimated to be complete by 2024, will link the airport to the Margaritaville Latitude adult living community currently in development. “What’s exciting about Margaritaville is that there are 3,500 homes in phase one of its construction,” said McLellan. “In a survey, potential residents indicated that access to an airport with good commercial service was more important to them than golf. That’s 3,500 people who, between their travels and their families coming to visit, are going to help us go from a summer destination to one that is year-round. “I’ve watched this terminal grow from two airlines to four, and hopefully there will be more,” said McLellan. “We like to say there’s an ‘E-C-P’ in every escape. For us, it’s Emerald Coast Paradise.” Photography by MIKE FENDER

BUSINESS NEWS

CAPITAL

internal medicine and family medicine physician and a twotime ovarian cancer survivor. All proceeds from her husband Tom Kidd’s e-book, All the Way, a memoir reflecting on the couple’s life together and their cancer journey, will be donated to the FCS Foundation to seed the fund on an ongoing basis and provide grants to cancer patients in need. Tom has also committed to match the first $10,000 in book sales.

» The Capital Area Community Action Agency has partnered with Hancock Whitney to provide $25,000 in relief assistance to members of low- and moderateincome households who have experienced job loss, furlough or a reduction in hours of work or pay due to the impacts of COVID-19.

» North Florida Innovation Labs at Innovation Park of Tallahassee, an affiliate of the Leon County R&D Authority, has received a $35,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Donor Advised Fund at the Community Foundation of North Florida. The grant will allow the business incubator to provide equipment necessary for members to accelerate their product development in its wet lab, the only such lab in the region that is available to early stage companies.

LOCAL HAPPENINGS

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY INDIVIDUALS

» HIE Networks, a leading provider of health information exchange services, has hired James “Sandy” Phillips as PHILLIPS its chief information officer. In his new role, Phillips will be responsible for leading technology solutions and working closely with the management to help expand the company’s product offerings. In addition, Phillips will lead the acquisition, operation and maintenance of HIE’s IT assets, processes and computer systems. Phillips has more than 20 years of experience in delivering enterprise systems design, implementation and integration. » Princell Hair has been appointed as the new president and chief executive officer of the Black News Channel, headquartered in Tallahassee. He succeeds Bob Brillante, who resigned in April. He has an extensive background in broadcast journalism, having worked for CBS Television, CNN-US, Comcast and an NBC Sports Group. » Florida Cancer Specialists, whose offices include one in Tallahassee, announced that the FCS Foundation has established the Joan L. Kidd, M.D, Memorial Fund. Dr. Kidd was a respected

» The Junior League of Tallahassee announced that Capital City Youth Services Inc. is its 2020–22 Jill Pope Community Partner. CCYS provides guidance, shelter and support to youth and families in the Big Bend Area. LOCAL HONORS

» William “Bill” L. Moor, Jr.,

president of Capital City Investments, located at Capital City Bank and Capital City Trust Company, has been recognized as one of the Top 30 Program Managers in the country by Bank Investment Consultant (BIC), a leading information source for bank and credit union financial advisors.

» Thomas Howell Ferguson, P.A., CPAs, a professional accounting, assurance and MEDLEY tax services congratulated Andrea Medley on being accepted into Leadership Tallahassee Class 38. Leadership Tallahassee, a

SOUNDBYTES

Housing Trust Group, one of the nation’s largest developers of affordable housing, has closed on financing and started construction on a new $21 million affordable housing community in Tallahassee. Lafayette Gardens will deliver 96 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with rents ranging from $315 to $930 per month. The apartments will be completed in June 2021. This is HTG’s first affordable development in Tallahassee. division of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, is a yearlong program that educates and encourages participants to actively seek positive and constructive changes in the community through leadership roles. The selection process is competitive, and qualified applicants must have demonstrated leadership capabilities in the public or private sector or show a motivation to contribute to the Tallahassee community.

» Stearns Weaver Miller announced that Tallahassee attorneys Kelly O’Keefe and O’KEEFE Gigi Rollini were recognized in the 2020 edition of Florida Trend’s Florida Legal Elite, with O’Keefe being inducted into the Hall ROLLINI of Fame. The 2020 list represents less than 2 percent of practicing Florida Bar members. The Hall of Fame is made up of a distinguished group of attorneys who have consistently earned high rankings in the annual voting. » Stearns Weaver Miller has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Tallahassee Women

Lawyers Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Award. Tallahassee Women Lawyers, an affiliate of Florida Association for Women Lawyers, is an organization that provides leadership, a collective voice, and essential resources to advance women in the legal profession and advocates for the equality of women under the law. The award recognizes firms that display a leadership role in promoting diversity and inclusion within the workplace and community.

» Stearns Weaver Miller announced that five of its Tallahassee lawyers were recognized in the 2020 edition of Florida Super Lawyers. The Super Lawyers list is a rating service acknowledging outstanding lawyers. Recognized were Reggie Bouthillier, Kelly O’Keefe, Gigi Rollini, Bridget Smitha and Melanie Leitman. NEW & NOTABLE

» Tallahassee attorney Elizabeth Ricci of Rambana and Ricci, P.L.L.C. recently became a Remote Online Notary Public allowing her to practice notary services remotely RICCI and online.

850 Business Magazine

FALL 2020

SOUNDBYTES

APPOINTMENTS

» Gov. Ron DeSantis announced

the appointment of Robert Long Jr. to the First District Court of Appeal. Long, of Tallahassee, has been a judge in the Second Circuit since 2016. He currently serves as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve. He previously served as the general counsel for the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and his law degree from the University of Florida College of Law. Long fills a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge James Wolf.

» Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Judge Layne Smith to the Second Circuit Court. Smith, of Tallahassee, has been a Leon County Judge since 2015. He previously served as the general counsel for the Department of Lottery and Department of Business and Professional Regulation. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and his law degree from Florida State University College of Law. Smith fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge James Hankinson.

EMERALD COAST

LOCAL HAPPENINGS

» Ashley Vannoy

has joined the Small Business Administration (SBA) Lending team at First Bank of the Lake as VANNOY vice president, SBA Healthcare Commercial Lending. In this role, Vannoy will be responsible for commercial real estate growth within the 30A, South Walton and Destin communities by capitalizing on her strong track record and relationships in the commercial lending arena. Vannoy joined First Bank of the Lake’s SBA team in April 2020. She has over 33 years of experience in community banking, and commercial and private banking.

» The Premier Property Group (PPG) announced that Alyssa Walker has joined the company

FALL 2020

as vice president of marketing. In this role, Walker will spearhead all marketing functions for the Premier WALKER Property Group, including creating, implementing and monitoring marketing strategies for both the company and all agents, commercial and residential. Prior to PPG, Walker served as the marketing director at Alys Beach for six years.

» Main Street DeFuniak Springs has named Chelsea Blaich its new executive director. In that role, she BLAICH is responsible for the development, execution, implementation and documentation of activities and initiatives of the Main Street DeFuniak Springs Downtown District, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Along with over eight years of experience in public relations, marketing and events, Blaich was voted the 2017 Member of the Year for the Florida Public Relations Association Northwest Florida Coast Chapter, and 2018 Young Professional of the Year by the Walton Area Chamber of Commerce. Blaich served as the 2019–20 Young Professionals of Walton County President and serves as a member of the YPWC Board of Directors. » United Way Emerald Coast released its third phase of grant money totaling $70,000 to 15 local nonprofit organizations in Okaloosa and Walton counties from their COVID-19 Relief Fund. Since United Way began the COVID-19 relief grant process, they have provided a total of $140,000 to 19 vetted local nonprofits. The 15 local nonprofit organizations selected to receive funds include: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Emerald Coast, Caterpillar 2 Butterfly Outreach Center, Catholic Charities of Northwest Florida, Children in Crisis, Early Learning Coalition of the Emerald Coast, Feeding the Gulf Coast, Fresh Start Children

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& Families, Homelessness and Housing Alliance, Mental Health Association, Okaloosa County Council on Aging, One Hopeful Place, Opportunity Place, S4P Synergy and The Salvation Army.

» Chelsea Fox, who has been

with the Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center for the past four years, was recently promoted to the job development manager. Prior to her promotion, Fox handled and coordinated many of ECCAC’s events and volunteers. Now, in addition to overseeing the nonprofit organization’s Young Ambassador board, she will also direct the development, identification, research, cultivation, management and solicitation of major gift prospects and donors while also overseeing fundraising events and managing ECCAC’s marketing program.

» Stanley Harper, a lobbyist and activist for the American Diabetes Association Inc., has been chosen as an ADA Influencer. As an influencer, he will testify, submit op-eds, sit on panels and have regular contact with public officials who make policy decisions that will affect medical research funding, health insurance coverage, cost of drugs-tech devices and other vital decisions for the ADA. Harper is also a technology consultant for Top Echelon and has served as chairman for the Northwest Florida Advocacy Committee for the past five years.

has grown organically and through acquisition and is now a nationwide human capital service provider that serves more than 1,800 businesses in 49 states.

» Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida recognized Gulf Breeze police officer Dennis Youngren as the 2020 Santa Rosa County Big of the Year. Youngren has been matched with his Little Brother for over two years. He became a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters because serving his community has always been a priority, from his commitment as a police officer to wanting to create a positive experience and environment for youth. » Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida named Pensacola police officer David Partrick and his wife Jennifer 2020 Bigs with Badges Big of the Year. The couple combined to mentor together and split the responsibility of being matched with a child. » Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida recognized Jenn and Lewis Bear III as the 2020 Escambia County Big of the Year. The Bear family has played a tremendous role in building the foundation of the agency since its inception.

LOCAL HONORS

» St. Joe Resort Operations LLC announced that the WaterColor Inn and The Pearl Hotel earned spots in Travel + Leisure Magazine’s “World’s Best” awards. WaterColor Inn ranks among 2020’s top 25 familyfriendly resorts in the U.S., and The Pearl ranks among the top 15 Florida resort hotels. » LandrumHR celebrated its 50th anniversary. The company was founded by H. Britt Landrum, Jr. in 1970 as a personnel placement company, and quickly became the largest provider of staffing services in Northwest Florida. The company

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY INDIVIDUALS

BUSINESS NEWS

Top: Dennis Youngren and Little Brother Roman. Bottom: David Partrick and his wife Jennifer with Little Brother Kamari.

Whiting Aviation Park

Santa Rosa County Economy ready to soar as new jobs touch down

f your company needs to fly it, build it or send it, Santa Rosa County is ready to help you do “it” easier, faster and with less expense than ever before. One of the fastest growing counties in America, Santa Rosa’s economy is reaping the benefits of its investments in aviation, manufacturing and distribution. The high-paying jobs these industries bring have been a major focus of the county’s economic development efforts over the past decade. Now, they are paying off in a big way. “Tourism and the military are pillars of our economy that have introduced millions of people to our incredible quality of life,” said Erica Grancagnolo, associate director of the Santa Rosa Economic Development Office (SREDO). “Many of these visitors and one-time residents now want to start, grow or relocate their businesses here — and we want to make that convenient for targeted companies.” According to Grancagnolo, the proof of Santa Rosa’s commitment to its target industries is in the three industrial parks that were designed specifically for the types of tenant companies the county is working to attract and grow here. For example, aerospace companies can find a unique and welcoming home within the Whiting Aviation Park.

Built in partnership with the U.S. Navy, the aviation park shares space with NAS Whiting Field, a major rotary and fixed-wing training facility. The county negotiated an agreement that allows civilian companies access to both the runways and towers. It also cements the deep and lasting relationship the county has enjoyed with the U.S. military, its retirees and its associated contractors. The first tenant of the park is Leonardo Helicopters, a company that plans to build a 100,000-square-foot facility in the park, followed by taxiways to the base runway. County officials believe other aviationrelated companies will soon follow. Originally designed for manufacturing, the original Santa Rosa Industrial Park has been so successful that an expansion was necessary to accommodate its growth. Cape Horn, a leading maker of high-end boats, started out in the first park and is now the first tenant on 20 acres in the new Industrial Park East location. The company will be joined by Pensacola State College’s truck driver-training academy, which will occupy a 15-acre parcel in the park. Some of those freshly minted truckers will undoubtedly make their way to the new I-10 Industrial Park, so named because of its proximity to the interstate. It occupies 90 acres near an on ramp, offering distributors

Cape Horn Boats Manufacturing Facility in the Santa Rosa Industrial Park East

Erica Grancagnolo

direct, easy access to their locations across the Southeast. Among those actively considering the location is a company that manufactures pharmaceuticals and medical devices. As many as 90 high-paying jobs could land in Santa Rosa County as a result. “We’re sending a strong message to prospective companies that Santa Rosa County offers a terrific place to land and expand,” Grancagnolo said. “Our goal is to fill these parks with skilled, local workers. Ideally, we’ll bring high-wage jobs to our homegrown talent rather than exporting our best and brightest to other locations.”

SANTA ROSA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OFFICE 6491 Caroline Street, Suite 4, Milton | (850) 623-0174 | SantaRosaEDO.com PROMOTION

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SOUNDBYTES

» The Emerald Coast Children’s Advocacy Center announced its 2020/2021 board ROWELL members and officers. The Walton County Sherriff Office Maj. Audie Rowell is the new president; Janet Parker is vice PARKER president and Alan Wood is treasurer. Other members are immediate past president, Bill Fletcher, along WOOD with Tammy Pierce, Eric Aden, Todd Bierbaum, Shaun Eubanks, Velia Lala, Renee Pellegrino, Artie Rodriguez, Tom Saffel, Michael FLETCHER Thompson, Annie Stutts and Demetrius Fuller. ECCAC provides services in a child-friendly environment to help identify, treat and support children in abusive situations, as well as helping to prevent child abuse through education and prevention programs. » Newman-Dailey Resort Properties Real Estate Division honored Diane Green and Carolyn DiFebo as the top producers for the first quarter of 2020. Green was “Top Sales Agent” and DiFebo was named the “Top Listing Agent.”

GREEN

DIFEBO

» Thomas McVoy, a sales associate at Beck Partners, has been named a Society of Industrial and

FALL 2020

» Elizabeth Eulberg has joined the Destin public relations agency, SocialLee PR & Media Co., as public relations EULBERG and social media coordinator. She began her career as the social media manager for the Greater Fort Walton Chamber of Commerce before being promoted to director of administration. Subsequently, she worked as a marketing coordinator for the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center and as marketing and sponsorship coordinator with Destin Commons. In her new position, Eulberg is responsible for social media management, strategic content creation, media relations, email marketing and more. NEW & NOTABLE

» Fort Walton Beach Medical Center and Twin Cities Hospital’s parent company, HCA Healthcare, announced that it has been recognized by the Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum with the prestigious John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award for its pioneering work using artificial intelligence to help reduce sepsis mortality.

Office Realtors (SIOR) member associate. SIOR, with 3,400 members in 686 cities in 38 countries, is the leading global professional office and industrial real estate association. “Beck Partners prides itself on the certifications and awards its brokers have attained,” said Stacy Taylor, Beck Partners’ president of commercial real estate. “We have some of the most capable, ethical and professional brokers in the region. Thomas consistently studies the CRE markets to give his clients the best, most up-todate information. We are proud to have him on our team.” The SIOR designation is widely recognized as a prerequisite in the selection of a commercial real estate broker, agent or consultant.

» The University of Florida Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering has established its second Innovation Station, UFIS at the REEF. Located near Eglin Air Force Base, the new engineering extension program will leverage the infrastructure and resources afforded by the UF Research and Engineering Education Facility (REEF) while providing further expansion of community outreach and workforce development opportunities to Eglin and the surrounding community. » The Island Fort Walton Destin by Hotel RL recently completed

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a $15 million property-wide transformation with an upgraded exterior, a new lobby, an enhanced pool and lounge area, putting greens, a beach bar, fully revitalized guest rooms and a new restaurant, The Fish House.

» WaterColor Inn guests can now enjoy two highly anticipated resortwide projects, developed by the WaterColor Community Association: an expansion of WaterColor Beach Club and of Camp WaterColor. The improvements provide for additional family-friendly outdoor recreation, including three new pools. Three new dining options also have been added. » McWhorter Vallée Design, Inc. and Perla Baking Co. have been honored by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) with the Award of Citation for Historic Preservation. Perla Baking Co. recently became part of the DeFuniak Springs Historic District. Vallée moved his office from 30A to historic DeFuniak Springs, where he is championing the historic rejuvenation of the area. He has worked with the Biophilia Center, Westonwood Ranch and Alaqua Animal Rescue and has served on multiple county boards throughout the years. » USTA Florida announced the opening of a new tennis pro shop and the hiring of a new head tennis professional to oversee the Fort Walton Beach Tennis Center. The facility, directed by the USTA Florida Tennis Management Division in partnership with the City of Fort Walton Beach, welcomed Travis Tressler as its new head tennis professional. Tressler joined USTA Florida in October 2019 as a tennis instructor to help oversee the growth at the four public tennis sites of Play Tennis Gainesville. » HSU Educational Foundation hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony in tandem with the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours event to unveil the new HSU Innovation Institute, a facility centered in the Fort Walton Beach Commerce and Technology Park. The HSU Innovation Institute, the only one of its kind in the area, occupies a

28,000-square-foot industrial office and warehouse facility that serves as a public-private partnership space. It will host STEM training; research and development in 15 educational labs; collaborative spaces; tool labs; flight operations areas; STEM classes; and workshops. It will also conduct challenge events and expos.

» The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and the 96th Medical Group opened a new Intrepid Spirit Center that will diagnose and treat traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress in regional active duty service members at Eglin Air Force Base. The facility is the eighth center located at military bases around the country built by the IFHF, a not-for-profit organization and national leader in supporting the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families.

BAY

NEW & NOTABLE

» Out of the Box has announced its partnership with New Beginnings Homes and Management to build 1,500 homes. They have partnered with the City of Panama City to utilize State Housing Incentives Partnership (SHIP) funds to help buyers purchase two-bedroom/ two-bath homes. The goal of the partnership is to help people afford a safe and beautiful home and to achieve financial literacy. » By The Sea Resorts announced the opening of the new-build, 84-room Candlewood Suites hotel in Panama City Beach, Florida. Located on Panama City Beach Parkway near Frank Brown Park and in close proximity to both the beach and Pier Park, the Candlewood will accommodate corporate, transient and group business. » Ascension Medical Group Sacred Heart has opened a new primary care office in Lynn Haven. The facility will be home to internal medicine physician Dr. Roberto Borrero and family medicine nurse practitioner Samantha Chapman, ARNP. — COMPILED BY REBECCA PADGETT

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY INDIVIDUALS

BUSINESS NEWS

PROMOTION

RISING WITH RESTORATIONS Phoenix Coatings specializes in hurricane restorations

f you are someone who lives in a region where hurricanes are common, you likely have a hurricane plan in place for your family and your home. As a business owner, you should also have a course of action ready in case disaster should strike. Phoenix Coatings, as a structural restoration company, provides their clients with peace of mind long before hurricane season arrives. The company reaches out to all current and former clients and offers them the opportunity to sign a pre-disaster retainer agreement. This agreement reserves a capacity for each client to retain Phoenix Coatings as a general contractor in the event that their business is impacted by a hurricane. With many client relationships spanning over three decades, it’s important that Phoenix Coatings service their clients first and then proceed to helping others in need. “We are always here for our clients, and we further assure them of that by offering service to them first,” said George Atchison, owner of Phoenix Coatings. “The valued relationships we have with existing clients are of utmost importance, because relationships are everything to a business’s success.” During the post-catastrophe reconstruction, they expand their operations as a state-certified general contractor and roofer to include the entire building, from interior to exterior, as well as the grounds and the roof. As hurricane season approaches, Phoenix Coatings begins getting all suppliers and resources in line and ready for action. The process begins with acquiring all necessary materials, personnel and equipment. These preliminary acts save time and decrease efforts should a hurricane happen quickly.

The Commodore, Panama City Beach, Florida

As a result of Phoenix Coatings’ primary focus being on the exteriors of a building, when disastrous situations arise, they partner with resources and companies that specialize in interior restorations. One of those companies is Servpro, a fire and water restoration company. Servpro extracts water and does interior repairs on hurricaneimpacted buildings in order for Phoenix Coatings to work on the exterior. Another valued partnership is with United Rental Equipment, the largest equipment supplier in the country. With these strong partnerships and a reputation for excellence, Phoenix Coatings competes on the level of national firms while remaining local. To stay true to their customers and local nature, the senior management team made the decision not to become storm chasers but instead focus their efforts on the Gulf Coast spanning Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Past hurricane restoration work has included Pinnacle Port in Panama City Beach, West Florida Hospital

in Pensacola, Carnegie Library in Gulfport, Wastewater treatment facilities in Mobile and Biloxi, and most recently, The Commodore in Panama City Beach, a 13-story building impacted by Hurricane Michael.

PHOENIX COATINGS 900 Industrial Court, Pensacola | (850) 857-4740 | PhoenixPensacola.com 850 Business Magazine

FALL 2020

How people work is forever changing. Businesses are meeting that challenge in the cloud. Top 5 Reasons to Migrate to the Cloud. In these changing times, successful businesses are thinking and operating differently. From physical workstations and remote office locations to new IT infrastructure investments and network maintenance – all of it is being reevaluated in this new virtual paradigm as businesses look to operate more efficiently and cost effectively. Traditional office settings have rapidly migrated into virtual environments. Employees are moving into work-from-home stations. Business meetings and presentations are almost completely conducted online. And with more virtual activity comes the need for a fast and secure cloud-based solution that ensures businesses run more efficiently than ever before. Moving to a cloud-based solution can feel like a daunting task, but in reality – it’s relatively simple. Partnering with the right cloud services provider takes the guesswork and heavy lifting away. That partner is Cox Business Cloud Solutions. To help you better understand what’s involved, our team has compiled a list of the Top 5 things to consider when making a decision on cloud migration.

Enabling Your Mobile Workforce

With more employees working remotely than ever before, many companies have struggled to equip themselves properly. Workflows are different. Secure 54

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access to company data from various locations also presents challenges. Truth is, the sudden shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how businesses operate and left them looking to new solutions for how best to move forward without hurting productivity. Cloud services help companies of all sizes find accessible, affordable ways to conduct business remotely. Instead of piecing together a convoluted process, often based on outdated, insecure onpremises hardware, the cloud enables teams to connect securely via a virtual desktop environment and continue their typical work process. The cloud aids your business to function as efficiently as it would if everyone were still working traditionally from one or more office locations. This is critical not only during a pandemic when things are unexpectedly shut down, but also during any kind of business interruption – be it storms, tornadoes, natural disasters or even cyber attacks affecting your business infrastructure. Migrating to a secure cloud environment protects your critical data and gives you options for how you want to keep your business up and running.

Quickly Scaling Your Network

Every business is different and moving your data to the cloud isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Cox Business Cloud Solutions provides customized services to best fit the scale and needs of each individual business.

Your cloud migration plan will take into account critical workloads, data and applications, potential obstacles and a desired timeline for implementing tailored solutions. The beauty of the cloud is that it’s easily scalable. Cox Business Cloud Solutions provides a robust combination of enterprise-level services including Managed Cloud Security, Disaster Recovery, Data Backup, Virtual Desktop Environments, Software Defined Wide Area Network (SDWAN), and Enterprise Grade Infrastructure. Our team will work with you to identify the services that fit your business needs. We will also design and implement migration and monitoring strategies while also providing industryleading customer support to ensure a safe transition for your business data.

Securing Your Critical Data

If there’s one thing businesses worry about most with regard to sensitive data, it’s security. Most companies don’t want to allocate IT funds elsewhere when they are focusing department resources on continually updating, patching and assessing office systems and also protecting against outdated cyber security measures that could threaten the entire business. Cloud solutions are inherently more secure than on-premises solutions and cloud providers manage security issues in the background more efficiently with little to no adverse effect to workloads. By utilizing the cloud, software is more easily kept up to date, backups can be made more readily and recovered faster, and documents and access controls are easier to manage. According to a RapidScale study, 94% of businesses say they actually saw an improvement after implementing cloud security solutions. Cloud solutions can improve the level of your security with Tier 3 data centers that have biometric scanning, security guards, and around-the-clock monitoring along with fast threat detection response using a Unified Security Management platform. In addition, all of your documents are safe and accessible with full redundancy and fully managed firewalls and encryption protection, providing you peace of mind that your business is always protected.

Realizing Cost Savings and Maximizing Profitability

The simple fact of the matter is that building and maintaining IT infrastructure is costly, as is the real estate and accompanying insurance that infrastructure requires. Expensive hardware, software, and licensing for all devices are just the beginning. Allocating resources to IT for setup, maintenance, security and management tools all add up.

Cox Business Cloud Solutions can help reduce your costs across the board. The cloud allows lower capital spending on facilities and onsite servers while reducing the overall IT budget. Many companies that move to the cloud downsize their data centers or eliminate them entirely. It supports more regular technology upgrades, reduces ongoing maintenance and staff time, and shifts the burden for time-consuming tasks, like patches, upgrades and infrastructure expenditures to cloud service providers. Our Cox Business Cloud Solutions support team supports your IT team, as well as your end-users – everything from device troubleshooting to application integrations to building out any new data center requirements. Not only can you reduce IT expenses by reducing physical PC costs, you can also layer in our Cloud Desktop as a Service (DaaS), which is a pay-asyou-go subscription – meaning one monthly charge, which makes budgeting simple.

Save Time and Valuable IT Resources by Choosing the Right Partner

There are lots of reasons cloud migration makes sense, but moving forward ultimately requires finding a trusted cloud services partner who listens to your needs and translates that into a strategic migration plan that fits your unique business needs. Cox Business is a trusted provider of business technology services and our Cloud Solutions team is among the best in the industry. Our solutions will grow with your business and ensure you have the support of certified professionals for your IT staff and end users available 24/7. Contact us today to learn more about migrating your business to the cloud so that you are fully prepared for whatever the future may bring.

coxbusiness.com/cloud 850 Business Magazine

FALL 2020

Essential Mission TCC pivots to help displaced workers STORY BY BOB FERRANTE

allahassee Community College has adopted “Be Essential” as the slogan for its current marketing campaign. But the same can also be said about TCC, which is providing essential training that is closely aligned with the needs of employers. TCC has matched up hundreds of people who are learning new skills with its extensive network of businesses in Tallahassee and the Florida Panhandle. More particularly, the school is helping many students who were left unemployed due to the COVID-ı9 pandemic qualify for new career paths. “What we did is we started looking at data, talking to business leaders,” TCC executive vice president and provost Madeline Pumariega said. “Who is hiring? What jobs are available? I know we could always focus on the jobs that are not available. But what is available?” Based on that inventory, the school provides programs of varying duration that are designed to place students in essential occupations. The mission is critical, especially with unemployment rates soaring. Florida reported a ı4.5 percent unemployment rate in May. But the goal is also one that is well within TCC’s grasp. In a few months, students can revitalize their resume and make themselves attractive to employers. TCC estimated about ı2,000 people were unemployed in the region in late spring. But at the same time, it’s clear that some sectors are hiring, notably health care. Nurses, emergency medical technicians and firefighters are in demand. One example: TCC fulfilled a dental office’s request by sending applicants from the hygienist program, filling ı0 spots. Pumariega also mentioned a need for welders, truck drivers and probation officers.

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Illustrations by LINDSEY MASTERSON

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Chelsea Countess is among recent graduates of TCC’s programs. In a year, she completed two certificate programs, gained hands-on experience in a hospital and landed a job as a certified surgical technologist. How much is her field in demand? A hiring manager asked Countess and her classmates why they hadn’t applied for available positions. At the time, they were months away from earning certificates, but the manager said they should apply early. Countess landed a job at Capital Regional Medical Center three weeks before she graduated and has now moved on to Atlanta. Countess spoke about the duties of a technologist with confidence. “We come in and we get the room ready, we get all of our instruments, all of the supplies for the case,” Countess said. “We are the surgeon’s second pair of eyes. We are putting instruments in his hands before he asks for them. We’re anticipating the surgery. We try to stay ahead of him so he doesn’t have to wait on us.” Countess enjoys those responsibilities and also doing advocacy work for patients. As a technologist, she has played a critical role in maintaining the sterility of operating rooms. She estimated that 65 percent of her certified surgical technologist colleagues at Capital Regional were TCC grads. The job is demanding but rewarding, Countess said. “I love being able to work with patients, speaking for them and making sure their surgery goes very well,” Countess said. “We treat them like family. That’s my motto: I treat every patient like they’re my mom and dad lying on the table. It’s very Tallahassee Community College executive vice president and provost Madeline Pumariega is a former chancellor of the Florida College System. She has long been a proponent of post-secondary programs, many of them requiring just months to complete, that reliably lead to employment.

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“Through our career center, we’ve continued to maintain the relationships we have with employers who would typically post with us. We have continued to be in touch with our employers in the area, finding out what they need and getting that out to students as well.”

PHOTO BY DAVE BARFIELD

— Madeline Pumariega, TCC executive vice president and provost

vital that we are there. It’s very demanding, but it’s also very much in demand. There are tons of places you could work.” Through the TCC2Work program, students can complete degrees or earn certifications in months in fields like health care, public service, business information and technology or digital media. A full list can be viewed on TCC2Work.com. Employers or prospective students can also learn more about the program by calling (833) TCC-JOBS. TCC has also established opportunities for students needing financial aid. “A student that may not have the funds today, that should not be what keeps them from coming back or continuing their degree,” Pumariega said. “We are really working hard with our financial aid programs and scholarship programs to help those in our community and help families.” TCC’s programs are valuable because of the job retraining but also because of its connections to employers in the region. The career center knows who is hiring and acts quickly to connect graduates with hundreds of employers. And even if those jobs are now remote, or interviews are done via

phone, FaceTime or Zoom due to COVID-ı9, graduates are prepared to promote their new skills to those who are hiring. “Through our career center, we’ve continued to maintain the relationships we have with employers who would typically post with us,” Pumariega said. “We have continued to be in touch with our employers in the area, finding out what they need and getting that out to students as well.” While TCC may be best known as a connector to Florida State, Florida A&M or other public state universities, the adaptability of the community college has proved invaluable to people who were recently laid off and looking to move into another line of work. “Community colleges are uniquely positioned because of who we are,” Pumariega said. “We’re these institutions that are open access. We’re the community’s college; we’re responding to what’s happening in the community. “I also like to call them future-proof skills. If you have these skills, they are transferable to that next job.” A next job that often leads to financial security and a rewarding career.

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FALL 2020

Educating Teachers Programs strive to keep pace with technological advances BY HANNAH BURKE

or William Crawley, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of West Florida (UWF), the arrival of the COVID-ı9 pandemic was like a plane hitting rough air. When that happens and emergency oxygen masks deploy from overhead, you are told to apply your own mask before helping the person next to you. UWF, however, was well-positioned to withstand the turbulence. Before the pandemic became an issue, UWF offered 3ı% of classes solely online, and most others included a digital component. The school’s mask was all but on already. “We certainly didn’t see the pandemic coming, but we did see we were moving online as a society,” said Crawley. “While there’s nothing better than face-to-face learning, technology provides a powerful opportunity to augment teaching and heighten our entrepreneurial spirit through the ways in which we deliver an education.” While pandemic-induced school closures made distance learning inescapable, it is not clear how much the delivery of instruction may have changed permanently. Once a vaccine is

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developed, will K-ı2 schools and universities revert to previous models? For Dr. William Evans, professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Educational Leadership at UWF, it may be too early to say. “I’m curious what happens subsequent to a vaccine,” said Evans. “Right now, many parents of students in primary school are electing to homeschool them, and academia is wondering how to effectively deliver instruction outside of a university setting. Some of these concerns are valid, but some reflect a lack of knowledge about what goes on in a technology-based course.” Pre-pandemic, about half of the classes in UWF’s College of Education were delivered online exclusively. Effective with the 2020-2ı academic year, the college is offering a new doctorate in digital instructional design and technology. “About three years ago, we developed a center that has instructional design and technology experts to support our professors,” Crawley said. “My goal with that was to see that the teachers are doing what they do best … and that is building relationships with their students and supplying excellent curriculum.” For Crawley, that involves three key elements.

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA

Illustrations by LINDSEY MASTERSON

“We certainly didn’t see the pandemic coming, but we did see we were moving online as a society. While there’s nothing better than faceto-face learning, technology provides a powerful opportunity to augment teaching and heighten our entrepreneurial spirit through the ways in which we deliver an education.” —William Crawley, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of West Florida

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SETTING ROLES AND EXPECTATIONS

“We know from psychology that it’s not only controlled by the presentation of the material, but also by the inherent rewards and inducements to engage the class. If you think about some of your best classes, you were ultimately fulfilled by the feelings you had when you left them.” — Dr. William Evans, professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Educational Leadership at UWF

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PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA

First, post-pandemic learning should be based on simple, consistent expectations not only for students but for instructors. “When you are face-to-face in a classroom, some of that happens through passive ritual,” Crawley explained. “But when you are sitting at home alone, you need to know what those expectations are so they may undo anxiety. If we’re not doing this right, then people are unduly anxious and distracted from their learning.” Instructors must remain goal-oriented and proceed with the understanding that when teaching online, you are not going to be able to immediately manage all the issues that crop up. Supports for teachers, such as those at UWF’s Center of Instructional Design and Technology, allow for an easy transition to digital instruction while focusing on faculty members’ roles as instructors and mentors. But teachers should not have to shoulder full responsibility for a student’s academic standing. “You tell different things to your parent than you do your priest, right?” asked Crawley. “It’s because of their role. We’re trying to become more savvy in understanding that this generation has a professor and a professional advisor to whom they open up for different things.” Universities and high schools have recently begun “near peer” programs in which students are paired with an upperclassman and bond over mutual goals, circumstances or academic pursuits. Crawley believes in creating a team of “surrounding support” tailored to individual students. “It’s about doing what you do well, knowing what your assets are and what your students need.”

SPARKING MOTIVATION

For Evans, motivation is a strange thing. “We know from psychology that it’s not only controlled by the presentation of the material, but also by the inherent rewards and inducements to engage the class,” he said. “If you think about some of your best classes, you were ultimately fulfilled by the feelings you had when you left them.” With distance learning, students should be active participants in their education. This may be easier said than done while sitting on a Zoom call in pajamas and fighting off the temptation to peruse TikTok videos during a lecture. “My job as the instructor is to see where you are in your learning and to offer you ways to consider questions that’ll move you along,” Crawley said. “The biggest thing I want students to realize is that you can’t just sit here and absorb information. If you are online, you’re going to have to stay motivated for your own well-being.” Across all grade levels, it is important that teachers foster in students a sense of autonomy and motivation. After observing hundreds of professors, Crawley has noticed an increased demand for individualized learning. One of his colleagues, a professor and former news anchor, records three-minute, personalized videos for her students. “She’d say ‘Jenny, I read your paper, and here are my thoughts,’ and that engages me,” said Crawley. “I know that I am an individual to her. She took advantage of her own personal skills and delivered concise feedback that was effective for both student and teacher.” Crawley encourages teachers to be more genuine with their students. Teachers, by sprinkling lectures with details about their lives or making the time for personal interaction, form deeper connections and boost students’ desire to learn from them.

THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE TRADE

One of the biggest challenges of training teachers in a high-tech world is chasing innovation. “Those who haven’t taught online before might have one or two things they’re comfortable with, but they have to be willing to evolve,” said Crawley. “If you choose the wrong tool, you won’t reach your students. The learning doesn’t happen.” But mastering the tools, added Evans, opens new avenues of worthwhile, effective instruction. “My grandfather was a carpenter, and he was a wonderful example of somebody who knew how to use the limited tools he had,” Evans said. “The technology that teachers are using today is not what we were using a semester ago. It’s a challenge to keep up with the innovation, but that’s the nature of the beast.” Crawley said it is important that students keep learning from one another. New education models are currently being stress tested, but not everything will scale for long-term efficiency. “When you teach and you learn, the vehicle is the relationship — empathizing with each other, finding where you’re at and moving forward together,” Crawley said. “Nothing can replace that, but technology can surely support and complement it.”

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FALL 2020

CAPITAL CORRIDOR

Gadsden, Jefferson + Leon Counties

Executive director Demian Pasquarelli, left, fills orders at the Red Hills Online Market, which has seen a surge in business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fresh T Taste of Success Business booms at organic food market during public health crisis By Audrey Post

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en years ago, four women who operated small farms came together to figure out how they could support one another; offer food to the Tallahassee market that had been produced locally without chemical pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified seeds; and provide educational resources to help one another improve their operations. A year later, the Red Hills Small Farm Alliance created the Red Hills Online Market (RHOM) to provide another venue for members to sell their products. Many participated in area farmers markets, most notably the

long-established Tallahassee Farmers Market at Market Square, and some also sold their products to local restaurants focusing on local organic food. With steady growth of 30 to 40 percent each year, things were progressing nicely, market manager Karen Goodlett said. And all the produce, meat, dairy, eggs, oysters, juice, honey, nuts and baked goods were grown, produced or harvested within Äą00 miles of Tallahassee. Then 2020 happened. With COVID-Äą9 spreading, Florida residents were told to stay home unless they performed essential services. Going to the grocery store was allowed, but many people preferred not to venture out. Suddenly,

the RHOM was flooded with new customers willing to pay the $20 annual membership fee and received exponentially more orders. “It has been a really interesting process,” said Cari Roth, president of the RHSFA board of directors. “At first, we had the boom and that one crazy day, which caused some difficulty. I’m really proud of how fast we pivoted.” That “crazy day” saw sales of more than $34,000, compared to sales of about $ıı,000 the week before. A crew made up of farmers, customers and other volunteers packed orders for distribution and got all the orders out eventually, but the process was hectic and took far longer than usual. “From one week to the next, the customer base doubled,” Goodlett said. “The next week, it had doubled again.” Historically, the business model for the Online Market has been simple: The website opened at 8 a.m. Sundays for ordering and closed at 6 a.m. Wednesdays. All orders were paid at closing from customer credit cards on file, then orders were collated and sent to individual producers, who had indicated on the website how many of each product they had available. Once it was all gone, the item was moved to the bottom of the list to the “sold out” section. In the new pandemic reality, one of the first things to do was figure out how many orders the market could handle. The board and the market’s management team, manager Goodlett and assistant managers Becky Dinkins and Andie Kocourek, decided to close the market a day earlier, on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, or when 500 orders had been placed. Other than that, the actual ordering process remained the same. However, other changes included investing heavily in new equipment, Roth said, including shelving on wheels that can be reconfigured as needed, and carts that can be used to pack four orders at a time. Staggered deadlines were set for producers to deliver their goods to the central hub at the Northwood Center, next to the Tallahassee Ballet. Instead of having everything delivered on Thursday mornings, which is the

Photography by SAIGE ROBERTS

distribution day, frozen goods, dairy and pantry items are delivered on Wednesday. Fresh produce is still delivered on Thursday, but between 7 and 9 a.m. instead of by noon. Among the biggest changes, though, were the shift from volunteer packers to paid staff, and the temporary use of home or hub delivery exclusively, instead of allowing customers to pick up their orders at the central location or one of half a dozen distribution hubs. The team made a point of hiring out-of-work restaurant employees as delivery drivers. Additional hub distribution sites have been added. At RHOM headquarters, everyone is required to wear a mask. Temperatures are checked. Any employee who has been exposed to COVID-ı9 must report it and self-quarantine. “The changes have really increased our efficiency and our speed, so we can pack more orders,” Roth said. “Even though things have

OBSERVING PROTOCOLS Executive director Demien Pasquarelli, manager Karen Goodlett, assistant manager Andie Kocourek and assistant manager Becky Dinkins always mask up while marketing nutritious foods like those at top.

“THIS HAS STRENGTHENED THE BOND BETWEEN THE PRODUCERS AND THE CUSTOMERS. THEY TRULY UNDERSTAND NOW WHERE THEIR FOOD COMES FROM.” CARI ROTH

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CAPITAL CORRIDOR

settled down since that first boom, we are definitely handling more people.” Although the marked increase in sales was the result of a crisis and people were panicking at the thought of not being able to buy food, both Roth and Goodlett expect the increase in sales to be sustained. Once the process was reorganized, sales have been steady at between $20,000 and $24,000 a week – less than the $34,000 of the “crazy day” distribution but still three to four times more than a year ago. “This was really a lifeline to our farmers and their ability to sell their products, particularly after restaurants had to suspend indoor dining and the farmers markets pretty much shut down,” Roth said. Producers are also counting on that increased demand to continue, and they have expanded their product lines and planted more crops accordingly. “For a lot of nonprofits, the pandemic was a severe blow,” Roth said. “For us, it was a challenging time, but we met it.” Goodlett said that one of the most heartwarming aspects of the pandemic’s impact on the market’s customer base was that some people had never tasted truly fresh, local food before. “This has strengthened the bond between the producers and the customers,” she said. “They truly understand now where their food comes from.” Anna Dickey became a customer after her employer, Esposito Garden Center, became a distribution hub. “In my first order, I got leeks, microgreens and beef, and I made steak and ale pie with the leeks and beef,” she said. “Everything was really fresh and yummy, and I love that I don’t have to buy a whole bushel of something.” Management expects the growth to continue, although at a rate it can handle. “We’d love to get to the point,” Goodlett added, “where people go to the grocery store just to buy toilet paper and cleaning products.”

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The Red Hills Online Market and its industrious employees are committed to offering foods that are produced locally without chemical pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified seeds. In the process, they are hooking consumers on freshness.

Photography by SAIGE ROBERTS

PHOTO BY YANLEV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

There are many aspects you seek when selecting a professional for matters as varied as health care services, banking, insurance, real estate purchases and even vacationing. Attributes such as courteous, experienced, trusted, reliable, passionate and reputable, likely claim top spots on your checklist. In this special advertising section of 850 Business Magazine, we share with you Northwest Florida professionals that embody these traits and aspire to exceed your expectations.

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

DR. DAVID CHANDLER DERMATOLOGY SPECIALISTS OF FLORIDA

on Ward, MD, and Michael Stickler, MD, are pleased to announce that David Chandler, MD, has joined their practice to expand their established medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology services by adding plastic surgery consultations and procedures. Dr. Chandler, a board-certified plastic surgeon, completed his undergraduate degree in physics from Auburn University. He attended medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, residency at the University of Kansas Medical Center and completed a fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Chandler specializes in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. He will be an excellent option for patients who wish to have a plastic surgeon close their Mohs micrographic surgery sites. Cosmetically, he will perform breast augmentations, body contouring, breast lifts (mastopexy), face and neck lifts, otoplasty (ear surgery), blepharoplasty (eyelid lift surgery), liposuction, fat grafting, explants, capsulectomies, and tummy tucks (abdominoplasty). In addition, Dr. Chandler will offer cosmetic injectables such as Botox and filler.

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Dermatology Specialists of Florida is excited to integrate plastic surgery of the face, breasts and body, medical dermatology and Mohs micrographic surgery in the same practice. “Dermatology and aesthetics go hand in hand, and we are very pleased to now offer our patients both services under one trusted brand,” said Dr. Jon Ward. Over the past decade, Dr. Ward and his colleagues have focused on the ever-expanding non-surgical aesthetic treatments available to patients in their on-site medical spa, Aqua. Now, Dermatology Specialists of Florida and Aqua Medical Spa clients will further benefit from the addition of having a plastic surgeon on staff who offers a multitude of surgical cosmetic procedures. April Marchand, Aqua Medical Spa Director added, “We are happy to welcome Dr. Chandler to our practice and look forward to providing advanced cosmetic options to our patients with the expertise and experience of a skilled board-certified plastic surgeon.” Dr. Chandler has high surgical standards and provides patients with consultative sessions to help understand their needs clearly before proceeding with any surgical procedures. He focuses

on delivering quality, and he derives tremendous satisfaction out of helping patients achieve their desired aesthetic goals. Prior to joining their practice, Dr. Chandler held several academic leadership roles, including serving as an assistant professor of plastic surgery at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and serving as a representative on the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers. He enjoys sharing his experience and expertise with others as a featured presenter on a wide variety of plastic surgery and reconstructive topics, as well as volunteering for overseas medical

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mission work for both pediatric and adult patients. Dr. Chandler is a diplomat of the American Board of Plastic Surgery and a member of both the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the Florida Society of Plastic Surgeons. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Plastic surgery and dermatology are a natural fit, and I am pleased to join board-certified dermatologists and Mohs surgeons Dr. Ward and Dr. Stickler and their team of skin care experts. Dermatology Specialists of Florida and Aqua Medical Spa have an

outstanding patient-centered reputation and an experienced team focused on quality outcomes, so I believe our partnership will be a win-win for the patients,â&#x20AC;? commented Dr. Chandler. Dr. Chandler consults patients and performs basic surgical procedures at the Panama City and Santa Rosa Beach Dermatology Specialists of Florida/Aqua Medical Spa locations. He is currently performing outpatient cosmetic surgeries at the Destin Surgery Center. In the spring of 2021, Dr. Chandler will move to his

beautiful state-of-the-art medical facility, currently under construction in Red Fish Village in Santa Rosa Beach. The new facility will be called 30A Plastic Surgery and will be a brand of Dermatology Specialists of Florida and Aqua Medical Spa.

(850) 233-DERM (3376) DermatologySpecialistsFL.com

Those interested in booking a consultation with Dr. Chandler can do so by calling (850) 608-1833 or emailing Monica@30Aplastics.com.

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

From left to right: Kristi Holland, Service Specialist (Killearn); Alex Gonzalez, Service Center Manager (Governor’s Crossing); Traci Poucher, Regional Manager; Kendalyn Gordon, Service Center Manager (Mahan).

CAMPUS USA CREDIT UNION

AMPUS USA Credit Union is a people helping people type of business. As a not-forprofit cooperative, they are owned by their members allowing them to best serve the interests of their members. With 18 service centers in North Central Florida, they serve over 100,000 memberowners as a full service financial cooperative offering a multitude of consumer and business services, such as checking and saving accounts, auto and home loans, credit cards, investment services and more. Their shared vision is to empower their employees to make a positive difference in the financial lives of their members and in the communities they serve.

What sets your business apart? At CAMPUS, you’re not just a member — you own the place. Profits are returned to member-owners in the form of no- and low-fee financial services and best-of-market rates on deposits and loans. Since our members own CAMPUS, we can never be bought, nor can we merge with another institution without our members’ approval. What impact do you hope to make on the community? We want to be seen as a committed partner in the communities we serve. CAMPUS invests hundreds of thousands of dollars every year — these funds are donated directly to local organizations that impact the community in a positive way.

What do you hope customers gain from interacting with your company? Most members are surprised that when they bank with us, it feels more like being a part of a big family rather than just “banking.” We hope our members always call us first when making big financial decisions — that’s why we’re here. Most people don’t know this but … CAMPUS started like many small businesses — by a group of people who wanted to make a difference. The Credit Union started with nine members who each bought a $5 share account, which is the same price as a “share” today when a member opens an account.

(850) 894-9098 | campuscu.com 101 N. Blair Stone Road | 3122 Mahan Drive | 1511 Killearn Center Blvd., Tallahassee Federally insured by the NCUA. NMLS #799574 70

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PHOENIX COATINGS

GEORGE ATCHISON What services do you provide? We are a structural restoration company that offers two modes of operation — non-catastrophe restorations and post-catastrophe restorations. For non-catastrophe, we limit our scope to the exterior, which includes anything structural, from the roof to the foundation. For post-catastrophe, we often hire subcontractors to cover the entire building, from interior to exterior work. What sets your company apart? The people, without a doubt. Many of the employees in management, administration and fieldwork have been with the company since its beginning in 1988. That kind of longevity often makes other companies envious because I can ensure the quality of each job will be reliable and held to the same high standard. How did you get into this business? I am a third-generation construction worker, and after spending some time in the Marine Corps, I returned back to my roots. My wife Louise and I have remained the owners for over three decades. What is your company’s mission? To be the area’s leading contractor for concrete rehabilitation, waterproofing and building reconstruction services. To maintain our leadership edge by providing

excellence in products and services and by anticipating the future needs of our clients. To be fiscally responsible in the management of our company. How do you define success? Getting up every day and going to work, whether I feel bad or good, whether things are going wrong or well. It is all about perseverance. Calvin Coolidge said of all the traits in the world, one that is never wasted is perseverance. If you have perseverance, you can overcome anything.

What do you hope people experience from working with your company? A respect for work ethic. If we can impart a strong work ethic into our younger generations, then they will be better business people, fathers, mothers and citizens. What impact do you hope to make within your community? I hope my legacy will be that I was fair. Whether I am working with an employee, a community member or a client, they should be treated with fairness and respect.

900 Industrial Court, Pensacola | (850) 857-4740 | PhoenixPensacola.com 850 Business Magazine

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

COLDWELL BANKER HARTUNG

ince we opened our Tallahassee office in 1979, our mission has never wavered. Each day, our agents help clients find “home.” Whether selling or buying, the sense of home is one of the most important things in our lives. It’s the place we long for at the end of the day — the place that holds all that we love and everything we cherish. It is our goal to bring the joy of home to every one of our clients with unrivaled expertise, passion and energy. Coldwell Banker Hartung is a full-service real estate company

specializing in residential and commercial real estate throughout North Florida and South Georgia for over 40 years. We operate with only full-time agents. This provides our company with highly experienced agents that are both committed to their career and helping our customers, whether it is selling their property or finding them a place to call their own. Our partnership with the Coldwell Banker brand gives our brokerage a national platform, which helps attract high-quality agents, clients and customers.

We hold integrity to the highest standard at Coldwell Banker Hartung. This was one of the founding principles when the company began more than 114 years ago, and it still holds true today. Our success is due in large part to doing the right thing for our clients all the time and every time. We want to make sure that you know we are here for you. Our relationship continues long after we walk away from the closing table. If you have questions about your home during this time, call your Coldwell Banker Hartung agent. We are your realtor for life.

Coldwell Banker Hartung | 3303 Thomasville Road, Tallahassee (850) 386-6160 | cbhartung.com 72

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EMERALD COAST COMPOUNDING PHARMACY REGINA K. JAQUESS, PHARM. D. Tell us about your background. I received my doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 2009. I have received post-graduate training in pharmaceutical compounding, which is my passion. I am a member of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and a member of Professional Compounding Center of America (PCCA). What is your business philosophy? When it comes to patient health care, I believe there should be a connection between patient, physician and pharmacist. At Emerald Coast Compounding Pharmacy (ECCP), we strive to develop a comprehensive plan to improve each patient’s overall health and quality of life. Our connection with our clients has earned us for the past four years (2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016) the “Best of the Emerald Coast” award for “Best Pharmacy.” What services does your company offer? At ECCP we formulate your prescriptions to meet your individual needs. Our facility addresses a range of medical concerns including: anti-aging, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, dental, dermatology, gastroenterology, infertility, pain management, pediatric, podiatry, sports medicine and veterinary. What about your interests outside of work? I am currently a USA Water Ski team member, 10 time World Champion and 12 time World Record Holder in both Slalom and Overall. I am also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), West Florida Chapter.

1719 S. Co Hwy 393, Santa Rosa Beach | (850) 622-5800 | ECCPharmacy.com 850 Business Magazine

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PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

PORT OF PENSACOLA

he Port of Pensacola has been part of the fabric of Pensacola’s culture and community ever since the first commercial dock was built here in 1784. Currently, the port is focused on a 15- to 25-year evolution that will look at new ways for the sea to help propel the regional economy of this extreme Northwest Florida port. Today, Pensacola has become less industrial. A revitalized downtown is home to professional offices, restaurants, galleries and shops. During this period of growth and change, the question for port officials became, “How can the Port of Pensacola remain relevant against this new backdrop?” Part of the answer came in 2011 when the Port attracted Offshore Inland Marine to relocate its subsea vessel support base and corporate headquarters to Pensacola. Not only has Offshore Inland created a multitude of new jobs, but also people like seeing the unique tankers, drill ships and pipe layers being serviced at this new marine modification, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MMRO) facility.

In 2018, the Port commissioned a global infrastructure advisory firm to conduct a Portside Pensacola Vision Plan. This champions a development approach that strengthens the port’s role as a regional economic driver by maintaining traditional deep water port operations while redeveloping other areas of the port for different uses. One short-term project to emerge from this process is the Waterfront Hashtag Connector. The project calls for development of walking paths and bicycle lanes along four streets immediately adjacent to the port. Pensacola Bay Oyster Company opened an oyster nursery, becoming the port’s first aquaculture customer. It hopes to reestablish the area’s historic natural oyster beds that died decades ago due to over-fishing. Further development of these new niches, combined with thoughtful and strategic implementation, should ensure that the Port of Pensacola is as important a part of Pensacola’s future as it was its past.

700 S. Barracks St., Pensacola | (850) 436-5070 | PortOfPensacola.com 74

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S P EC IA L A D V ERTISING SECTION

What do you love most about what you do? Although we offer design/ build services, where we are responsible for designing, permitting, and construction, we absolutely love the actual construction portion of a project. This process entails taking a vacant parcel or dilapidated building and improving it to meet our client’s objectives. Richard Dodd with his partners John Meyer and Dalton Parker

RELIANTSOUTH CONSTRUCTION GROUP RICHARD DODD, P.E. — PRESIDENT What services does your company provide? We are a commercial general contractor and construction manager that builds projects ranging from a $36 million school to $250,000 restaurant remodels. Although licensed in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, we predominantly operate between Tallahassee and Pensacola, with offices in Panama City and Miramar Beach. Three words that best describe your firm? Solutions – Values – Trust. Our clients have commercial construction needs, and we pride ourselves on being

a trustworthy solution provider that adds tremendous value to the process. What sets your company apart? A lot of our work is for repeat customers as they appreciate our reputation for building quality projects on time and economically. Faith is a pillar in our company; as such, we’re called to always do the right thing. We believe construction and life go much smoother when you’re blessed with a servant’s heart and treat people like you want to be treated. All of these processes contribute to our success and distinguish us from others.

What advice would you offer about success? To keep your eye on the bigger picture; work, grow, and strive for success in every facet of your life. For example, we expect our teammates to be exceptional builders in addition to being great parents, spouses, and role models who are deeply invested in their community. What lessons did you learn from recent hardships? Within the past two years, we have overcome a Category 5 hurricane and are currently working through a global pandemic. Our greatest takeaway from both is: perspective. Life is truly a gift, but sadly we sometimes take things for granted. Perspective makes you appreciate the little things.

230 W. 5th St., Panama City | (850) 215-5540 | ReliantSouth.com 850 Business Magazine

FALL 2020