850 Business Magazine • Summer 2023

ATLANTA ENTREPRENEUR COMES TO THE RESCUE OF HISTORIC GOLF COURSE

CHAIRMAN ASSESSES TRIUMPH GULF COAST’S PROGRESS

Structural restoration contractor specializing in exterior restoration of condominiums, municipal buildings, commercial properties and government facilities.

SPORTS TOURISM

In Tallahassee, a closed-out landfill will be hosting a world championship among accomplished longdistance runners.

Left behind are the days when Leon County administrator Vince Long jokingly referred to the Methane Mile. In Bay County, Visit Panama City Beach saw to the development of the Publix Sports Complex as a complement to Frank Brown Park. Now in the works is a multipurpose indoor facility that will host gymnasts, volleyball matches and electronic game players. In Pensacola, the Blue Wahoos are luring people to its waterfront stadium and helping to energize downtown.

stories by AL KRULICK, RAEMI CRETEUR and EMMA WITMER

PHOTO BY MICHAEL BOOINI / VISIT PANAMA CITY BEACH

Pursuits

19

TRIUMPH GULF COAST

David Bear serves as chairman of the board at Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc., a nonprofit organization established by the State of Florida and charged

with diversifying Northwest Florida’s economy. To do so, it funds grants for projects ranging from port facilities to transportation improvements to artificial intelligence institutes in middle and high schools with damages paid by BP following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

22 COURSE CORRECTION

David Cummings, now a highly successful IT entrepreneur in Atlanta, grew up in Tallahassee’s Killearn development and has a close attachment to the Killearn Golf Course and Country Club. In 2020, he committed to buying the club and course, redeveloping the facilities and contemporizing the experiences they provide.

Beginning in September 2022, residents along the course began to see the earth shift — literally. Premier golf course architect Chris Wilczynski of C.W. Golf Architecture has totally redesigned fairways, bunkers and greens. Also in the works is a new nine-hole executive course.

Periscope

49

ARTS & CULTURE

Jennifer Steele, the executive director of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County (CAA), has always been drawn to art and the performing arts, but in college, she developed an interest in venue and event management. She found herself buoyed by the close ties among people working together to make productions happen. She moved from working with puppeteers to heading up the repertory theater in Seaside before joining the CAA.

54 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Uriah Matthews spent the first few years of his life in Chautauqua, New York, and his family then moved to Walton County, Florida. These days, Matthews reports to work at an office in DeFuniak Springs, another city, like its northern counterpart, with a long

PHOTOS BY THE WORKMANS (22), MIKE HAYTACK (19, 66) AND MIKE FENDER (54)

CONTENTS

history of hosting educational, interactive festivals. Matthews is the executive director of the Walton County Economic Development Alliance, a job he started in January. He has arrived at a pivotal time in the county’s history, poised as it is atop a growing wave of development

58 GOVERNANCE

Bobby Wagner has always believed in the law of attraction. Manifest the good, he says, and great things will happen. At 28, he is the youngest mayor in the history of Destin. A few months into his first term, he is focusing his energy on creating a strong, sustainable future. Wagner previously served as a city councilman and realized a city is only as good as the projects it approves. As a candidate for mayor, his campaign slogan was “Revive, Reclaim, Sustain.”

62 COLLABORATION

The question of how best to support existing industry in Okaloosa County led David Goetsch to consider 1940s Italy. Following World War II, Italy established temporary “collaborative industrial networks” whereby industries shared equipment, personnel and facilities during the reconstruction era. While factories and industrial parks in Okaloosa County were not dealing with a war’s aftermath, perhaps they could be persuaded to collaborate to win bigger contracts and keep business partnerships local.

66 COMMERCE Donna

Tucker has led the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce since 2000 when the county comprised little more than commuter neighborhoods. Santa Rosa’s economy was modest and made up mostly of small businesses. What trifling tourism the area attracted was restricted to the county’s south end. Today, the chamber is growing along with Santa Rosa, one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States.

Promotional 40

BE PREPARED

As a managed IT services provider, Bit-Wizards helps businesses implement plans sufficient to address minor disruptions or major disasters. “Anything that denies you the ability to continue to operate and make revenue is a potential disaster,” says Louis Erickson, chief operations officer of Bit-Wizards. A hurricane warning may provide a small window of preparation time, but not enough to create a complete disaster plan for your company. You cannot predict an outage caused by construction or an accident.

42 GET NETWORKED

The second annual Northwest Florida Economic Summit, presented by William Loiry and the Northwest Florida Leadership Forum, will be held Nov. 28–29 in Panama City. It will focus on ways to broaden the range of defense and infrastructure projects in Northwest Florida and address how small and mid-sized companies can win contract awards.

66

45

MEET IN PARADISE

A great way to boost morale at your business is to treat your employees to a group meeting that feels like paradise. In celebrating Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort’s 50th anniversary, the property is including Hotel Effie in specialized group rates that extend to the end of 2023. Hotel Effie, Sandestin’s new 250-room luxury hotel, has over 20,000 square feet of dedicated meeting space, with even more room available at the adjacent Baytowne Conference Center.

46 INDUSTRY LEADER

In 2009 amid what some call the Great Recession, Blanchard Benson was focused on founding a company with growth potential. Southern Design Landscaping planted roots in North Georgia and steadily grew to become Southern Design Companies (SDC), an industry leader in turnkey landscaping, concrete and helical piers. The business quickly earned a reputation for integrity, quality and service, which remains the culture of the organization today.

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

MCKENZIE BURLEIGH

EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Steve Bornhoft

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Emma Witmer

EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Raemi Creteur

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Marina Brown, Hannah Burke, Al Krulick

CREATIVE

VICE PRESIDENT / PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut

LEAD DESIGNER Scott Schiller

SENIOR PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Sarah Burger, Saige Roberts, Shruti Shah

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sierra Thomas

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Donna Alberico, Michael Booini, Hilary DeMers, Mike Fender, Mike Haytack, Nino Mendez, Shannon Griffin Photography, Daniel Venn, The Workmans

SALES, MARKETING & EVENTS

SALES MANAGER, WESTERN DIVISION Rhonda Lynn Murray

SALES MANAGER, EASTERN DIVISION Lori Magee Yeaton

DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, EASTERN DIVISION Daniel Parisi

DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, WESTERN DIVISION Dan Parker

ADVERTISING SERVICES MANAGER Tracy Mulligan

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Julie Dorr

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Michelle Daugherty, Darla Harrison

MARKETING MANAGER Javis Ogden

SALES AND MARKETING WRITER Rebecca Padgett Frett

ADMINISTRATIVE & CUSTOMER SERVICE SPECIALIST Renee Johnson

OPERATIONS

CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER Sara Goldfarb

CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE/

AD SERVICE COORDINATOR Sarah Coven

PRODUCTION EDITOR Paige Aigret

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan

STAFF BOOKKEEPER Amber Ridgeway

DIGITAL SERVICES

DIGITAL EDITOR/MARKETING SPECIALIST Alix Black

850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE 850businessmagazine.com, facebook.com/ 850bizmag, twitter.com/850bizmag, linkedin.com/company/850-business-magazine

ROWLAND PUBLISHING rowlandpublishing.com

SUBSCRIPTIONS

A one-year (4 issues) subscription is $25. To purchase, call (850) 878-0554 or go online to 850businessmagazine.com. Single copies are $5.95 and may be purchased at Midtown Reader in Tallahassee and at Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million in Tallahassee, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Pensacola, Panama City and through our Tallahassee office.

Lake Tribe Brewing

Midtown Reader

Drip Drop Fitness

Barb’s Gourmet Brittles

Haute Headz Salon

Rebels’ Midtown Boutique

Frenchtown Market

The Business of Sports

Fields of play are economic engines

Playing sports is one of the most exciting and gratifying activities in life. It builds character and is a superior source of fun.

I am passionate about team sports, especially baseball and softball. For me, few things shine as brightly as baseball diamonds. I began playing at age 6 and never missed a season until a few years ago when my body let me know it was time to hang up my cleats.

There are many parallels between sports and business. Essential to both are good communication; trust; supporting your teammates and co-workers with encouragement; thinking strategically; and finding joy in what you do.

Both sports teams and businesses perform best as collegial meritocracies. A team is not well served if it puts a player best suited for right field on the pitcher’s mound, and some workers are candidates for management roles whereas others are not. There are singles hitters and home run bashers. But it is important for all team or staff members to recognize the value and importance of everyone’s contributions.

This edition of 850 Business Magazine contains several stories related to sports tourism in our region. Investments in sports venues are proving to be home runs, from the waterfront ballpark in Pensacola that

is home to the Class Double-A Blue Wahoos, to the sports complexes in Panama City Beach, to the cross country course at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee.

Each of those projects was the product of a vision that recognized the broad and enduring appeal of athletic competition and the capacity of our region to entice people to extend their stays after the medals or trophies are handed out or the Wahoos hit the road.

Their success has resulted, too, from the ingenious approaches that have been taken to enhancing the player and spectator experience. The Wahoos are finding new ways to reward fan loyalty, including bottomless soda cups and popcorn buckets. The City of Panama City Beach was making millions of dollars in improvements to Frank Brown Park, even as Visit Panama City Beach was developing a second sports complex now known as the Publix Sports Park. Now, an indoor sports facility is in the works.

At Apalachee Regional Park, Leon County is installing technology that will make it possible for people to livestream cross country meets. The venue, located on top of a closed out

solid-waste landfill, is slated to host a world championship.

This edition of 850 also includes profiles of three people of real consequence: Jennifer Steele, the longtime director of the Cultural Arts Alliance of South Walton; Walton County economic development director Uriah Matthews; and David Bear, the chairman of the Triumph Gulf Coast board.

All three, each in his or her way, are working to help preserve and enhance the quality of life in Northwest Florida and to enrich opportunities for all. In that, I wish them the very best.

Swing for the fences,

Brian Rowland browland@rowlandpublishing.com

We opened our doors 75 years ago, and in that time, we’ve experienced much together as a community. We’ve laughed, shared the joys of life and sometimes the sorrows. But together, we’ve always come out stronger, happier and healthier. This celebration is about you – the people we’ve had the honor of caring for all these years. From all of us at TMH and our partners, thank you for your continued trust in us. Here’s to another 75 years.

For 75 years we've been focused on one thing and one thing only. You.

2023 PINNACLE AWARDS

Thank you for your nominations. We look forward with great anticipation to honoring 13 outstanding Northwest Florida women for their exemplary community service and professional achievements.

To learn more about the 10th annual Pinnacle Awards presented by 850 Business Magazine, visit 850BusinessMagazine.com/ pinnacle-awards.

MANAGED IT SERVICES HELPS SHALIMAR POLICE DEPARTMENT PASS FBI AUDIT

Every three years, the FBI audits 12 law enforcement agencies in Florida to ensure that they are in compliance with federal standards. In 2022, the Shalimar Police Department was chosen to undergo this audit and hired the Bit-Wizards Managed IT Services team to get their network into compliance with FBI regulations ahead of the audit.

850BusinessMagazine.com/managed-it-serviceshelps-shalimar-police-department-pass-fbi-audit

NORTHWEST FLORIDA ECONOMIC SUMMIT

The Northwest Florida Leadership Forum will present its second annual Northwest Florida Economic Summit November 28-29 in Panama City. Local, state and national government and industry leaders will provide insights and advice to contractors and other businesses with an interest in participating in publicly funded projects.

For more information, visit bit.ly/3oIiPNe.

EXCLUSIVE SEASIDE SCHOOL ANNOUNCES MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR EXPANSION WITH NWFSC

The Seaside School, Inc., has announced plans for a Seacoast Collegiate High School Expansion Project in partnership with Northwest Florida State College. The Seaside School, Inc., hopes to break ground on new facilities this year with doors opening to students in 2025.

850BusinessMagazine.com/ seaside-school-expansion

THE LATEST NEWS

Stay up to date with local stories and news reports about local businesses, events and happenings.

DIGITAL EDITION

On the go? Take us with you. View 850 issues present and past in a convenient digital book format at 850BusinessMagazine.com/ digital-edition.

CONNECT

For the latest news and information, sign up for our free e-newsletter. 850BusinessMagazine.com/ newsletter-mailing-list

ENGAGE

Find 850 Business Magazine on LinkedIn as well as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

LinkedIn Rowland Publishing and 850 Business Magazine pages, and the 850 Business Magazine Group

Twitter @850BizMag

Instagram 850bizmag

Facebook 850 - The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida

2022 Pinnacle Award Recipients

CAPITAL LOCAL HAPPENINGS

» Stearns Weaver Miller has expanded its statewide Land Development, Zoning and Environmental practice with the addition of Elizabeth “Liz” Desloge Ellis. Ellis is an experienced litigator who represents private and public sector clients in complex real estate development, land use and property rights matters. Her experience includes litigating eminent domain, inverse condemnation and Bert J. Harris issues. In addition, she represents clients on matters including public records, constitutional law and labor and employment disputes.

SACHS MEDIA HONORED IN AREA AND NATIONAL AWARDS COMPETITIONS

Sachs Media earned the top honor in the 2023 Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) Capital Chapter Image Awards, receiving the Grand All Image Award for the firm’s “Hometown Hero Housing Program” campaign on behalf of Florida Realtors. The campaign also earned an Image Award and a Judges’ Award for the firm. Sachs Media received another Image Award and Judges’ Award for its “Kickstart Success: Supporting Childhood Education at Northwest Florida” campaign for the Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida. The annual FPRA Capital Chapter Image Awards competition recognizes public relations practitioners in the Tallahassee area for exceptional work in a range of categories. A Sachs Media campaign related to Florida’s solar industry earned an honorable mention in the public affairs category at the 24th annual PRWeek Awards. Sachs Media was the only Florida firm honored with one of these prestigious national awards. In 2022, powerful interests were advocating for legislation to eliminate a consumer-friendly solar policy called net metering, which allows Florida homeowners and businesses to trade extra power they generate for a credit on their bill. With the help of Sachs Media, a coalition of clean energy advocates and businesses launched a comprehensive campaign to rally public support and share the experiences of solar consumers who had chosen to use this eco-friendly technology. The campaign resulted in a veto of the legislation by the governor.

» Capital City Bank has announced that Mike Dasher has joined its team of wealth advisors, bringing more than seven years of experience in the financial industry and 13 years of experience in charitable gift planning and development with Florida State University. Dasher will be teaming with Capital City Trust Company, Capital City Investments and Capital City Strategic Wealth to provide expertise in investment strategies, retirement planning, estate and tax planning

and risk management for clients. He is a graduate of Florida State University and holds a bachelor’s degree in business management. He is an active community volunteer, currently serving as a member of the Tallahassee Regional Estate Planning Council, Tallahassee Quarterback Club, Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and Economic Club of Florida.

» Capital City Bank has announced that Don May has been named its community president for Leon and Gadsden counties. He will be called upon to provide leadership for local banking teams while strengthening the company’s position in both communities. William Smith has been made responsible for market strategy and development as the regional market executive for North Florida, which includes Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Madison, Taylor and Wakulla counties in Florida and Grady County in Georgia. As a second-generation Capital City banker and Tallahassee native, May brings more than 30 years of management and banking experience to the role of community president. He has held executive-level positions with Farmers & Merchants Bank, The

PHOTOS BY DONNA ALBERICO (SACHS MEDIA), DAVE BARFIELD (NCCET) AND COURTESY OF INDIVIDUALS

↑ Amy Climenhage, Drew Piers and Hannah Flynn represented Sachs Media at the PRWeek Awards. The Tallahassee communication and public relations firm received an honorable mention award in the public affairs category.

First and most recently, Tallahassee National Bank.

LOCAL HONORS

» Leon County’s Household Hazardous Waste program was named the 2022 Top 100 Leader in Sustainability by Call2Recycle, Inc. This designation is bestowed upon top-performing organizations that demonstrate exceptional commitment to battery collection and recycling. Through the Hazardous Waste Center, Leon County employees and residents have made a significant impact on the environmental health of the community by reducing the mishandling of hazardous household materials and diverting more than 300,000 batteries from the landfill.

» Leon County Government received three Project of the Year Awards from the Big Bend Branch of the American Public Works Association (APWA) for “delivering transformational public works projects that exceed the needs and improve the quality of life for county residents.” Each year, APWA highlights exceptional

projects that have not only met their goals within budget but have also surpassed public expectations. The following projects received awards: the Tram Road Culvert Replacement, the Smith Creek Road Bike Lane and the Magnolia Drive Project.

» At the Refuge House’s Building Hope Birthday Bash & Benefit, executive director Emily Mitchem presented Gwen Marshall Knight with the Volunteer of the Year award. Mitchem noted the support and service provided to Refuge House by Marshall Knight, including the provision of space in the Leon County Courthouse to assist domestic violence survivors; helping Refuge House gain access to court proceedings during the pandemic; and a strong working relationship between Refuge House and the Clerk of Court’s office on behalf of families and survivors.

NEW & NOTABLE

» On April 10, Tallahassee Community College hosted a ribbon-cutting and open

house for the newly renovated Student Union. Speakers included TCC president Jim Murdaugh, vice president for student affairs Sheri Rowland and Student Government Association president Tommy McCall, as well as Bonnie Davenport, president of BKJ, Inc., Architecture and Shawn Roberts, president and CEO of Mad Dog Construction.

APPOINTMENTS

» Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Donald Rubottom as chair to the Public Employees Relations Commission. Rubottom, of Tallahassee, was the staff director of the Public Integrity and Ethics Committee at the Florida House of Representatives. He was previously elected as an Oklahoma state senator and is a current member of the Florida Bar. Rubottom earned his bachelor’s degree from Southern Methodist University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Tulsa.

» DeSantis announced the appointment of

Rebecca Matthews to the Board of Physical Therapy Practice. Matthews, of Tallahassee, is the vice president of Automated Health Systems. Previously, she served as the chief executive officer of the Florida Healthy Kids Corporation and the chief of staff for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. She currently serves as chair of the Florida Education Foundation. Matthews earned her bachelor’s degree in communication from Florida State University.

EMERALD COAST LOCAL HAPPENINGS

Troutt received her bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and has experience in marketing/ communication, hospitality/concierge services and had her own business for over a decade.

» Alys Beach has hired Karen Troutt in the new role of vacation experience concierge. She will be the primary contact for guests through the Alys Beach Vacation Rental Program.

» Alys Beach also welcomed Robert Stenhammer as general manager and vice president, overseeing operations, guest services, the vacation rental program and Alys Beach Neighborhood Association matters. Stenhammer holds a master’s degree in hospitality and tourism and a bachelor’s degree in business management and is a leading industry expert in all aspects of resort management, community associations, private club management and luxury real estate services. He has worked at luxury resorts including Telluride and Hilton Head. Stenhammer has already implemented a concierge program and

CAPITAL // LOCAL HONORS

TCC NETS CONTINUING ED AWARDS

Tallahassee Community College brought home two exemplary program awards from the National Council for Continuing Education & Training (NCCET). The Division of Workforce Development received the Exemplary Program Award for Innovation Through Collaboration, and the Wakulla Environmental Institute (WEI) received the Exemplary Program Award for the Oyster Aquaculture Training Program. The awards were presented during the NCCET Annual Conference and Partner Exhibition, which took place in Nashville.

↑ WEI project specialist Alexis Howard, executive director Bob Ballard and associate director Albert Wynn

has plans for a rental app, a new booking platform and other initiatives to improve guest experience.

»

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Beach Properties of Florida announced that Hana Hawkins is joining the agency as managing broker for the Destin location. Hawkins will be responsible for overseeing daily operations, managing brokerage transactions, implementing agent training programs to

ensure the delivery of quality customer service, and recruitment. A veteran of the local real estate market, Hawkins has been a licensed agent since 2012 and has built her business on professionalism, ethics and market knowledge. She has been active in the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors, serving as the Miramar Beach director on the board of directors from 2021 to the present and as the 2021 co-chair and 2022 chairman for the Young Professionals Network. She is a 2020 ECAR Leadership Academy Graduate.

Hawkins was also named ECAR’s 2022 Realtor of the Year for Destin and 2021 Realtor of the Year for Miramar Beach. In

addition, Hawkins has led the ECAR Destin Tour for over nine years.

APPOINTMENTS

» Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Steven Warrick of Gulf Breeze to serve as a judge on the First Judicial Circuit Court. Warrick has been a partner at Brooks, Warrick & Associates, P.A., since 2008. Previously, he was an associate at Fitzgerald & Brooks, P.A. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Alabama and his law degree from Nova Southeastern University. Warrick fills the judicial vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Mary Polson.

BAY LOCAL HAPPENINGS

» Visit Panama City Beach is pleased to announce the recent appointment of Morgan Simo as sports and special events coordinator. Prior to joining the Visit Panama City Beach team, Simo worked with The St. Joe Company as part of the opening team for Homewood Suites by Hilton Panama City Beach. After completing her bachelor’s degree in business administration at Florida State University, Simo continued her education at FSU by obtaining her

master’s degree in public and corporate communication. In her new role, Simo will assist the sports and special events team in planning and executing the destination’s many events throughout the year.

I-10 APPOINTMENTS

» Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the reappointment of Jonathan “Scott” Christy to the Commercial Motor Vehicle Review Board. Christy, of Marianna, is a trucking supervisor for Anderson Columbia. A commercial driver’s license holder, he is trained in pre-trip and post-trip inspection, defensive driving and load requirements.

LEADERSHIP NORTHWEST FLORIDA

A Program of Florida’s Great Northwest Foundation

PURPOSE & BENEFITS

Leadership Northwest Florida is a Regional Collaboration program focused on Community, Content and Connection. It offers professionals in all industry sectors a unique opportunity to grow their knowledgebase, network and skillset in the 13-county region of Florida’s Great Northwest’s footprint.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

• Expands your personal and professional networks

• Enhances your knowledge of Northwest Florida

• Allows you to gain insights into community issues that impact Northwest Florida

• Prepares you for other leadership opportunities

APPLY THIS SUMMER FOR THE CHANCE TO BE SELECTED FOR CLASS II OF LEADERSHIP NORTHWEST FLORIDA!

For applications, please visit FloridasGreatNorthwest.com/LNWFL. The deadline to receive applications for the Class of 2023-2024 will be September 6, 2023.

For more information, please contact:

Kasey Killebrew

334.790.4557 | kkillebrew@fgnw.org

story by STEVE BORNHOFT

For years, the Lewis Bear Co. made its money as a distributor of AnheuserBusch beers. The supplier incentivized its Pensacola-based wholesaler to deal exclusively in Budweiser products, and the business steadily grew — until it didn’t.

As of about 2005, imported beers and craft breweries had begun to claim significant market share in Lewis Bear territory. Meanwhile, the overall demand for beer wasn’t growing, meaning that the interlopers, from the standpoint of Lewis Bear Co. CEO David Bear, were “cannibalizing” the market.

Bear, his brother Lewis Bear III and his brother-in-law Chad Bonner huddled to discuss the disturbing trend and arrived at a consensus. It was time to diversify. They would forgo the Anheuser-Busch incentives and begin to distribute other brands.

“Craft beers are lower in sales volume but higher in margin,” Bear said. “We picked up a couple of companies that offset the incentives that we had been getting in the first year (following the decision to diversify). Diversification worked for us financially, and we no longer had all of our eggs in one basket.”

It wasn’t the first time that the 150-year-old Lewis Bear Co. had changed its business model. Originally established as a chandlery, the company at various times in its history has been a wholesaler of groceries, appliances, firearms and, during Prohibition, alcohol as medicine.

“The business is always evolving,” said Bear, who noted that the company’s portfolio in recent years has come to include small-batch distilled spirits, cocktails in a can and Copa di Vino individual servings of wine. “That’s a big reason for our continuing success. Each generation has understood that things change, and if you don’t change, you get left behind.”

For Bear, the business in microcosm resembles the Northwest Florida macrocosm. Events including the Deep Water Horizon oil blowout of 2010, Hurricane Michael in 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic have made clear the vulnerabilities of a region with all of its eggs in two baskets.

“We have military bases that are a huge economic driver for our area, and we have tourism because of our beaches,” Bear said. “But our economy has been way too dependent on those sectors. The oil spill showed us how exposed to risk we were. It was an eyeopener. And there is always the threat of hurricanes and Base Realignment and Closure commissions.”

It’s been time to diversify.

Bear is a member of the board of Triumph Gulf Coast, a nonprofit established by the state Legislature to administer $1.5 billion in reparations that BP agreed to pay Florida as compensation for the Deepwater event. He was appointed by Gov. Ron

DeSantis to a four-year term that expires July 1, 2025. At this writing, he is the board’s chairman, referred to by fellow board members as Chair Bear.

Public sector entities in eight coastal counties — Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla — are eligible to apply for grants pursuant to guidelines in state law. Triumph’s overriding mission is to use the BP money to provide for the diversification of the regional economy. Accordingly, it is receptive to job-generating proposals that advance that aim.

To date, the board has encumbered a little over $500 million. Depending upon the proposal, grant funds may be disbursed over periods of up to 10 years almost like draws on a construction loan.

“We are doing really good work,” Bear said. “Communities have come together and come up with really great ideas. Through the Triumph Gulf Coast program, we have put Florida on the

DAVID BEAR TRIUMPH GULF COAST

↖ David Bear stands amid stacks of inventory at the Lewis Bear Co. warehouse in Pensacola. The company’s business model and product lines have evolved over time, providing a parallel to the economic diversification that Bear is helping the region achieve.

map for site selectors. It used to be that most everyone who wanted to come to Florida was looking at South Florida. Anyone who by chance wanted to come to Northwest Florida or South Alabama was going to South Alabama because it was putting so much money into economic development.

“Triumph has really been a gamechanger for this area.”

Bear applauded efforts by school districts and the region’s colleges to create workforce development curriculum in areas including cybersecurity and entrepreneurship among others.

The Triumph board, at its March meeting, approved an $8.075 million grant to Bay District Schools as partial funding for the construction of an approximately 11,500-square-foot career and technical education building and ancillary space that will house eight programs in construction and health science at J.R. Arnold High School in Panama City Beach.

“Our schools are training students so that businesses assessing our area can say, ‘OK, a ready-to-go workforce is in place there,’” Bear said.

Getting a proposal from the idea stage to grant contract approval is a multi-step process. The board encourages intended applicants to first run their idea by Triumph staff to ensure that it is an eligible activity.

Cori Henderson, formerly the director of business development at Enterprise Florida, is Triumph’s program administrator. She assesses proposals to guard against the possibility that they might duplicate projects already underway; result in competition that might result in a net loss of jobs; or merely amount to the relocation of an activity from one coastal county to another.

Rick Harper, who holds a doctorate in economics from Duke University and held several positions at the University of West Florida, is Triumph’s economic advisor. He calculates the return on investment that proposals can be expected to generate in terms of job generation and growing the region’s household income.

Applicants with what appears to be a qualifying idea proceed to a pre-application

summarizing their proposal and then a more extensive formal application. Henderson and Harper score the proposals and may recommend them for approval by the board.

Once approved, proposals figure in the preparation of a term sheet and finally a contract. Both documents require board ratification. Contracts include a clawback provision whereby Triumph can reclaim grant funds if a grantee fails to meet performance criteria.

Despite what appears to be a lengthy process, Northwest Florida State College president Devin Stephenson, addressing the board at its March meeting, complimented Triumph for the speed and efficiency with which it handles applications.

“If applicants have their program laid out and know what they are going to do, the process can go quickly,” Bear said. “We have had times when we had a term sheet and a contract for the same project on a meeting agenda.

“We have been assigned a job, and we want to employ this funding and make the biggest impact we can while guarding against being in too much of a hurry. We want to award grants at the right time at the right place with the right people.”

Sometimes interfering with success is a challenge especially true of coastal counties.

“Our struggle is going to be that we’ve got these great companies that want to come here, and we have these students who want to do the work, but they can’t afford to live anywhere near the jobs,” Bear said. “These are coastal counties, and real estate near the coast is super expensive.”

Bear is hopeful that a housing bill signed into law by the governor on March 29 may help. Among other provisions, it authorizes local governments to create ad valorem tax exemptions for portions of property used to provide affordable housing that meets certain requirements.

“Triumph is not going to get into the business of building homes,” Bear said, thinking ahead, “but maybe we can help with public infrastructure related to housing developments.”

The Chair Bear never hibernates. ▪

THE WISDOM OF PAPA BEAR

→ The late Lewis Bear Jr. served David Bear and his siblings as a mentor and powerful formative influence in life and in business. Here are three lessons that David Bear said his father impressed upon him.

Make decisions. Right or wrong, make decisions and hope that the wrong decisions don’t cost you too much money and that you learn from them. If you are going to be a leader, you have to make decisions.

Trust and verify. Trust what people are telling you, and then verify it.

Do what you say you are going to do. Be honest.

Said David Bear, “When it came to politics and other arenas, my father respected people if they were honest with him, even if they were on the opposite side of an issue. If they said they were with him and then voted against him, he didn’t forget that.”

OF THE LEWIS BEAR COMPANY (LEWIS BEAR JR.)

A New Camelot for Killearn

Recreated golf course and country club will open in 2024

story by MARINA BROWN

Once upon a time, there was a white knight — a benefactor, generous and brave. Hear now how this hero rode up on his shiny new golf cart and saved a (s)puttering realm!

It sounds like fantasy, but what has happened over the last year at the venerable Killearn Golf Course and Country Club in upscale Northeast Tallahassee, isn’t a fairy tale — even though the arrival of David Cummings, once a “child of Killearn” and now a highly successful Atlanta-based IT entrepreneur, has left golf lovers and homeowners along the course feeling like they are living a dream.

Early planned community

In 1964, work on Killearn Estates, Tallahassee’s first planned community, began. Formerly a farm, the area called Velda Dairy consisted of 3,800 acres. Plans called for subdivisions, the most exclusive of which would include a championship 18-hole golf course, which was completed in 1969 by developer J.T. Williams.

With its majestic oaks, contoured fairways and greens, an inn, clubhouse, tennis courts, pool and fine restaurant, the 1,000-member Killearn Club was the gemstone of the area. By the 1970s,

the 200-acre course was hosting the Tallahassee Open, a PGA Tour event.

In 1987, the now 27-hole golf course was purchased by Barton Tuck who both ran it and leased it out for nearly 30 years. By 2014, Tuck proposed closing nine holes and selling property to raise the $4 million to $5 million needed for repairs and modernization. If members vetoed the plan, he threatened to sell the entire course to developers by 2021, when protective covenants expired, and replace it all with single-family homes. Membership had dropped to 300.

What followed were years of lawsuits filed by Killearn Country Club members and the homeowner’s association against Tuck in opposition to his plans to redevelop some of the course. Investor J.T. Burnette had pledged $2.5 million toward a home-building venture.

With Tuck’s $2.8 million golf course mortgage running in arrears, he was looking for an angel. Two of them seemed to show up in the persons of Jimmy Graganella and Ron Tolliver, both wealthy entrepreneurs and insurance executives.

They made a $2 million offer, assumed Tuck’s mortgage, and proposed raising additional money to buy the country club and course through friends and believers in its long-term value. In the

end, however, accruing enough money to propel and rehab the Killearn Country Club and Golf Course didn’t prove feasible.

And then along came the white knight.

Enter David Cummings

By any measure, 43-year-old Cummings is a wunderkind. He is the founder of 10 companies employing thousands of people, including Atlanta Tech Village, the fourth largest tech hub in the U.S. He holds an economics degree from Duke University and an honorary doctorate from Mercer University. Cummings grew up at Killearn Estates, attended Lincoln High School, played golf on the Killearn course and had a golfcourse wedding reception there.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID CUMMINGS (RIGHT)

↙ Aerial photograph depicts the extent of the redevelopment work taking place at the Killearn Golf Course and Country Club. Atlanta IT entrepreneur David Cummings, who grew up in Killearn, committed in 2020 to buying the club and seeing to its re-creation.

My attachment to the Killearn Golf Course and Country Club is deeply sentimental. It is my desire to revitalize this historic place and bring it back to the beauty and vitality it once had.”

— DAVID CUMMINGS

photography by THE WORKMANS

“My attachment to the Killearn Golf Course and Country Club is deeply sentimental,” he said. “I lived on Monaghan Drive as a kid, and my 98-year-old grandfather lives on the course to this day. It is my desire to revitalize this historic place and bring it back to the beauty and vitality it once had.”

In 2020, Cummings placed millions of dollars in escrow and personally committed to buy the club and course for $2.6 million and invest $20 million in a complete recreation of the Killearn landmark. By the way, there will be no new single-family homes appearing on the property.

Work commences

Beginning in September 2022, residents along the expansive course began to see the earth shift — literally. Premier golf course architect Chris Wilczynski of C.W. Golf Architecture has totally redesigned fairways, bunkers and greens. MacCurrach Golf Construction, the other half of a design/build collaboration, has unleashed a fleet of heavy equipment on the 56-year-old course, turning the land into rounded swells and sculpted

fairways sprinkled with pretty water hazards and newly devilish sand traps.

The project includes drainage structures that will guard against the erosion of greens. Filters and liners will be placed beneath the sand in bunkers. The work also will include a new irrigation system for the entire course; 10 water hazards with an expanded pond; six sets of tees for each hole; TifEagle Bermuda grass on greens; TifTuft Bermuda grass on fairways and in the first cuts of rough; and Bahiagrass in the outer unmaintained rough.

Cummings explained that he wants the new course to reflect both traditional and emerging aspects of golf. He talked about “gamifying” the experience.

To that end, plans include an executive nine-hole course that can be played in 90

minutes and a 20,000-square-foot putting and chipping practice area. A 10-acre driving range will feature cutting-edge Trackman technology.

DAG Architects’ Jehna Godwin is the principal architect for the new clubhouse, restaurant and layout of the pool, tennis and pickleball courts.

“There will be wonderful views from inside to all the activities outside, especially the finishes at the 18th hole,” she said.

Cummings, who says the Killearn redevelopment project is his “gift” to the community, visits the course to check on progress every week or two.

“I am pumped!” said Bill Davis, who lives on what will be the new finishing hole. “We are just so grateful David Cummings has come along!” ▪

There will be wonderful views from inside to all the activities outside, especially the finishes at the 18th hole.”

— JEHNA GODWIN AIA, PRINCIPAL, DAG ARCHITECTS

↑ Planned improvements include new way stations along Killearn’s 18 championship holes. Also in the works is a nine-hole executive course.

Julie Newman Universal Banker

John Hodges Private Banker

Stephen Stabler President

Angel Davis Universal Banker

Amber Arnold Client Experience Manager

Capital Cascades Trail

More Than Just Infrastructure

Connecting People to Places

A penny makes a big difference in Tallahassee-Leon County! Under the vision and direction of the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency Board of Directors, Blueprint is at the helm of the community’s most pressing infrastructure needs. Blueprint builds roadways, trails, greenways, parks and stormwater projects that focus on connecting people to places Committed to going above and beyond traditional infrastructure, Blueprint p incorporate history, public art, and elements of play, maximizing the return on investment for the Tallahasse County community. The Capital Cascades Trail between Adams Street and Lake Bradford Road is the example

This section of Capital Cascades Trail is a 1.5-mile urban corridor linking downtown Tallahassee to its Southsi Trail represents an over $68 million investment in transformative improvements, including enclosing a dan open stormwater ditch and turning it into a world-class linear park and multimodal trail. It now hosts the Sk Art Park, Coal Chute Pond Park, the History and Culture Trail, unique public spaces for community ev playground, splash pad, and open green spaces to throw down a picnic blanket The Trail sits at the center o destinations, including Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Florida State University, Railroad Squ District and College Town

Blueprint worked directly with local communities, businesses and stakeholders for over a decade to deve project, ensuring that authentic voices drove the overall project concept and content Collaborative m included partnerships with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and citizen working grou experienced by Tallahassee residents daily, this project goes beyond traditional infrastructure to cre extraordinary linear park enhancing the quality of life, sense of place and cultivating a vibrant economy

The Capital Cascades Trail will be completed later this year. Stay connected for u d Bl i IA

TOURISM

PHOTO BY NINO MENDEZ / PENSACOLA BLUE WAHOOS

An athlete at any level experiences a special kind of exhilaration when he steps into a batter’s box, toes the starting line for a running race or takes his place on a soccer field with the opening kickoff moments away. Such moments are gravid with possibility. This may be the day that the underdog prevails, a pitcher hurls a no-hitter or a back-of-the-pack runner makes a late charge and finishes first. For spectators, sporting events present opportunities to watch competitors strive for excellence within prescribed boundaries and reasonable blocks of time; their appeal dates to the first Olympiad and beyond. Communities within Northwest Florida, heavily dependent upon tourism, have taken steps to gather visitors by investing in sports venues, employing new technologies to enhance the spectator experience and strengthening the ties between teams and the fans who support them. On the following pages, a number of such efforts are detailed. From Pensacola to Panama City Beach to Tallahassee, investors, taxpayers and units of government are finding that sports tourism is a home run.

More Than a Game

Minor league baseball broadens Pensacola’s appeal

story by AL KRULICK

t is one of the most spectacular settings in all of minor league baseball and a major component in the revitalization of Downtown Pensacola.

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos, a Double-A minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins, play their home games at Admiral Fetterman Field, a 5,038-seat stadium that faces Pensacola Bay.

Jonathan Griffith, the president of Studer Family of Companies, an owner of the Wahoos, said baseball is central to what happens at the stadium, but the stadium is part of a larger mission.

“The ball club is more than the baseball,” Griffith said. “Improving the quality of life in our community is truly our mission.”

Quint Studer is an entrepreneur, businessman, author and visionary who came to Pensacola in the late 1990s and succeeded very well as the founder of a health care consulting company. He and his wife, Rishy, soon became known for their philanthropic efforts throughout their adopted community — supporting health care providers, nonprofits, research and scholarship programs, as well as making a $2.25 million donation to help build Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park.

That $54-million, city-owned project includes commercial buildings, a public park, an

PHOTO BY NINO MENDEZ / PENSACOLA BLUE WAHOOS

amphitheater and the $24 million Blue Wahoos stadium, where the team has played since 2012.

“Baseball was a way to get people to want to live here and work here, to have entertainment for the families here and to rejuvenate the downtown area,” Griffith said. “The goal was to improve the quality of life in our community. We had so many people leaving here for jobs in places like Atlanta and New Orleans, so the concept was: What can we have that will make you want to live in this town? What will make you want to come to Pensacola, and how do we get people to stay? The baseball team was kind of a tool for that.”

Griffith said that the Blue Wahoos franchise is profitable but stressed that the Studers, themselves, don’t make

money from the franchise. “They’ve never taken a check from here,” he said. “They reinvest every dollar that they get from the ball club back into the community.”

The Blue Wahoos Stadium operates year-round and hosts over 250 events annually, including youth and community athletics, fundraisers for local nonprofits, school field trips and many types of social events, including parties, weddings and graduations. Some of its operations benefit local businesses, such as when the stadium hosts a wintertime Division 3 college baseball tournament.

“We have nine teams with an average of 40 players here for a week and a half,” Griffith said. “That’s a lot of beds. Taxes are being paid, food eaten. We’re not charging anything; we host them. But by them all

We do a thing with Ascension Sacred Heart, which is the local hospital here. We call it Home Run for Life, where we celebrate, once a month, a miraculous thing that the hospital has done — a cancer patient who’s gone into remission or somebody who recovered from a car accident.”

—

JONATHAN GRIFFITH, THE PRESIDENT OF STUDER FAMILY OF COMPANIES, AN OWNER OF THE WAHOOS

coming down here, now they’re fans of our community, and the parents tell me they want to come back here for vacation. So we’re doing this for the community. This is not a thing that we do to make money. We account for about $200,000 a year just in hotel stays for the Blue Wahoos games, alone.”

The Wahoos’ stadium has 18 billboards for rent, as well as company and organization signage opportunities everywhere you look: on the scoreboards, the dugouts, the on-deck circles, the foul lines, even on bathroom mirrors, napkin dispensers and trash cans. But its theme nights are the Wahoos’ biggest draw. Whether it’s Grilled Cheese Day, Star Wars Night, World Oceans Night, Junk Food Day or School of Rock Night, the fans come en masse to enjoy the fun and the spectacle. And they even get to watch a baseball game.

The stadium employs roughly 40 full-time people and, throughout the year, another 400-500 part-timers.

“We’re a lot of people’s first job, and we’re a lot of people’s last job,” Griffith said. “We employ people with disabilities. One of our guys in a wheelchair never had a job until he got here. One of the things he told me is that we changed his life because he feels normal here. He gets

← Special events at Blue Wahoos Stadium in Pensacola engage important components of the city. Clockwise from left: Home Run for Life, which celebrates patients who have made remarkable recoveries from injuries or illness at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital; a night that highlighted the close connection between Pensacola and the U.S. Navy; and a Teacher Appreciation event attended by Kazoo, the Wahoos mascot. Additional promotions have included Grilled Cheese Day, Star Wars Night, World Oceans Night, Junk Food Day and School of Rock Night.

to work; he gets to interact with fans. We have truly improved his quality of life by being able to have a job.”

For Griffith and all involved with the Wahoos, providing a superior customer experience is a top priority.

“Our big thing is training and customer service,” Griffith said. “We put so much effort into that — making sure that our customer service is topnotch. And not only do we say it, we measure it as well. We survey every single game before the seventh inning; it’s something every full-time manager has to do to make sure we’re on point.

“This past year, we had a net promoter score of 90.2. Our big goal is that when you come to a ballgame here, you might not know who won the game, but you will talk about the entertainment. That’s what we’re all about, that family entertainment. We do a lot of fun activities. We’re interactive to get fans involved in the game. The more you can get a family involved in the game, the more they feel part of the Wahoos.”

New promotions were on tap for the current season.

“On Doggone Tuesday, dogs will be allowed at the ballpark, and you also get a hotdog, chips and a drink. We’re also going to have a $25 soda and a $25 popcorn. The benefit is that you can use that cup and that popcorn bucket for the rest of the year and get free refills all year long. Somebody that’s loyal to us, season ticket holders that go to 50 games a year, we’re always looking how we can thank them and reward them.”

Some events at the ballpark are intended to cause fans to cheer for more than the Wahoos.

“We do a thing with Ascension Sacred Heart, which is the local hospital here,” Griffith said. “We call it Home Run for Life, where we celebrate, once a month, a miraculous thing that the hospital has done — a cancer patient who’s gone into remission or somebody who recovered from a car accident. They’re able to come here, and we bring the entire staff that worked with that patient, and we tell their story. They run around the bases and high-five all the players. It’s so impactful for that family and our fans. There’s not a dry eye in the ballpark when that happens.”

PHOTOS BY DANIEL VENN

/ PENSACOLA BLUE WAHOOS

The team also hosts youngsters with terminal cancer.

“We try to find those people that we can help, to give them a bright day and not think about whatever troubles they are having,” Griffith said. “We have pictures of families who were here for the last great memory they had of their child’s life. Because we’re here, because Quint and Rishy made this investment in the community, they’re able to have that time with their child.”

For Griffith, the score of the game is always secondary.

“We’re about making those family memories. So, the Wahoos could lose the game, 20-0, or we could win a close game. But you don’t even care.” ▪

Pivoting Toward Sports

↑ Pictured from left: Blue Wahoos owner and professional golfer Bubba Watson; Jonathan Griffith, president, Studer Entertainment and Retail; and Rishy and Quint Studer whose vision and advocacy brought about the Blue Wahoos and their waterfront stadium. The advent of the Wahoos, who are affiliated with Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins, has contributed significantly to the revitalization of Pensacola’s downtown area.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL VENN / PENSACOLA BLUE WAHOOS (LEFT) AND BY EDDE BURGESS PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF VISIT PANAMA CITY BEACH (RIGHT)

he tourism promotion agency

Visit Panama City Beach is investing in sports parks and encouraging Bay County communities to supply complementary services.

Residents, businesses and visitors to the area all benefit from the investment in sports tourism and the infrastructure needed to make the events and tournaments possible.

Sports tourism in Panama City Beach took off when the first swimmers in the 1999 Ironman Triathlon hit the water.

“Ironman was — and still is today — our Super Bowl of sports, because it will bring in athletes from almost all 50 states and 60 countries around the world,” said Richard Sanders, vice president of sports marketing and special events at Visit Panama City Beach (VPCB). “It was the Ironman Triathlon that really put us on the map, and we’ve just grown from there.”

Today, Panama City Beach boasts the longest continuously running Ironman in North America and the only full Ironman in Florida.

“When we started, this thing took off real quick,” Sanders said. “The first year saw 4,000 room nights, and the place

went crazy. In the second year, we did 10,000 room nights, and today we’re doing close to 150,000 room nights.”

Sanders has worked with VPCB for 25 years, first as a consultant and for the last 11 years as a full-time employee creating sports and special events for the community.

“As fast as sports tourism took off, we needed to plan for what the future should look like,” Sanders said.

←↑ Panama City Beach’s swim-bike-run Ironman Triathlon, a qualifying race for the Hawaii Triathlon, the sport’s Boston Marathon equivalent, attracts competitors from throughout the United States and dozens of countries around the world. Richard Sanders, who is easing himself out of his job as vice president of sports marketing and special events at Visit Panama City Beach (VPCB), says about the event, “It’s our Super Bowl.”

↑→ Publix Sports Park in Panama City Beach serves as a complement to Frank Brown Park, which lies a few miles to the west of the new facility. In combination, the two parks are capable of hosting regional tournaments with large fields of entrants. Publix Sports Park includes 13 configurable fields, nine synthetic turf fields and two championship fields. Frank Brown Park is home to baseball, t-ball and soccer fields; basketball, volleyball and tennis courts; walking and biking trails; and a state-of-the-art children’s playground that encourages sensory play. Soon to be added to the Publix Sports Park is an indoor facility.

In 2008, Sanders brought in a consultant who recommended an indoor sports facility and also identified a need for more athletic fields — with rectangular athletic fields as the priority.

This 10-year project opened in 2018 as the Publix Sports Park on Chip Seal Parkway. The park boasts 13 configurable fields, nine synthetic turf fields and two championship fields.

“My first week, in 2015, we started working on the Publix Complex,” said Chris O’Brien, the director of sports and special events at VPCB.

As of this writing, Sanders is transitioning to semiretirement, handing off the future of sports and special events to O’Brien.

“When we did our research and our consultation, we looked at the pros and cons of different areas and surrounding counties,” Sanders said. “We had some inventory that could meet certain types of events, but we didn’t have the championship quality — venues or inventory — that was needed in our mission of bringing in business through sports.”

Frank Brown Park was the first sports complex in Panama City Beach.

Frank Brown Park is home to baseball, t-ball and soccer fields; basketball, volleyball and tennis courts; walking and biking trails; and a state-of-the-art children’s

playground that encourages sensory play. The Panama City Beach Aquatic Center at the park includes a 50-meter Olympic pool; a separate 5,000-square-foot splash park and kid’s pool are available for family play.

“Frank Brown Park was built in 1978 by the city,” Sanders said. “They thought about the future of sports tourism and how that could fit into Panama City Beach and what we’re all about. There was a vision to take us forward.”

The population in the area has been growing over time. VPCB works in private-public partnerships to anticipate and meet the needs of the growing community.

“Just like when we did our report in 2008, they were doing the same thing back then,” Sanders explained. “They saw the need for the community to have additional facilities and made that investment to revamp Frank Brown Park. The way they capitalize on that investment and bring more heads in beds is with tournaments.”

Those tournaments, which attract teams from throughout the country, result in room nights and other types of spending of benefit to the community.

“Once the events do well, the coordinators book that same date the next year,” O’Brien said.

About 80% of events recur.

“We now have several years of established business at Frank Brown Park,” Sanders added. “The Publix Sports Park brings in new business that complements, but does not compete, with the successful business at Frank Brown Park.”

VPCB averages 40–45 events a year, while also hosting local leagues and practices by high school teams.

“Because the Publix Sports Park uses turf, we can keep it busy and not worry about wear and tear on grass,” O’Brien said. “We’ve made improvements recently including a netting system, sound system, photo areas and added streaming cameras so relatives can watch if they aren’t able to come in person.”

Now, VPCB is working with architects and sponsors to plan a flexible multipurpose indoor sports complex.

“We’re going to have over 100,000 square feet of indoor space,” O’Brien said. “It won’t just be like a gym — it’s going to have meeting and work spaces.”

The building also will be equipped with a hardened fiber optic connection for speed and security and will serve as an emergency shelter.

Esports is a new area of interest for VPCB. Electronic sports are soaring in popularity with video games like Dota 2, Call of Duty, League of Legends and more. Tournaments draw large crowds and award cash prizes totaling millions of dollars. Last year, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds boasted a prize pool of $4.5 million.

“This building will also be able to have concerts up to 2,500 people,” Sanders added.

Sanders believes in cooperating with surrounding cities, including Panama City, which is working to determine how best to replace the hurricane-ravaged Marina Civic Center. Sanders intends that the indoor facility on the beach complement the new civic center.

The new indoor complex is expected to open in December 2025 and will add to Panama City Beach’s already robust sports tourism industry.

According to O’Brien, direct and indirect spending related to sports tourism totaled $130 million last year.

“Even bigger cities don’t have what we have,” O’Brien said. “Our population grows from about 15,000 people to maybe 60,000 during the summer months. There’re 16,000 rooms in the hotels, and they fill up.”

“Hotels are being built because of the sports parks,” Sanders agreed. “When Pier Park was built, most activities moved to the west end. With the Publix Sports Park, we’re rejuvenating the east end again.”

Sanders’ years with VPCB are changing the narrative. No longer is it spring break; he says it is now spring season.

Florida communities that relied on spring break for tourism faced the challenges that come with youthful energy and first freedoms. Where other spring break tourism communities took 10 years to pivot toward other tourist activities, Panama City Beach recovered financially in only three years.

“Today, we can say that sports is in the DNA of what Panama City is all about,” Sanders said. ▪

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISIT PANAMA CITY BEACH / MICHAEL BOOINI (BASEBALL, SOFTBALL AND SOCCER)

Winning the Race

County intends to make Tallahassee the capital of cross country

story by EMMA WITMER

ad Visit Tallahassee entered a bid to host the World Cross Country Championships 15 years ago, it likely would have been laughed out of court. To begin with, Florida’s heat and humidity do not make for optimal running conditions. Further, the state capital was inexperienced at hosting cross country championships. And, in the history of the world championship, runners had competed in the United States just twice.

What Tallahassee did have was a vision. Representatives from the Gulf Winds Track Club, Florida State University and the Leon County Parks and Recreation Department looked over a closed-out landfill turned park and saw the potential for a dedicated cross country venue.

Their vision was true.

Apalachee Regional Park quickly gained a stellar reputation among cross country programs in the region,

↑↗ The 2021 NCAA Cross Country Championships were held at Apalachee Regional Park, which will soon play host to a world championship. The park is among few dedicated to the sport of cross country. Opposite page: Rendering depicts operations building and award stage at the park.

state, country and finally, the world. In 2026, Tallahassee will be the first U.S. city to host the World Cross Country Championships in 34 years.

As of this year, Apalachee Regional Park will have hosted the Florida High School Athletic Association state cross country championship 13 consecutive times. In 2021, the park welcomed the first NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships to be held in Florida in 70 years. Last fall, the NAIA and JGCAA cross country national championships both took place at Apalachee Regional Park.

“At this point, we’ve hosted every biddable national championship for cross country,” said Ryan Zornes, the senior sports and sales director for Visit Tallahassee, Leon County’s tourism promotion department.

Not coincidentally, the park has undergone numerous improvements in recent years.

Zornes’ work centers around bringing athletic organizations to the area for meets, tournaments and championships, all with the goal of driving up tourism and bed tax revenue.

“We work in sales, but we don’t necessarily have a product to sell,” Zornes said. “We’re selling the destination, so ultimately for us, it’s about having strong partnerships within the community.”

These partnerships include restaurants, hotels and attractions. In addition, Visit Tallahassee relies on access

to athletic facilities owned by the city, county and educational institutions.

From the outset, Zornes and his predecessor, director of parks and recreation Amanda Heidecker, planned to take Apalachee Regional Park to the national stage. Preparing for that eventuality began shortly after the park opened in 2009 with the widening of the cross country trail to meet NCAA requirements.

“In the 2010s, we saw some really big enhancements with some help with the parking cell, the solid waste facility and then some permanent fencing went up around the course that really helps us with crowd control,” Zornes said. “A really big thing that happened during that time was that we had fiber optic run throughout the course so that we could put these events on television or stream them or, when we have our mobile jumbotron out, people can watch them live on the scoreboard.”

The most recent phase of improvements was completed in 2021 with the construction of a multiuse operations center, permanent finish line and awards stage.

The improvements were expensive — the last phase alone cost the county roughly $3 million — but the return on investment in the form of visitation and economic impact has more than justified them.

“When we look back at what we were able to do in 2022 just off of our cross country meets, we had over $13 million in direct spending,” Zornes said. “This is money that is coming from outside of this community, and that generates over $20 million in economic impact.”

It is impossible to predict the dollars that the 2026 World Cross Country Championships will bring to the region, but for Zornes, the exposure will be priceless.

“There are going to be a ton of economic drivers that come with that kind of event, but ultimately, it’s really trying to solidify Tallahassee on the map as the capital of cross country,” Zornes said. “That’s something that we have taken as our mantra, and we want the world to know, not just the country, about how much we love cross country here.” ▪

When we look back at what we were able to do in 2022 just off of our cross country meets, we had over $13 million in direct spending . This is money that is coming from outside of this community, and that generates over $20 million in economic impact.”

— RYAN ZORNES, THE SENIOR SPORTS AND SALES DIRECTOR FOR VISIT TALLAHASSEE, LEON COUNTY’S TOURISM PROMOTION DEPARTMENT

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LEON COUNTY DIVISION OF TOURISM

The Importance of Disaster Preparedness

Bit-Wizards helps companies minimize impacts of the unexpected

For many companies, downtime of just a couple of hours (due to internet outages or power losses, etc.) will cost thousands, or even millions of dollars and cause numerous problems.

Moreover, data on business recovery after natural disasters, cybersecurity incidences and intentional misconduct from employees are bleak. Consider these statistics:

• Nearly 25% of businesses never reopen after a disaster. – The Federal Emergency Management Agency

• 60% of small businesses that suffer a cyberattack or data loss go out of business

within six months, and 70% within one year.

– The US National Cyber Security Alliance

• 63% of all employees admitted to taking data from their previous employer.

– World Economic Forum

• There is a 37% likelihood of an organization losing IP when an employee leaves. – Forbes

• Human Error causes 88% of Data Breaches. – Stanford Research

These statistics are alarming, but how can you protect your business? Fortunately, a little preparation and planning with a trusted advisor can go a long way to mitigating potential disasters.

As a managed IT services provider, Bit-Wizards helps businesses implement plans sufficient to address minor disruptions or major disasters.

“Anything that denies you the ability to continue to operate and make revenue is a potential disaster,” said Louis Erickson, chief operations officer of Bit-Wizards.

A hurricane may provide a small window of preparation time, but not enough to create a complete disaster plan for your company. You cannot predict an outage caused by construction or an accident.

People cause the most disruptions and outages — sometimes accidentally and

sometimes maliciously. For example, an employee can inadvertently give a hacker access to your systems by opening the wrong email, or a disgruntled colleague intentionally wipes data from your servers or accesses your client’s private information.

Every company should have a preparedness plan with communication protocols and a list of responsibilities that spell out how to contact staff members and clients during a disaster. Utilizing cloud-based services and applications such as Outlook and Teams ensures you can continue communicating regardless of location.

Once you reestablish communications, you can resume business operations from a temporary location with your

operations technology already migrated to the cloud.

In anticipation of inevitable internet connection interruptions, Bit-Wizards advises businesses to have two fiber Internet Service Providers (ISP) so that when one goes down, the other will keep you functioning online.

Some disasters will require employees to take equipment to new locations.

In that event, all tech hardware should have current backups in the cloud. Requiring employees to carry equipment to a new place is a process known as decentralization, meaning that no single location can be a point of failure for ongoing operations.

While no company is 100% secure, there are measures you can take to

minimize the risk associated with security breaches. Virus protection, firewalls, alert monitoring, advanced threat protection, cloud-based restoration and employee training are all critical components in building rock-solid business continuity.

Samuel Blowes, director of IT with Bit-Wizards, suggests that your company — and any company you do business with — have service level agreements detailing backup procedures, anticipated downtime and remediation processes.

“When it comes to continuity of business and whether or not your business is going to survive in the long haul, you should never leave things to chance,” said Vincent Mayfield, CEO of Bit-Wizards. “There’s not much we can do after the fact if you don’t have backups and a plan. We don’t plan for the worst, but we do plan for success if the worst were to happen.”

Second Northwest Florida Economic Summit Announced

In Northwest Florida, the Defense Leadership Forum (DLF) is known for organizing the Air Force Contracting Summit, which has been a high-profile event for the past 10 years. DLF, a public service organization, is also active throughout the United States, holding summits nationwide throughout 2023.

The Southwest Defense Contracting Summit was held in Tucson, Arizona, on April 24–25. The fourth annual summit provided the latest information on military contracting opportunities throughout the Southwest U.S., from Texas to California, and focused on contracting with military installations. The summit featured presentations from military officials representing U.S. Army Garrison Fort Huachuca in Arizona, U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hunter Liggett in California, China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

Held at the Native American-owned Casino Del Sol, the summit featured an important session on teaming opportunities with Tribal/Native American 8(a) corporations. Three general sessions focused on subcontracting

Successful inaugural summit prompts plans for a renewal of the event

opportunities with prime defense contractors Raytheon, SAIC, CGI Federal, and Jones Lang LaSalle.

The Pentagon sent senior officials to discuss acquisitions and contracting, military-community partnerships and small business contracting priorities and opportunities.

The ninth annual Navy Contracting Summit, held in Virginia Beach on June 8-9, featured participation by 10 Navy commands, bases and offices; presentations by the Marine Corps

Installations Command, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and GSA; and the latest on massive new shipbuilding subcontracts at the nation’s top military shipyards.

The Pacific Defense Contracting Summit is scheduled for Oct. 17–19 in Honolulu, Hawaii. It has become increasingly important because top congressional and Department of Defense Leaders consider the IndoPacific to be our most important long-term military theater. Billions of new dollars are being allocated

for new contracts because of the rapidly escalating threat of Chinese military aggression, along with an unstable North Korea.

To round out the year, the Northwest Florida Economic Summit will be held Nov. 28–29 in Panama City. It will focus on ways to broaden Northwest Florida’s defense and infrastructure projects. Following the theme of the other summits, it will address how small and mid-sized companies can be awarded contracts in Northwest Florida.

» WANT TO GO? Find out about more Defense Leadership Forum initiatives, as well as all upcoming summit and networking events, by visiting usdlf.org. For details on the 2023 Northwest Florida Economic Summit, visit NorthwestFloridaLeadershipForum.org.

Pacific Defense Contracting Summit

Navy Contracting Summit

Southwest Defense Contracting Summit

Northwest Florida Military Report

BY WILLIAM LOIRY

More than 700 military and government officials, business associations and defense contractors participated in the 10th annual Air Force Contracting Summit on Feb. 7– 8, 2023, at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa.

Almost 30 military and industry speakers filled the two-day program, organized by the Defense Leadership Forum, a public service organization. U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn (FL-2) provided the Summit Keynote Address.

Air Force presentations were provided by a host of installations, directorates and commands. Additional government presentations were provided by NASA SEWP and NITAAC.

Industry presentations were provided by AT&T Defense & National Security; Bank of America; Capitol Integration; Horsley Construction Group; Lockheed Martin; Mohawk Valley Materials; National Energy

U.S.A.; Raytheon Intelligence & Space; Schneider Electric; and Unanet.

Congressman Dunn, who serves on the House China Select Committee, said that with rising tensions and risks, especially from China, the nation needs private-sector contractors and experts working in concert with uniformed military.

“My experience in Congress has taught me that if you can get the state and local partners, such as the people at this summit, the tools to understand and strengthen supply chains in their regions — and then get out of their way — they become better partners for providing for our national security,” Dunn said.

Of special interest to the audience was a presentation on the multi-billion dollar reconstruction program for Tyndall AFB provided by Col. Patrick Combs, Deputy District Commander, Mobile District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Lt. Col. (USAF Ret), Steve Loken, deputy base civil engineer at Hurlburt Field, provided an update on the latest Air Force energy resilience contracts. Wayland Patterson, chief of the Air Force Contract Augmentation Program (AFCAP), provided insight into Air Force contingency contracting. And Claire Reynolds, representing the U.S. Army Partnership Program in the Pentagon, provided details on the latest military base/ community partnerships.

U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn (FL-2) with Summit Chairman William Loiry.

Hotel Effie Offers a Golden Group Rate in 2023

Agreat way to boost morale at your business is to treat your employees to a group meeting that feels like paradise. In celebrating Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort’s 50th anniversary, the property is including Hotel Effie in specialized group rates that extend to the end of 2023.

Any group that books 10 or more rooms for a minimum of two nights is eligible for room rates of up to 50 percent off. The golden anniversary deal also includes 20 percent off audio/visual services, a 15 percent discount on team building activities, a complimentary one-hour beer and wine reception or a beach bonfire with a food and beverage minimum of $10,000.

Hotel Effie, Sandestin’s new 250-room luxury hotel, has over 20,000 square feet of dedicated meeting space, with even more room available at the Baytowne Conference Center adjacent to the hotel.

There are three on-site restaurants all curated by two-time James Beard award-winning chef, Hugh Acheson. Ovide, the upscale dining option, just launched a new seasonal menu that goes back to Chef Acheson favorites that catapulted him to celebrity chef status. Matthew Krueger, Ovide’s Executive Chef, executes these beautiful offerings and can customize experiences to meet your group’s needs.

For evening gatherings, head to the rooftop to sip cocktails at Ara and experience the Emerald Coast’s only hotel rooftop pool and lounge. Pamper your employees at the luxurious Spa Lilliana with its full array of spa services.

Hotel Effie’s sales team partners with Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort®, which provides full resort and property access. For team building, play golf at one of four golf courses; organize tennis matches; engage in water sports at the private marina; or schedule an outing to enjoy dining and shopping at Baytowne Wharf.

On-site transportation operates throughout the entire Sandestin® property and carries guests to the Sandestin beach as well as Hotel Effie’s reserved beach area.

Laurie Frank, the executive director of resort sales, facilitates group sales for Hotel Effie and Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort® and finds that 40 percent of the groups each year are legacy groups that have visited the property yearly for the past 30 years.

The addition of Hotel Effie in 2021 has expanded the offerings available at Sandestin®, providing new lodging and venues to consider for group meetings.

“The culture of our resorts accounts for that 40 percent figure,” Frank said. “When a company approaches group sales for a proposal, we see this as a partnership with the goal to provide a successful meeting complete with exceptional service, Southern hospitality and an experience they will want to repeat again and again.”

To receive the Golden Anniversary group special rate, call (855) 660-0934 by June 30, 2023.

Landscapes and Foundations

SDC contributes to beautifying Northwest Florida

In 2009 amid what is now known as the Great Recession, Blanchard Benson’s thoughts were instead focused on founding a company that would grow. From this idea, Southern Design Landscaping (SDL) planted roots in North Georgia and steadily matured to become Southern Design Companies (SDC), an industry leader in turnkey landscaping, concrete foundations and helical piers. In its early years, the company primarily worked with regional and national homebuilders. The business quickly earned a reputation for Integrity, Quality and Service (IQS). As the housing market gradually recovered, positive talk about SDL’s exceptional service spread throughout the industry generating steady local growth. In 2014, to fulfill an increasing demand for plant material, the company became vertically integrated when Southern Design Nursery was founded. In 2016, Southern Design Concrete, headed up by Karla Burel, was started and added turnkey concrete foundations and flatwork to the brand. Deven Bradford joined the SDC team in early 2018 and in 2019, with innovation being top of mind, established Southern Design Piers to

Deven Bradford, CEO, Blanchard Benson, SDL Founder and President, Karla Burel, SDC Founder and President, and Andrew Grogan, Florida Gulf Coast Division Manager

facilitate operational efficiencies for customers experiencing soil compaction issues. Today, service offerings under the Southern Design Companies umbrella provide a unique client experience.

With a fast-growing company and a big vision for the future, SDC made the decision in 2021 to partner with private equity. In 2022, the portfolio was further strengthened through the acquisition of Metro Contracting, extending services to commercial and multifamily general contractors. Soon the company expanded from Georgia into the Florida Panhandle where Area Manager Andrew Grogan shares, “I feel very fortunate having the opportunity to work with such a respected business and look forward to being part of growing the Florida market.”

Benson, Burel, Bradford and Grogan are united in their dedication to the guiding principles which define the SDC brand. The acronym “IQS” represents the organization’s value system of Integrity, Quality and Service, a culture which is carefully preserved and has largely contributed to SDC’s exponential growth. Production is booming along Florida’s Gulf Coast as the company is partnering with big name players including Kolter Homes, D.R. Horton, Samuel Taylor Homes, and Minto Communities in the Latitude Margaritaville Watersound development.

“Our plan is to establish a business presence in the Gulf Coast by building on the reputation and value system of the company,” Burel said. “As area residents, we wish to contribute to the growth

and beauty of our community while also filling a service void in the local construction industry.”

SDC sets itself apart through strong relationships with major industry suppliers and by providing shortened lead times compared to the competition. “As the business has grown, buying power has played a big role in scalability, allowing us to better meet the needs of our customers. Additionally, the inhouse plant nursery, self-performance of helical piers and sizeable workforce all help to shorten cycle times. Together these factors deliver enhanced value to customers,” Bradford states.

The SDC team is dependable, efficient, safety-focused and customer centric, remaining dedicated to the guiding principles which have always defined the SDC brand.

“Our hands-on leadership team is the perfect balance of training and experience combined with progressive

ideas. Processes are continually improved, enabling rapid growth of the organization,” Benson said. “We have built an exceptional team of professionals who care about the company and our customers. We’re excited about bringing SDC’s expertise to the Gulf Coast area.”

TRAVEL FLORIDA EVERY DAY,

NAMASTE

Arriving sooner is always good, but a bigger seat up front is nice too. Fly in total comfort daily, direct from PNS to Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.

It is easier to tap into compassion than fuel passion. So it is that Jennifer Steele’s job as a promoter and fundraiser for the arts presents challenges not faced by people who work to benefit hungry children, abused women, neglected animals or lonely seniors.

“Some causes you don’t have to explain,” said Steele, the executive director since 2008 of the Walton County Cultural Arts Alliance (CAA). “But a lot of people don’t understand that the arts are a part of their lives every single day. They may view them as a nonessential luxury, but they are critical to education, even social justice.

“Bottom line, any society that is healthy has a thriving arts community.”

Often, Steele encounters people or businesses for the first time when asking for sponsorships. When things go well, the ask may lead to a dialogue.

The most gratifying part of her job, Steele said, is growing relationships to the point where she can see that “people really get it, and they understand that the arts are capable of changing lives and bettering communities.”

After devoting the bulk of her career to educating people about the importance of the arts, Steele is satisfied that, in Walton County, “We are beginning to turn the corner, and we are seeing that in growing business investment and interest in the arts.”

She points to the Howard Group, the developer of premier shopping and dining destinations including Grand Boulevard at Sandestin, as a business that has been “getting it” for a long time, and she is pleased to see other businesses following its lead.

“Very early in my career, they let me know that they appreciated the importance of bringing arts and culture into a community to make it successful,” Steele said of the Howard Group.

Very early in my career, they let me know that they appreciated the importance of bringing arts and culture into a community to make it successful.”

— JENNIFER STEELE

The arts in Walton County and elsewhere in Northwest Florida are big business and getting bigger.

A study conducted in 2019 found that the local economic impact that year of just the CAA’s signature event, the 30A Songwriters Festival, was $7 million. Four years later and adding in the impact of the CAA’s other events, Steele believes the figure is probably $12 million.

A more precise calculation is in the works. The CAA is among 400 organizations participating in a nationwide arts and economic impact study that is being coordinated by a nonprofit organization, Americans for the Arts. As of April, the CAA had collected more than 800 intercept surveys from people attending its events and other cultural events in the county. At this writing, the CAA is getting other Walton County arts organizations to complete their own surveys.

The results of the study are expected to be available in November, and Steele is hopeful that her own $12 million estimate proves conservative.

Steele’s relationship with Walton County dates to her childhood when her family from outside Atlanta vacationed in Grayton Beach. Always, Walton County was a place that she wanted to get back to.

She put herself through college as a single mother, earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in theater and arts management from Valdosta State University in Georgia.

“I never wanted to be an actor,” Steele said. “I knew that I wasn’t going to go to New York or Los Angeles and even to try to act. Instead, I quickly became involved in the box office and business management side of our theater.”

Steele found the theater to be a collegial nurturing environment, exactly what she needed to stay inspired and encouraged and begin to find her tribe. She was discovering on a personal level the transformative power of art.

She completed an internship at the Lowndes County Art Commission, but still she couldn’t articulate what she wanted to do until a Valdosta State professor told her, “You want to be a producer.”

Steele liked the sounds of that.

Following graduation, she moved to Atlanta to be close to her family and worked for a year as a special events coordinator and development assistant at the Center for Puppetry Arts, whose work she found to be fascinating.

Still, Walton County beckoned. She just needed a reason in addition to the area’s appeal to make the move.

↑ The 30A Songwriters Festival, held each January, is the biggest fundraiser each year for the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County. The scale of the event is such that it unites South Walton County, throughout which listening rooms are established for the event. Headliners for 2023 included Lyle Lovett, above, who performed songs including If I Had a Boat

↖ Jennifer Steele, executive director of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, at the Foster Gallery in Miramar Beach. Founded in 2016, the gallery is an artist collective, led by the CAA, that features at least a dozen artists on a seasonally rotating basis, along with special exhibits and invitationals throughout the year. It is named for the late Susan Foster, who founded the CAA.

PHOTO BY MIKE FENDER (STEELE) AND MICHAEL BOOINI (30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL)

Craig Hoover, who harbored a desire to start a theater in Seaside, provided that. He and Steele would found the Seaside Repertory Theatre with Hoover as the artistic director and she as the managing director.

Steele was with the theater for seven years before landing a job at the CAA as an events producer. Six months later, she was promoted to executive director of what was then a small organization that relied heavily on volunteers. She would serve the CAA as a catalyst who enlarged the alliance’s vision.

“There were some growing pains for sure,” Steele said. “The board allowed me to make some necessary changes, and they trusted me to increase the budget and take some risks so that we could grow the organization. They ultimately paid off.”

A year after she was made executive director, Steele launched the 30A Songwriters Festival with the Indigo Girls as the headline act. It went well, and Steele was satisfied that it could be a “nice little fundraiser for the CAA and a good community builder.” She had no idea as to the scale and scope the festival would achieve as an event that annually attracts 6,500 people.

Indeed, it has become a takeover weekend — in the best of ways. Planning for the festival is continuous. In April, Russell Carter, an entertainment lawyer who handles artist relations for the festival, was working to finalize contracts with the performers who will headline the 2024 event.

At present, the CAA has seven fulltime and two part-time employees whom Steele describes as caring, highly competent, engaged and hardworking.

In addition to the Songwriters Festival, the team promotes and produces events including ArstQuest, which will turn 35 in 2024; the Flutterby Festival, an homage to monarchs; and varied programming throughout its Art Month each May. The CAA administers grant programs for artists and teachers;

conducts a prison art program; extends art instruction to students and adults; and curates public art, most of which is accessible to all. A few pieces each year are deployed at the Underwater Museum of Art and reserved for scuba divers.

Steele will say that Walton County has gained a reputation regionally as a home for the arts but isn’t about to rest.

“There is a lot of room to grow,” she said. “People who are artists are prone to visit our area because of its natural beauty and welcoming vibe. (Almost like regular people.) We embrace artists and the arts.”

Providing ways for art to unite Walton County’s Gulf-front communities is difficult, however.

“Seaside, Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach, they are all lovely communities, but their main purpose is to attract people and create programming that keeps them there,” Steele said while conceding the appeal of a park-andstay vacation. “The CAA’s vision and mission are much bigger than that. Songwriters may be the only event that brings all of those communities together. In addition to it, I feel like we need a community space for everyone

— for the people who live here, for the people who work here, for students.”

Strategically, the CAA has established priorities including targeting new residents as a source of support and becoming more active and visible in Walton County north of Choctawhatchee Bay.

As a consumer and lover of art, Steele’s tastes are far from narrow.

“I feel like I am so sentimental and emotional about art that I am not a very good art critic,” she said. “I either feel something or I don’t.”

That criterion admits art of many sorts, but 20th-century American realist painter Edward Hopper is a favorite. It pains Steele that she was unable to get to the “Edward Hopper’s New York” exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

“People ask me why Hopper is my favorite artist, and I don’t even know how to describe it,” Steele said. “Art is just so intuitive.”

There are folks who cannot pass by a magazine rack without buying something. Steele never leaves an art festival empty-handed.

“I buy more art than I can place in my home because I am so drawn to it.” ▪

↑ The Flutterby Festival, produced by the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, celebrates the migration of the monarch butterfly through the region with children's art activities, live music, theater and dance performances, student art exhibits and a butterfly parade. Monarch butterfly populations have plummeted in recent years due in part to the widespread use of herbicides that kill milkweed plants, an important part of the insect’s life cycle.

Conditioning Development

Uriah Matthews anticipates Walton County’s future

story by STEVE BORNHOFT

Uriah Matthews went to work as Walton County’s economic development director in January and, in the months since, has worked to familiarize himself with its players, priorities and a certain polarity.

In the process, he has gained clarity about what his role can and should be.

“We need to bring the community together and move toward creating a plan that will provide for the conditions that will attract businesses and provide for prosperity,” Matthews said in the course of an interview conducted over coffee at the Perla Baking Company in downtown DeFuniak Springs.

“We cannot just choose to be prosperous,” he added, “but we can bring about the conditions that invite success.”

Matthews was 4 when his parents moved from Chautauqua, New York, to Walton County, whose county seat has a long history as a host of Chautauqua events. He had no desire to depart the county upon graduating high school, and rather than going off to college, he went to work at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa, first as a bellman and ultimately in a management job called “journey ambassador.”

“My role was to spread the ‘light and warmth of hospitality,’” Matthews said. “That phrase comes from a speech Conrad Hilton once made about the role of the hospitality man.”

Matthews sees parallels between his work at the Hilton and his current role.

“In interviewing for this job, I got the sense that board members wanted a cheerleader, and I have already been a cheerleader,” he said. “I would welcome someone at their car, wave them goodbye and in between help them make the most of their vacation.”

At the Hilton, Matthews the hospitality man also established the resort on social media platforms and contributed to a marketing and public relations plan written in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout.

He moved on to IT positions with AppRiver in Gulf Breeze and with companies in California and Texas. He met his wife Laura, who is a software engineer, along the way before boomeranging all the way back to Walton. He was self-employed as an operations and technology consultant when he became aware of the Walton County Economic Development Alliance’s search for an executive director. While working for a California software company, Zumasys, he held the title of solutions consultant.

More parallels.

“In Walton County, we have no problems,” Matthews said, “only challenges requiring solutions. At the Economic Development Alliance, we’re in the solutions business.”

Matthews said people often perceive Walton County to be larger than it is.

“Our year-round population (83,304, U.S. Census Bureau estimate, July 2022 estimate) is what Okaloosa County’s population was prior to 1970,” he explained. “We have a lot of visitors here, but they’re feathers on the bird. Because we think we’re big, we feel like we shouldn’t have the kind of issues that result from being small. Our population is our biggest obstacle to growth. We need more people. We gotta put more body on the bird.”

Not that Matthews doesn’t concede the inevitability of growth. He does. He wants to prepare county residents for what’s next while creating an atmosphere well suited to attractive companies.

“We have to be what people are looking for,” Matthews said.

Matthews would never say so, but it is all rather like that hopeful suitor who approaches a hottie at the bar. If it ain’t right, it ain’t gonna happen.

As to the county’s current residents, Matthews said, “We need to think about how we help people now and also as we move forward on our growth track. It won’t take us 50 years to get from our current population to Okaloosa’s current population (an estimated 221,000). We need to think about how we become a community that embraces the reality that we are going to grow.”

Matthews sees Walton County as a place that — like it or not — is about to exit a protracted adolescence.

“As a person, wanting to stay young doesn’t work; you will age,” Matthews said. “For the county, the equivalent to age is population benchmarks. We need to have a really good grasp on who we are today, who we have been in the past and how we keep that flame and the spirit of community alive.

photography by MIKE FENDER

↖ Uriah Matthews, the executive director of Walton County Economic Development Alliance, believes that Walton will best succeed in the near term by doing what it does especially well: tourism and construction. He was photographed in DeFuniak Springs, where his office is located.

But we also have to understand that tomorrow we’re going to be at 90,000 people. And the tomorrow after that, we will be at 100,000. If we’re 15 today, we need to figure out how to become 16.”

Growing up in Walton County, Matthews had no awareness of a North vs. South dynamic. He does now.

“I can see the polarization, and there is a lack of appreciation for how different parts of the county complement and support each other,” Matthews said.

Matthews grew emotional as he likened the county to a shop owner in colonial times. The blacksmith, he said, had his business located on the road, a residence located behind the business and a garden located behind the residence.

In Matthews’ mind, Walton County sets up in much the same way with tourism along the beach, a band of residential development and then farms.

“The North and the South need each other,” he said. “If you get on Highway 331 in the morning, you’ll see lines of cars headed south from DeFuniak Springs and Freeport to go to work. Our communities are intertwined. There is a symbiotic relationship.”

Matthews recalled a conversation about Walton County agricultural interests that developed at a workshop meeting. Development activity is resulting in higher land values in North Walton. The farmer who wants to remain a farmer may be unable to expand his operation as land becomes less affordable. His neighbors are selling land to developers.

What can Walton County do to help that farmer?

“The truth is it may not matter,” Matthews said. “Okaloosa County is developing the 10,500-acre Shoal River gigasite. They have created conditions designed to attract massive employers. We don’t get to govern Okaloosa. To the extent that Okaloosa

succeeds with its gigasite, it will apply its own development pressure on North Walton County. Even at two jobs per acre, that’s more than 20,000 jobs, and a lot of those employees will live in North Walton. We have low taxes; people will want to live here. And developers will knock harder and more often on the doors of landowners.”

O ver the next 50 years, Matthews expects that pressure to create new municipalities in Walton County will grow.

“People will want hyper-local governance,” he said. “Today, we have a small number of cities relative to our geographic size. When a single

county commission tries to manage a large unincorporated area, challenges occur. I think the north-south conflict arises in Walton County because areas that should be incorporated are not. Areas that have very different sets of needs are operating under the same governance structure. One portion of the county may consistently be on the short end of a 3-2 or 4-1 vote. How do you solve that? You incorporate a municipality that addresses community issues. The point of a city is to manage the unique challenges of the area within its limits.”

For Matthews, intentionality is important where the diversification of

I can see the polarization, and there is a lack of appreciation for how different parts of the county complement and support each other.”

— URIAH MATTHEWS

local economies is concerned. He sees the gigasite and the St. Joe Companyauthored West Bay Sector Plan in Bay County (later expanded to include some acres in Walton County and renamed the Bay-Walton Sector Plan) as two examples of intentionality related to growth.

“ How are we going to devise our plan?” Matthews wondered aloud. “One of the biggest responsibilities of the Economic Development Alliance will be to sit down with the interested parties — government, business and residents — and figure out how we bring about our own sector plan or other actions related to diversification.”

Matthews recommends that for the near term, Walton County do more of what it currently does best — construction and tourism.

“Construction, both residential and commercial, is going to do very well for quite some time,” he said. “My phone is ringing. We have people calling every day looking for thousands of square feet of commercial space. We’re gonna need a lot of people building stuff. While maximizing our established activities, we can be making plans to go after new types of employers.”

That pursuit, Matthews said, returning to his central point, must include creating optimal conditions for growth.

“A business is not in the business of helping a county figure out how to get them there,” he said. “A search committee or site selector wants EDAs to respond to their inquiries by saying, ‘Here’s my baseball card. Check out our stats.’ And ideally that search committee will say, ‘This place looks great. They’ve got the ordinances in place that we’re looking for. They’ve got shovel-ready sites. They have landowners who want to participate. They’ve got a great on-base percentage.’” ▪

81,442

5/08/2023

JOBS ADDED

1,081 CHILDREN IN POVERTY

21.7%

3RD GRADERS READING AT GRADE LEVEL 60% HOUSING PERMITS ISSUED

2,139

SALES TAX REVENUE $39.22 Million POVERTY RATE 12.8% LAND IN CONSERVATION 39%

Eyeing a Lasting Vision

Destin mayor wants city to solve problems, declare values

story by HANNAH BURKE

Bobby Wagner has always believed in the law of attraction.

Concentrate on and manifest the good, he said, and great things will come.

Wagner, 28, is the youngest mayor in the history of Destin. A few months into his first term, he said he is focusing his energy on creating a strong, sustainable future.

For Wagner, everything starts with a vision. He plans to meet with the members of the Destin City Council to tweak the town’s vision statement which, as it stands, reads: “Destin is a family-oriented beach and fishing community where people want to live, work and play and where visitors are welcomed to respectfully enjoy our community and its resources.”

“What does that really mean?” asked Wagner. “We have a ‘vision session’ every year, and to me, it’s whiplash. Saying we’re going to change our bedrock every year means we don’t have one.”

Wagner previously served as a city councilman and realized a city is only as good as the projects it approves. When campaigning for mayor, he ran on the platform “Revive, Reclaim, Sustain,” emphasizing an urgent need for smart development and the preservation of the environment.

“For me, I want Destin to be the most connected city in the state of Florida, whether that’s a connection to our natural resources, a connection through alternative modes of transportation or connecting with each other through futuristic

↘ Destin Mayor Bobby Wagner has made development of a new town center his first order of business. Located on Main Street, the city’s new hub will provide a recreational and retail space with its own shuttle system. Wagner envisions rooftop bars, green space, shops and art. He was photographed on the balcony at Tailfins Restaurant.

technologies,” Wagner said. “Our city staff is amazing. We have good, intentional people who are wizards at what they do. But, without that vision and ambition to grow beyond what we’re used to, we’re going to be voting on things that are only above average.”

Wagner hopes to be an inspirational visionary.

“As mayor, I lose the power of voting, but I gain the power of inspiring,” he said. “I want to be this communicative burst of energy and optimism because we have no reason not to be. Where we put our intention and energy is what grows.”

Politics were never in the cards for Wagner, or so he thought. Born in upstate New York, Wagner moved with his family to Destin when he was in sixth grade. A shy, introverted kid, Wagner said he never really came out of his shell until he picked up the trumpet.

“I got last chair in band in seventh grade, then first chair in eighth grade,” he said. “I think that was the first time I really put my mind to something and became motivated to work hard.”

While attending Fort Walton Beach High School, Wagner discovered another passion when he enrolled in a video production course. He later attended Troy University with the goal of obtaining a degree in music education and becoming a band director. But Wagner ultimately pursued videography when an internship led to a job as a video producer, prompting him to suspend his education.

In 2014, he launched Land Air Sea Productions, an agency dedicated to telling the stories of local small businesses and nonprofits. But Wagner readily admits he was a poor business owner.

“I was more interested in being creative than trying to grow my company,” he said. “I wanted to do things my way and do them for the people I wanted to do them for, and I wanted to be successful enough to have time to do other things.”

Wagner began devoting his spare time to volunteering for Trees on the Coast. He cleaned beaches, planted trees and provided environmental education. Upon becoming executive director, he became interested in group collaboration and city management.

“I would have to pitch projects to Parks and Rec and get their approval and, if I did, those projects would go to the city council,” Wagner said. “I wound up sitting in on several meetings, took it all in and realized this wasn’t some big, scary government; it was just local people making local choices to effect change. This is where you can make a real impact.”

Wagner said he’s a “big manifester and a little woo-woo.” Though he lost his initial run at city council in 2021, he still believed he would make it. When he pulled a “Judgment” card at a Tarot reading in Destin, his reader told him a woman would lose a court case and the result would work in his favor.

“A few months later, a councilwoman got in trouble with the Sunshine Law and was suspended with a year left in her term,” Wagner said. “Our charter says you can appoint someone in this case, and the next thing I know, I’m in with a 4-2 vote.”

Wagner refers to his time as a councilman as his “redshirt freshman” year. He went to training throughout the region and state, hopped on several committees and absorbed all he could about finance, code and public works.

“When I want to learn about something, whether it’s how to lay bricks or about local government, I go all in,” he said. “It’s almost this ADD-level of obsession until I get it.”

Wagner was met with some skepticism when he announced his mayoral candidacy, but he considers his age to be an advantage.

“Maybe I’m too optimistic, or I haven’t been beaten down yet by the system,” he laughed, “but I see an opportunity to impact not just the locals who live here, but the 5 million people who come through here each year. I want to put us on a course to solve problems and make a statement of what the city wants and what our values are.”

Wagner’s first order of business is creating a new town center. Located on Main Street, the city’s new hub is slated to provide a multiuse recreational and retail space with its own shuttle system. Wagner visualizes a place that locals will want to visit two to three times a week. He sees rooftop bars, green space, shops and art.

photography by MIKE FENDER

“We’re no longer a fishing village, but maybe this could be the new fishing village,” Wagner said. “I want a harbor feel with a modern vibe, something that aesthetically honors our heritage and solves problems, like workforce housing and childcare services.”

Wagner’s dream may be a ways away from realization, but he said the city council approved “starting the vision of a new town center” in 2022. Meanwhile, Wagner is prioritizing buying back the beach, workshopping new mobility plans and “taking a holistic approach to the projects we need to become sustainable,” he said.

“When I was campaigning, residents said they felt they were unheard, that industry and hospitality had destroyed this area and are running wild without any sort of plan,” Wagner said. “So, instead of attracting the fight we’ve always had, let’s attract something we want.

I’m here for projects over politics, and I want to make sure we do things the right way, not the cheap way.

“This year, I’m going to help us lay out our concept step by step, and next year will be the implementation,” he said. “I’m used to holding the shovel, and I’m here to get things done. I’m willing to be vulnerable, tell people what I don’t know and be in workshop mode along the way.” ▪

OKALOOSA COUNTY

16.1%

$56.23 Million POVERTY

11.0%

Adding Jobs, Growing Income

Okaloosa County’s TeCMEN program bolsters local economy

story by EMMA WITMER

David Goetsch proudly displayed a United States map dotted with push-pins in his 1980s Northwest Florida State College office. As chairman of the industrial division, he oversaw all of the technical training programs at what was then a junior college. Each tack represented a graduate who had found work in his field. Pins poked out of 38 states, but few could be found in Florida. Even fewer of the highly skilled professionals remained in Okaloosa County.

“It became apparent to me early on that we offered good opportunities to our students, but the community was experiencing a brain drain,” Goetsch said. “I realized, if you’re going to be in the business of preparing people for jobs, you better get in the business of creating jobs.”

At that time, Gov. Jeb Bush was pushing the Blue Chip Community Program, a statewide effort to attract industry. Due to his interest and involvement

with economic development, Goetsch was tasked with getting the county certified and on track.

The Blue Chip program emphasized the importance of county economic development councils, and with no such organization present in Okaloosa County, Goetsch joined forces with college president Bob Richburg and local business leaders to form the Okaloosa Economic Development Council, now known as One Okaloosa. Okaloosa County received its certification, but Goetsch was not satisfied that the work was done.

“This was the problem,” he said. “ In economic development, your first priority is taking care of your existing businesses, helping your existing industries grow, expand and stay so that you don’t lose them,” Goetsch said. “Second is recruiting. Our EDC only had a recruiting side.”

The question of how best to support existing industry led Goetsch to thoughts of 1940s Italy. Following the devastation of World War II, Italy established temporary “collaborative industrial networks” that allowed industries to share equipment, personnel and facilities during the reconstruction era. While the factories and industrial parks of Okaloosa County were not forced to collaborate due to bombardment and chaos, perhaps they could be persuaded to collaborate to win bigger contracts and keep business partnerships local.

Armed with a $250,000 federal economic development grant, Goetsch flew in the top two experts from Italy, called local business leaders and rented out the sixth floor of the Ramada Inn to pitch a brand new concept. He called it TeCMEN.

“It went over like a lead balloon,” Goetsch said. “By the time they finished talking, I think about half the audience had left. Then, about a year later, President George H. Bush announced a 25%, across-the-board cut in all defense spending. Well, that got the attention of our local businesses.”

TeCMEN, short for Technology Coast Manufacturing and Engineering Network, began in 1989 and remains a key driver of economic growth and prosperity in Okaloosa County today. It is a professional network of local leaders in the fields of manufacturing, technology, engineering, defense contracting and aerospace defense who meet once a month to advocate for STEM industries, review business trends, discuss opportunities for collaboration, meet with prospective employees and provide opportunities for education and advancement.

“The key is collaboration, and you can't force collaboration,” Goetsch said. “You

just have to get them together in the same room, let them see they aren’t enemies and understand that we aren’t trying to keep you from competing. Compete like crazy, but when you get a contract, if you need some help, here we are.”

Goetsch took a step back from TeCMEN following his retirement in 2012 but says he is very confident in the group’s current manager, Linda Sumblin. Sumblin’s background as the executive director of CareerSource Okaloosa Walton places her in a unique position to address one of the TeCMEN members’ current challenges.

“Obviously the topics and direction of the TeCMEN membership and meeting their needs depends on the temperature, the climate, the needs at that time,” Sumblin said. “Certainly, in the last three to four years, there has been a high need for employment.”

Over the last 34 years, TeCMEN has implemented several practices to bridge the gap between labor and industry. From the beginning, the organization has brought in recent graduates to meet with prospective employers during its monthly meetings. This benefits the employers and graduates, but it also serves to slow the brain drain that first

PHOTOS BY HILARY DEMERS / OKALOOSA COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT (GROUP) AND COURTESY OF ONE OKALOOSA EDC (INDUSTRY DAY)

← Participants in career technical education in Okaloosa County school include, left to right, Linda Sumblin, TeCMEN manager; Tim Bryant, Okaloosa County School Board; Nathan Sparks, One Okaloosa EDC Executive Director; Carrie Foxhall, a teacher at Niceville High School; Luke Moreland, a student at Niceville High School; Okaloosa County Schools superintendent Marcus Chambers; Michele Burns, CareerSource Okaloosa Walton executive director; and Okaloosa County Schools deputy superintendent Steve Horton. → A student tries on aviation training equipment at Industry Day 2022.

inspired Goetsch to get involved with economic development.

Additionally, TeCMEN education partners regularly gear their programming toward the needs of TeCMEN industries. The Okaloosa County School District recently launched an artificial intelligence course for middle and high school students — the first of its kind in the state.

“You have educators like UWF, Northwest Florida State and Okaloosa County Technical College participating and attending TeCMEN programs, so they are aware of the employer needs and can easily put together a custom class to meet the needs of the high-tech employers in the area,” said Nicole Gislason, executive director for the UWF Haas Center.

The effort to grow opportunities for employment among TeCMEN members has only increased under Sumblin through TeCMEN Industry Day and the Educate the Educators Plus One program.

Educate the Educators Plus One aims to change the way teachers and students think about life after high school. Each school in the district selects a staff representative and student ambassador to participate.

“One Okaloosa executive director Nathan Sparks provides local labor market information, what businesses are here, what kind of sectors are available and what prospects he is working with for a potential workforce,” Sumblin said. “Then we get on the yellow school bus and go to three or four already coordinated businesses, and they give a tour.”

Students and school employees have the opportunity to inquire about education requirements, salaries, benefits, growth plans and more. Sumblin said this program has helped many educators to rethink how they advise their students.

“I had an English teacher who came up to me and said, ‘I had this all wrong. I've been telling my students that they must go to a four-year school, but what

I learned today is that they can do their post-secondary classes at any time in their life,’” Sumblin said.

Students are also invited to attend TeCMEN Industry Day, an annual trade show for TeCMEN members and nonmembers in STEM industries to network with prospective suppliers, clients and partners. The trade show provides opportunities for business diversification, a particular benefit in an industry dominated by military contracting. It is also, according to Sparks, an opportunity to impress nonlocal businesses that Okaloosa County is the place to set up shop.

“There is great value in being able to invite companies that we are currently in talks with about potentially locating in Okaloosa County to come and be a part of the TeCMEN Industry Day and see firsthand that we are not a Johnnycome-lately when it comes to being able to support businesses like theirs,” Sparks said.

In the last year, Sparks has furthered the appeal of the TeCMEN network through a partnership with Skyway Acquisition, a Clearwater-based federal contracting consultancy that provides feedback and direction on TeCMEN members’ federal bids.

TeCMEN was a major factor in Sparks’ decision to take the role of executive director for One Okaloosa. He believes the organization has helped fortify the Okaloosa County economy, somewhat softening the blow of events such as the 2008 housing market crash, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Michael.

“The companies that are in these sectors are hosting and hiring for jobs that move the needle economically,” Sparks said. “They are jobs that are well above the average county wage. Our current average salary per the data we get from Enterprise Florida is now $53,156 per year. If you look at our peer counties, that is the highest average annual wage in Northwest Florida.”

↑ Marcus Chambers, superintendent of schools in Okaloosa County addressed students at the annual TeCMEN Industry Day in 2022. Students are also encouraged to attend Industry Day, a trade show for TeCMEN members and nonmembers in STEM industries to network with prospective suppliers, The event is intended in part to stimulate economic diversification.

ROSA COUNTY COMMERCE

Keeping It Clean

Fast-growing Santa Rosa values its quality of life

story by HANNAH BURKE

When Donna Tucker returned to Milton from a two-week vacation in Tennessee last year, she counted 10 new construction sites on her way home.

Tucker, the president and CEO of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce (SRCC), wasn’t surprised. “It feels like a daily occurrence,” she said. “Anywhere you go, there’s something new that wasn’t there before.”

Tucker has led the SRCC since 2000 when the county comprised little more than commuter neighborhoods for people working in Pensacola and Crestview. Santa Rosa’s economy was modest and made up mostly of small businesses. What trifling tourism the area attracted was restricted to the county’s south end, and chamber membership was a third of what it is today.

Now 640 members strong, the SRCC has expanded along with Santa Rosa, now one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. Tucker estimates that the growth started happening about eight years ago.

“It happened slowly, then all at once.

“The most dramatic changes happened during COVID,” Tucker said. “Florida remained a publicly open state, and we became inundated with phone calls. Ecotourism soared, and you could hardly book a campsite with all the people who came to kayak, fish, golf and hike.”

Tourism’s emergence as a dominant industry in Santa Rosa differs from that of neighboring counties, as it extends beyond the beach. Tucker said thousands of horses and riders travel Blackwater River State Forest’s equestrian trails in Milton each year. She had recently spotted six Greyhound buses at the Pace soccer fields for a tournament, and she noted that the Gospel Projects Youth Athletic Club annually hosts its tee ball world series in Milton.

“People don’t even know that Milton, with the most connected, navigable miles of waterways in the state, is the Canoe Capital of Florida,” Tucker said. “Again, it’s something that really picked up during COVID. You

SANTA

↖ Clarity of the water at the Navarre Beach Marine Sanctuary reveals artificial reefs consisting of concrete rings covered in Florida limestone.

← For 22 years, Donna Tucker, left, has led the Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce as its president and CEO.

“It might sound cliche, but I believe Santa Rosa’s main draw is its quality of life,” she says. “I always say that this is one of the few communities I know of where you can walk into a grocery store, strike up a conversation with somebody and, two days later, find yourself at their house for a barbecue.” Above, anglers try their luck from the Navarre Beach Fishing Pier. At 1,545 feet, the pier is the longest of its kind in Florida.

couldn’t fly, so we were very much a drive market. People flooded in and, like many of us, fell in love with the area and never wanted to leave.”

New residents began investing in the region and started businesses.

Tucker said that in her 22 years at SRCC, she has never seen more entrepreneurs and female-owned and minority-owned businesses successfully launched.

Tucker attributes much of this boom to social media. Facebook has been invaluable in “getting the word out,” she said, to the point that the SRCC hasn’t bothered with any campaign-based outreach.

“What we’ve done is made our board of directors and ambassadors more engaged with our Facebook page,” she said. “When a new member comes aboard, we all like their page and share their posts. I think about 99% of our members have my cell phone number, and I encourage them to reach out when

PHOTO BY MIKE HAYTACK (TUCKER) AND COURTESY OF SANTA ROSA COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT OFFICE (BEACH AND FISHING)

they have something worth sharing so we can all work to push it out.”

She recalls one instance during the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide shutdown when a local Mexican restaurant was selling gallons of to-go margaritas with takeout orders. The SRCC shared the promotion on their page that morning, and by the time Tucker swung by the restaurant in the afternoon, there was a line out the door.

“One of the benefits of a small town,” she said, “is that word travels fast.

“It might sound cliche, but I believe Santa Rosa’s main draw is its quality of life,” Tucker said. “I always say that this is one of the few communities I know of where you can walk into a grocery store, strike up a conversation with somebody and, two days later, find yourself at their house for a barbecue.”

Tucker said Santa Rosa is also a grade “A” school district and is attractive to families. It has strong ties to Eglin Air Force Base, and the county’s five industrial parks are “maxed out.”

“For our SRCC leadership class, we take our participants out to these industrial parks. And by the end of the day, their jaws are on the floor,” Tucker said. “Because they’re off the beaten path, no one hops in their car to tour these places to see just how much we have.”

↑→ Tourism’s emergence as a dominant industry in Santa Rosa differs from that of neighboring counties to the extent that it extends beyond the Gulf beach. Santa Rosa county offers outstanding places to camp and hike nature trails. The county seat, Milton, is known as the Canoe Capital of Florida.

↓ Military installations are important factors in the economies of Northwest Florida counties, and Santa Rosa is no exception; it has close ties to Eglin Air Force Base, depicted here in a rendering.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SANTA ROSA COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT OFFICE (CAMPING AND HIKING) AND RENDERING COURTESY OF SANTA ROSA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR NOMINATIONS

PINNACLE AWARDS

HONORING

The Pinnacle Awards spotlight leading women in business who hold themselves to high standards and contribute to the betterment of the community. A total of 13 outstanding women from an 18-county region of Northwest Florida are selected annually from nominations and honored at the annual Pinnacle Awards, presented by 850 – The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida. We are reviewing deserving nominations for the final selection of the 13 Northwest Florida women to be recognized as this year’s honorees.

Please plan to join us in person to celebrate 13 powerhouse women across Northwest Florida who are pinnacles of success, leadership and inspiration. SPONSORED

That leadership program is designed to familiarize chamber members with their community. Each leadership class includes 35 participants who spend the third Thursday of each month touring Santa Rosa’s various facilities, businesses and organizations to learn about their operations and glean ideas that they can use in their own businesses. Some 1,400 people have graduated from its inception.

SRCC headquarters was built in 2020 after three years of taking in donations and fundraising. It is a replica of an 1840s-style plantation home, a design which Tucker believes “speaks to our past but also our future.”

“The coolest thing is Lisa Mackenzie of Mackenzie Motors donated $50,000 for the construction of a meeting room,” Tucker said. “Between nonprofits and startup business meetings, it stays full.”

Over the next 10 years, Tucker anticipates that Santa Rosa will focus on clean industry, and she hopes it will successfully tackle the need to provide attainable housing.

“ What will remain strong, I hope, is these entrepreneurs and small businesses,” she said. “They have found a climate here in which they can really thrive. Watching these people, I swear, you can become addicted to it. There’s nothing better than seeing these new business leaders come out of their shell, take chances and be rewarded with success. ” ▪

SANTA ROSA COUNTY COMMUNITY

PROFILE

METRICS

5/08/2023 JOBS ADDED

3,207 CHILDREN IN POVERTY 11.0% 3RD GRADERS READING AT GRADE LEVEL

65% HOUSING PERMITS ISSUED

2,091 SALES TAX REVENUE $21.53 Million POVERTY RATE 8.8% LAND IN CONSERVATION 40%

↑ Today's Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce headquarters building was completed in 2020 following a three-year fundraising effort. The 1840s-style home, said chamber president Donna Tucker, is a nod to the past and evidence of the chamber’s commitment to Santa Rosa County’s future.

SANTA ROSA COUNTY

SANTA ROSA COUNTY photography by MIKE HAYTACK COMMERCE

REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS • SMALL BUSINESS RESOURCES

STRATEGIES FOR WINNING NEW BUSINESS CONTRACTS • PUBLIC/PRIVATE FINANCING SOURCES

REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE PRIORITIES • REGIONAL ENERGY RESILIENCY

NEW AIR FORCE & NAVY CONTRACTS

MILITARY BASE CONSTRUCTION • MILITARY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

NEW TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES • NORTHWEST FLORIDA AS THE CYBER COAST AND MORE!

NORTHWESTFLORIDALEADERSHIPFORUM.ORG

An Impressive Group of Stewards

Triumph Gulf Coast is transforming the region

As a high school student, I Iearned Latin declensions. The progressive school I attended maintained foreign language classes as a graduation requirement. Most students opted for Spanish, a few took German, fewer still took French and a small cohort went with a dead language and wore a toga to classes one day each year.

My mother encouraged me to take Latin, believing that a knowledge of it would help me master the English vocabulary. Maybe it did; I don’t remember. But I do recall the six cases of Latin nouns: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative and vocative.

And, yes, before scores of you write to remind me, I will acknowledge that a case is made for a seventh, the locative, but doing so is like arguing for Pluto as a planet.

To this day, I am caused to smile by an old joke involving a conversation between a verb and a noun.

“Wanna go to my place and conjugate?”

“I decline.”

Instruction in Latin has gone the way of teaching children cursive penmanship.

Tempus itineribus

Well established today and gaining momentum is a trend toward career education, as a recent meeting of the Triumph Gulf Coast board made clear.

I attended the meeting of the board in March at the invitation of Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc.’s executive director, Susan Skelton, whose storied career in and around government included service for many years as an aide to the one-time dean of the Florida Senate, Dempsey Barron. Oh, the stories she could tell.

I am glad I accepted the invitation.

I have attended thousands of meetings in my lifetime and have chaired my share. This one, conducted

by David Bear of Pensacola and hosted by Northwest Florida State College, was exceptionally well run and included concise, but illuminating, reports by Skelton regarding activities of the Legislature and updates from program administrator Cori Henderson.

Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc., was created by statute in 2013 and received its first funding from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement in 2017. It serves as the steward of $1.5 billion awarded to Florida for economic damages caused by the oil spill and has been charged by the state with strengthening and diversifying the economy of coastal Northwest Florida.

At the meeting, representatives of Okaloosa County Schools provided an update on its Artificial Intelligence Learning Institutes, funded in part by Triumph and created to supply students with credentials in Narrow AI, a software technology that is the basis for Amazon’s delivery and inventory management services. Some 300 students are participating in the institutes.

The agenda also included a grant contract up for approval. Bay District Schools had submitted a successful application seeking $8.075 million for construction of facilities that will house eight programs related to careers in construction and health care — two occupational fields that are sure to rapidly grow in Northwest Florida in coming years.

You know, there are just so many positions available for teachers of ancient languages.

Representing Arnold High School at the Triumph meeting was a delegation that included principal Britt Smith. I knew Smith when he was principal of the Margaret K. Lewis School for specialneeds children in Panama City and once worked with his kid brother at a newspaper that now scarcely exists.

The area lost Smith for a time when he left Margaret K. Lewis, and it is fortunate to have him back. He’s one of the good guys.

There were a lot of good people in the meeting room at the admin building on the NWFSC campus — people united by a commitment to the furtherance of the best interests of the region.

I am not satisfied that we will ever know the full extent of the impacts resulting from the Deepwater Horizon event and the dispersants used to send the oil to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But we can be grateful for the fact that a $1.5 billion windfall is being smartly and responsibly administered by the Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc., board and staff.

Onward,

STEVE BORNHOFT, EDITOR, 850 MAGAZINE sbornhoft@rowlandpublishing.com

PHOTO BY MICHAEL BOOINI / ROWLAND FILE PHOTO