850 Business Magazine Winter 2019 by Rowland Publishing, Inc.

850 VOLUME 12 NUMBER 2

HEALING

Mustian Center in Tallahassee will impact region

LEADING

Pinnacle Award winners enrich lives of communities

OMNICOMMANDER » PARIS AIR SHOW » NEW URBANISM

NETWORKING

Black News Channel will feature diversity of high achievers

SPECIAL REPORTS TALLAHASSEE BUSINESS JOURNAL MBAs: ARE THEY WORTH PURSUING?

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Sylvester Director Stephen D. Nimer, Sylvester Director Stephen D. Nimer, M.D.,NCI saysdesignation NCI designation M.D., says is the is the “gold standard” for cancer centers, “gold standard” for cancer centers, it places Sylvester into and it and places Sylvester into the topthe top of cancer nationwide, tier of tier cancer centerscenters nationwide, alongside world-renowned alongside world-renowned centerscenters New York’s Memorial such assuch NewasYork’s Memorial Sloan Sloan Kettering and Houston’s Kettering and Houston’s M.D. M.D. Anderson. “It’s a recognition of Anderson. “It’s a recognition of our outstanding work conducting our outstanding work conducting research our laboratories, treating research in ourin laboratories, treating patients in our clinics and hospitals, patients in our clinics and hospitals, and reaching to medically and reaching out to out medically underserved communities underserved communities with with innovative prevention innovative cancercancer prevention strategies, ” Dr. Nimer Stephen D. Nimer, Director of Sylvester. strategies, ” Dr. Nimer said. said. Stephen D. Nimer, M.D., M.D., Director of Sylvester. Theone NCI, 11 agencies NCI cancer the crown the patient population of South The NCI, ofone the of 11the agencies that that NCI cancer centerscenters are theare crown jewels jewels the patient population of South FloridaFlorida form the National Institutes of Health in the in the nation’s on cancer. ” and the region. form the National Institutes of Health nation’s war onwar cancer. ” and the region. and the federal government’s and the federal government’s leadingleading agency for cancer research, training, NCI designation NCI designation is welcome news for It not only It notreflects only reflects the strength agency for cancer research, training, is welcome news for the strength of the of the and health information dissemination, Sylvester, the Miller School of Medicine, Center’s research, cancer prevention, and health information dissemination, Sylvester, the Miller School of Medicine, Center’s research, cancer prevention, hasrecognized now recognized Sylvester’s and the University of Miami. It comes and training and training and education programs has now Sylvester’s and the University of Miami. It comes and education programs outstanding research work with NCI with a grant from NCI of $2 million but represents a boost to the outstanding research work with NCI with a grant from NCI of $2 million but represents a boost to the state state designation. A team of Sylvester a year over the next five years, with economy, with an economic designation. A team of Sylvester a year over the next five years, with economy, with an economic impactimpact physicians, researchers, and staff, led additional funding from the state of estimated at $1.2 billion. Sylvester physicians, researchers, and staff, led additional funding from the state of estimated at $1.2 billion. Sylvester Dr. Nimer, worked the clockFloridaFlorida – dollars that be invested will generate will generate more high-wage by Dr.by Nimer, worked aroundaround the clock – dollars that will bewill invested more high-wage jobs; jobs; for months to complete the 1,300-page,directly directly into life-saving research more interns, residents, fellows, for months to complete the 1,300-page, into life-saving research and and more interns, residents, fellows, and and single-spaced application. programs that will benefit patients physician-scientists from around single-spaced application. programs that will benefit patients physician-scientists from around the the theand statebeyond. and beyond. globe will to come to Sylvester to advance aroundaround the state globe will come Sylvester to advance “The standards that created we’ve created their knowledge; and patients more patients “The standards that we’ve for for their knowledge; and more applicants that are aspiring to be NCI In fact,Initfact, was the support from the from outside the– U.S. – particularly applicants that are aspiring to be NCI was it the support from the from outside the U.S. particularly designated are very statethe over last several years that those from thoseLatin from America Latin America and the designated cancercancer centerscenters are very state over lastthe several years that and the ” said NCI’s director the division build Sylvester’s researchCaribbean Caribbean will here comeinhere in search of high,” high, said NCI’s director of the of division helpedhelped build Sylvester’s robustrobust research – will – come search of of cancer and population programs, aided the cancer highlyhighly specialized treatments that can of cancer controlcontrol and population programs, whichwhich aided in the in cancer specialized treatments that can sciences, Ph.D. “The center’s center’s application and directly be found at Sylvester. sciences, RobertRobert Croyle,Croyle, Ph.D. “The application and directly impactimpactbe found only atonly Sylvester.

The Firefighter Cancer Initiative at Sylvester, has received funding The Firefighter Cancer Initiative at Sylvester, whichwhich has received funding from the state of Florida was launched in 2015, to reduce from the state of Florida since since it wasitlaunched in 2015, worksworks to reduce exposure to carcinogens through education and by implementing evidenceexposure to carcinogens through education and by implementing evidencemethods. than 4,000 decontamination kits are being used by basedbased methods. More More than 4,000 decontamination kits are being used by firefighters Florida tothem help them up responding after responding to a call. firefighters acrossacross Florida to help clean clean up after to a call.

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9/27/19 9/27/19 2:56 PM 2:56 PM

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850 Magazine Winter 2019

IN THIS ISSUE

SEASIDE SYMPOSIUM

850 FEATURES

RENDERING COURTESY OF DOVER, KOHL & PARTNERS

Pinnacle Awards Winners of the 2019 Pinnacle

Awards, presented by Rowland Publishing and 850 Magazine, escort models to runways, ensure that the bodies and minds of students are nourished, develop marketing plans for deserving nonprofit organizations, deliver the news and help keep the lights on. All have excelled both professionally and in service to their communities, and they exited this year’s Pinnacle Awards luncheon, held at Florida State University Panama City, resolved to assist the 850 zone’s recovery from Hurricane Michael. By Steve Bornhoft

Seaside Symposium Speakers, including a

transportation planner, a city manager, a city planner and a consultant/entrepreneur, discussed downtown revitalization, with a particular emphasis on recovery from natural disasters, at a symposium sponsored by the Seaside Institute. Collectively, they recognized that renewal efforts

don’t have to wait for a storm, but an event like Hurricane Michael can aid consensus building by creating a sense of urgency. Speakers discussed the desirability of making downtown areas more walkable and verdant. By Steve Bornhoft

Office Spaces The acquisition by the

Suddath Companies of Perdue Inc. brought together the country’s largest commercial moving company and the region’s largest office supplier. That’s good news for workscapes and for workers who prize office environments conducive to collaboration and productivity. By Audrey Post

On the Cover: Larry Keefe was long fascinated by the work of assistant U.S. attorneys. But, in departing private practice, he skipped that rung to become U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida. Photo by Alex Workman

850 Business Magazine

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850 Magazine Winter 2019

IN THIS ISSUE SPECIAL REPORTS

allahassee T Business Journal

TALLAHASSEE BUSINESS JOURNAL A N

8 5 0

B U S I N E S S

M A G A Z I N E

S P E C I A L

R E P O R T

According to the Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality, the buzz is building about the “Magnetic Capital of the World.” The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at FSU is a unique asset with the capacity to attract researchdriven businesses. Too, economic developers are working to capitalize on Tallahassee’s status as a center for businesses that develop software solutions for local government. And, the Downtown Improvement Authority, under new leadership, is working to make the center of Tallahassee irresistible.

Cultural Change Agents

Tallahassee-based Black News Channel seeks to elevate disenfranchised voices

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

U.S. ATTORNEY LARRY KEEFE

2019–20 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 1

MH Mustian T Center The new,

2019 SPECIAL REPORT

YO U R H O S P I TA L FOR

the Future

state-of-the-art M.T. Mustian Center at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare stands to enhance the reputation of the hospital and make it attractive to world-class physicians. In addition, the center’s realization effectively expands the hospital’s sevice area and improves patient experiences and outcomes. The center’s namesake, a longtime TMH administrator, would be proud.

M .T. M U S T I A N C E N T E R

126

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 1

MBA The master’s

Corridors

S P E C I A L R E P O RT

MASTERING BUSINESS

degree in business administration was once a craze. Today, aspiring and established business people are taking a more studied approach to deciding whether, when, where and even how to pursue an MBA. Universities are building higher degrees of specialization into their MBA offerings and working to attract students from diverse backgrounds to their programs. Graduates find that an MBA adds to an individual’s earnings potential by making him or her more valuable to employers.

BAY

Across the country, a growing number of graduate schools are adding Master’s in Business Administration degrees and making them increasingly specialized. That trend, while giving students more options, complicates already difficult considerations: Is an MBA right for me? And, if so, which school is best? The answers will depend on a given person’s goals, expectations and, often, occupation. For someone who concludes that the MBA experience will result in personal, professional and financial enrichment, there are outstanding programs at hand in Northwest Florida.

Gulf Power Symposium

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126 Since its founding in 2017, Omnicommander, a Miramar Beachbased business that specializes in marketing services and website design for credit unions, has enjoyed explosive growth. Its CEO, Eric Isham, says the company is hiring as quickly as it can find cultural “right fits.”

12 From the Publisher 128 Sound Bytes 130 The Last Word from the Editor

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111

124 Florida and Bay County, in particular, are well represented at biannual air shows held in Paris, France. While the latest aircraft are on display, the event’s chief significance for economic developers, including Becca Hardin and Garrett Wright of the Bay Economic Development Alliance, is the networking opportunity it represents. There is a hierarchy at play. Large exhibit halls are accessible by all, but the primo meetings with aerospace giants take place in chalets.

Special Sections DEAL ESTATE

80 Featured is a professional office development that is close to downtown Panama City and that includes 10 pad-ready office building sites. And, in Tallahassee, space is available for rent in a medical office building on the campus of Capital Regional Medical Center.

PROMOTIONS

Inside Tallahassee Business Journal

CANCER CARE

AF SUMMIT

WINE FEST

ON TARGET

EXPERTISE

4 University of Miami Health System cancer center receives coveted designation.

16 The Defense Leadership Forum will unite contractors with Air Force leadership.

54 The tastings will be grand at the South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival.

122 Entrepreneurial Operating System helps businesses set and meet their goals.

19 Experts at Beck Partners understand the complexities of qualified opportunity zones.

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PHOTO BY ERICK LIM A (126)

111

EMERALD COAST

In This Issue

850 Business Magazine

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Winter 2019

850 THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE OF NORTHWEST FLORIDA

Vol. 12, No. 2

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND EDITORIAL EDITOR Steve Bornhoft MANAGING EDITOR Jeff Price STAFF WRITER Hannah Burke CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Danielle J. Brown, Rosanne Dunkelberger, Rochelle Koff, Rebecca Padgett, Audrey Post, Pete Reinwald CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut ART DIRECTOR Saige Roberts SENIOR PUBLICATION DESIGNER Shruti Shah PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Sarah Burger, Jordan Harrison, Lindsey Masterson GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sierra Thomas CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Dave Barfield, John Blackie, Janecia Britt, Michael Booini, Mike Fender, John Harrington, Scott Holstein, Erick Lima, Bruce Palmer, Saige Roberts, Anthony Russo, Ben Simons, Ray Stanyard, Todd Douglas Photography, Alex Workman SALES, MARKETING & EVENTS VICE PRESIDENT/CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT McKenzie Burleigh SALES MANAGER, EASTERN DIVISION Lori Magee Yeaton SALES MANAGER, WESTERN DIVISION Rhonda Lynn Murray DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, EASTERN DIVISION Daniel Parisi DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, WESTERN DIVISION Dan Parker AD SERVICES COORDINATORS Tracy Mulligan, Lisa Sostre ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES David Doll, Julie Dorr, Darla Harrison, Linda Powell MARKETING MANAGER Kate Pierson SALES AND MARKETING WRITER Rebecca Padgett SALES AND EVENTS MANAGER Mackenzie Little SENIOR INTEGRATED MARKETING COORDINATOR Javis Ogden INTEGRATED MARKETING COORDINATOR Taylor Dashiell OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIRECTOR Melissa Spear CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER Sara Goldfarb CLIENT SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE/PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Amber Dennard RECEPTIONISTS Shyann Cruz, Natalie Kazmin

DIGITAL SERVICES DIGITAL EDITOR Janecia Britt 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 $20. To purchase, call (850) 878-0554 or go online to 850businessmagazine.com. Single copies are $4.95 and may be purchased at Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million in Tallahassee, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Pensacola, Panama City and at our Tallahassee office.

850 Magazine is published quarterly by Rowland Publishing, Inc. 1932 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL 32308. 850/878-0554. 850 Magazine and Rowland Publishing, Inc. are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. Editorial contributions are welcomed and encouraged but will not be returned. 850 Magazine reserves the right to publish any letters to the editor. Copyright December 2019 850 Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Member of three Chambers of Commerce throughout the region.

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From the Publisher

Let’s Open Our Eyes to Needs of Others and Make a Difference As I mature, it seems like the holiday season comes around much more

frequently than it did when I was a kid. Back then, time sped up during the summer break, but it slowed to a crawl once school resumed.

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themselves as community servants. This year’s honorees included Tiffanie Nelson, who founded Food for Thought, an organization that ultimately promotes learning for children in Walton and Okaloosa counties who are “food insecure.” When a student is in survival mode, it is almost impossible for him to learn. His focus is on addressing immediate needs rather than long-term goals. Nelson and her organization annually furnish students with a million food items for consumption on weekends, during holiday breaks from school and summer vacations. Hers is a powerful story and a powerful example. Not that long ago, Nelson’s distribution center was a table in her home. The operation grew exponentially as a product of her compassion and a need whose vastness she only discovered along the way. Today, Food for Thought helps feed 3,300 kids a week, year-round. I count myself among people who, were it not for the efforts of people like Nelson, never would have suspected the extent of hunger in our region. For the fortunate, the holiday season is one of excess. For those who struggle to make ends meet, it is a time when awareness of their status as a “have-not” is especially painful. In this, our land of plenty, Food for Thought and numerous organizations throughout Northwest Florida, faith-based and secular, large and small, are dedicated to bringing some degree of specialness at the holidays to people who cannot afford the first little extra or who may be

hospitalized, homeless or alone. Each of those organizations could use our help. Let’s collectively do what we can to see to it that baskets are fuller this year, that more wishes come true, that strangers from Milton to Madison and Perdido Key to Panacea shake hands, that more smiles are raised, that divisions are set aside. Imagine all the people, as John Lennon wrote, sharing all the world. (It’s easy if you try.) This holiday season, rise to the occasion with love in your heart. Look within and reach out. And let’s all be grateful for the vibrant, progressive communities of Northwest Florida. This edition of 850, with a particular emphasis on Tallahassee, highlights efforts throughout the region to embrace entrepreneurship, energize downtowns and promote responsible growth. So much to be excited about! Peace,

BRIAN ROWLAND browland@rowlandpublishing.com

PHOTO BY SCOTT HOLSTEIN

It didn’t help that Sears annually published what boys and girls called the “toy catalog,” a publication marketed to adults as The Wish Book. I pored over its hundreds of pages for hours, circling items that I had to have, as if money were no object. I can still picture the banana-seat bicycle that I thought would cement my status among my friends and make life easy. That wish didn’t come true, and I suppose that in some metaphorical sense I chased that bicycle for many years thereafter. But perspectives change over time. No longer do I view each day as a given but as a gift. And regarding the holidays, I am concerned not with what I may be receiving, but rather what I might do to make a difference in the community or in individual lives. The opportunities to do so are unlimited, of course. Little gifts can make a big difference. A soccer ball, a glazed ham or a holiday card may be enough to lift spirits, help restore someone’s belief in humankind or keep hope alive. Over the years, the team at Rowland Publishing has purchased holiday meals and presents for families. We volunteered at a food bank preparing items for distribution. We always have devoted space in our magazines to showcasing the holiday fundraising events of nonprofit organizations. I recognize that we can always do more and do better. At our annual Pinnacle Awards show in August, Rowland Publishing and 850 Magazine honored highly professional women who have distinguished

850 Business Magazine

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P RO M OT I O N

850businessmagazine.com Check out the recap from this year’s Pinnacle luncheon. Plus, nominations are now open for the 2020 Pinnacle Awards! The Pinnacle Awards spotlight leading women in business who hold themselves to high standards and contribute to the betterment of the community. Know someone who fits this description? Nominate her at 850BusinessMagazine.com/ pinnacle-awards

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ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

LET’S NETWORK! Find 850 Business Magazine on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You’ll also find Rowland Publishing on LinkedIn, where you can join the 850 Business Group for conversations with fellow readers.

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PROMOTION PROMOTIONPROMOTION

Congressman Matt Gaetz, Congressman Congressman Gaetz, Gaetz, right,Matt served asMatt keynote right, served right, asserved keynote as2019 keynote speaker at the Air speaker at speaker the 2019 at the Air 2019 Air Force Contracting Summit. Force Contracting Force Contracting Summit. Summit. He was joined on stage by He was joined He was on joined stage by on stage by Defense Leadership Forum Defense Leadership Defense Leadership ForumLoiry. Forum chairman William chairmanchairman William Loiry. William Loiry.

DEFENSE LEADERSHIP FORUM CHAIRMAN WILLIAM LOIRY (LEFT) AND GULF COAST ENERGY NETWORK EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAVE ROBAU (RIGHT) WITH DEFENSE LEADERSHIP DEFENSE FORUM MELANCON, CHAIRMAN FORUM CHAIRMAN WILLIAM LOIRY WILLIAM (LEFT) LOIRY AND GULF COAST AND GULF ENERGY COAST NETWORK ENERGY NETWORK EXECUTIVEEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DIRECTOR DAVE ROBAU DAVE (RIGHT) ROBAU WITH (RIGHT) WITH BRIG. GEN.LEADERSHIP PATRICE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF (LEFT) THE TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM BRIG. GEN.BRIG. PATRICE GEN. MELANCON, PATRICE MELANCON, EXECUTIVEEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DIRECTOR OF THE TYNDALL OF THEAIR TYNDALL FORCEAIR BASE FORCE RECONSTRUCTION BASE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM PROGRAM

Northwest Florida Defense Northwest Northwest Florida Florida Defense Defense Industry Growing Strong Industry Industry Growing Growing Strong Strong 16

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PROMOTION PROMOTIONPROMOTION

he Defense Leadership Forum, with offices in he Defense he Defense Leadership Leadership Forum, Forum, withinoffices in is Washington, D.C., and with Southoffices Walton County, Washington, Washington, D.C., and D.C., South and Walton South County, Walton County, is entering its seventh year of organizing nationalismilitary entering entering itsconferences, seventh its year seventh of organizing year of organizing nationalprime national military military business which bring together defense businessbusiness conferences, conferences, which bring which together bring together prime defense prime defense contractors, defense subcontractors, small businesses, military contractors, contractors, defense subcontractors, defense subcontractors, businesses, small businesses, military military officials, contracting officials,small financial experts, and defense officials,officials, contracting contracting officials, officials, financial financial experts, experts, and defense and defense agencies throughout the country. Businesses from throughout agenciesagencies throughout throughout the country. country. Businesses Businesses from throughout from throughout Northwest Florida arethe participating in its major national Northwest Northwest Florida are Florida participating are participating in its major in its national major national defense contracting summits: defense contracting defense contracting summits:summits: Air Force Contracting Summit, Jan. 30-31, 2020, Air Force Air Contracting Force Contracting Summit, Jan. Resort 30-31, Jan. & 2020, 30-31, Hilton Sandestin BeachSummit, Golf Spa: 2020, The Summit Hilton Sandestin Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Beach Resort Golf Resort & Spa: & The Spa: Summit The Summit will provide the latest information on Air Force 2020 and 2021 will provide will the provide latest the information latest information on Air Force on Air 2020 Force and 2020 2021 and budgets; Tyndall Air Force Base reconstruction contracts; 2021 Air budgets;budgets; Tyndall Air Tyndall Force Base Force reconstruction Basepriorities; reconstruction contracts; contracts; Airmilitary Air Force mission andAir contracting innovative Force mission Force mission and contracting and contracting priorities; priorities; innovative innovative military military acquisition strategies; and financing strategies for government acquisition acquisition strategies; strategies; and financing strategiesstrategies for government for government contracting. More thanand 500financing companies registered for the contracting. contracting. More than More 500 than companies 500 companies registered registered for the forGaetz, the a 2019 Air Force Contracting Summit. U.S. Rep. Matt 2019 Air2019 Force Air Contracting Force Contracting Summit. Summit. U.S. Rep. U.S. Matt Rep. Gaetz, Matt a Gaetz, member of the House Armed Services Committee, was the a membermember of the House of theArmed HouseServices Armed Services Committee, Committee, was the was the keynote speaker. keynote keynote speaker. speaker. Southwest Defense Contracting Summit, Southwest Southwest Contracting Contracting Summit, Summit, AprilDefense 20-21,Defense 2020, Westin Riverwalk, San Antonio: April 20-21, April 20-21, 2020, Westin 2020, Westin Riverwalk, Riverwalk, San Antonio: SanonAntonio: The Summit will provide the latest information Air Force The Summit The Summit will provide will provide the latest the information latest information on Air Force on contracts Air Force and Army mission and contracting priorities; new and Army and mission Army mission and contracting and contracting priorities; priorities; new contracts new contracts for combat systems; new MILCON contracts, including for combat for systems; combat systems; new MILCON new MILCON contracts, contracts, including including military housing; new military installation energy contracts; military military housing; housing; new military new military installation installation energy contracts; energy contracts; new military cyber priorities and contracts; new military new military new military cyber priorities cyber priorities and contracts; and contracts; new military new military health and medicine priorities and contracts; and new military health and health medicine and medicine prioritiespriorities andcontracts. contracts; and contracts; and new military military technology priorities and More thanand 400new companies technology technology priorities priorities and contracts. and contracts. More than More 400 than companies 400 companies registered for the 2019 Summit. registered registered for the 2019 for the Summit. 2019 Summit. Navy Contracting Summit, June 29-30, 2020, Navy Contracting Navy Contracting Summit, Summit, June 29-30, June 29-30, Sheraton Norfolk Waterside: The2020, Summit2020, will provide Sheraton Sheraton Norfolk Norfolk Waterside: Waterside: The Summit The Summit willCorps provide will provide the latest information on Navy and Marine mission and the latestthe information latest information on Navy on and Navy Marine and Corps Marine mission Corps and mission contracting priorities; Navy mission priorities for weapons,and ships, contracting contracting priorities; priorities; Navy mission Navy priorities mission priorities for weapons, for ships, ships, facilities, technology, energy, and installations; newweapons, contracting facilities,facilities, technology, technology, energy, and energy, installations; and installations; new contracting new contracting opportunities for prime defense contractors and defense opportunities opportunities for primefor defense prime contractors defense contractors and defense and defense subcontractors; and opportunities for teaming arrangements. subcontractors; subcontractors; and opportunities and opportunities for teaming for teaming arrangements. arrangements. More than 400 companies registered for the 2019 Summit. More than More 400than companies 400 companies registeredregistered for the 2019 for the Summit. 2019 Summit. The Defense Leadership Forum is a public service The Defense The Defense Leadership Leadership Forum isForum a public is aservice public service organization bringing together Congressional leaders, organization organization bringing bringing together together Congressional Congressional leaders, Pentagon officials, military base commanders, leaders, military PentagonPentagon officials,officials, military military base base commanders, military military contracting officials, andcommanders, business representatives to identify contracting contracting officials, officials, and business and business representatives representatives to identify identify the best solutions to defend the United States. For to more the best the solutions best solutions to defend to the defend United the States. United For States. more For more information, visit usdlf.org information, information, visit usdlf.org visit usdlf.org

Âť WANT TO GO? To register for the 2020 Air Force Contracting Âť WANT Âť WANT TO GO? TO To register To forregister the 2020 forAir theForce 2020Contracting Air Forceus Contracting Summit, visit usdlf.org. For GO? further information about the event, contact via email

Summit, visit Summit, usdlf.org. visitFor usdlf.org. further For information further information about theorevent, about the event, us contact viaat email us via email at marketing@defenseleadershipforum.org reachcontact us by phone (202) 552-0179. at marketing@defenseleadershipforum.org at marketing@defenseleadershipforum.org or reach usorbyreach phone usatby(202) phone 552-0179. at (202) 552-0179.

WILLIAM LOIRY WILLIAM LOIRY WILLIAM LOIRY

William Loiry is chairman William Loiry William is chairman Loiry is Leadership chairman of the Defense of the Defense of the Leadership Defense Leadership Forum (DLF), headquartered Forum (DLF), Forum headquartered (DLF), headquartered in Washington, D.C. Loiry, who in Washington, in Washington, D.C. Loiry,D.C. who Loiry,County, who resides in South Walton resides inresides Walton in South Walton County, isSouth renowned forCounty, recognizing is renowned is renowned for recognizing recognizing national and for international needs national and national international international needs needs and thenand bringing key decisionand thenmakers and bringing thentogether key bringing decisiondecisiontokey identify the makers together makers together to identify tothe identify best solutions. Since 2010, the he best solutions. besthis solutions. Since Since he 2010, he and team2010, have organized and his team and his have team organized have organized major defense business major defense major business defense conferences in business Washington, conferences conferences Washington, in Washington, D.C.,inand around the country. In D.C., and 1998, D.C., around and the around country. thebombings In country. In following the 1998, following 1998, following the bombings the bombings of American embassies in of American of American embassies embassies in in first Africa, Loiry organized the Africa, Loiry Africa, organized Loiry on organized the theoffirst conference thefirst threat conference conference on the on the ofto threat of Osama binthreat Laden American Osama bin Osama Ladenbin to Laden American to American companies overseas. In 1999, companies companies overseas. overseas. Inthe 1999, In 1999, he organized first national he organized he organized the first national the first national cybersecurity conference in cybersecurity cybersecurity conference conference in9/11, Loiry in Washington. After Washington. Washington. After 9/11, After Loiry 9/11, the Loiry and his team organized and his team and his organized team organized the major homeland securitythe forums major homeland major homeland securitybringing forums securitytogether forums in Washington, in Washington, in Washington, bringing together bringing government and militarytogether government government and military and military officials, business leaders and officials, business officials, business leaders and leaders homeland security experts.and homelandhomeland security experts. security Gov. Tom Ridge, theexperts. first Gov. TomSecretary Gov. Ridge, Tom theRidge, the first offirst the Department Secretaryof Secretary ofHomeland the Department of the Department Security, was a of Homeland of Homeland Security, was Security, a wasClose a featured keynote speaker. featured to featured keynote speaker. keynote Close speaker. Close 100,000 Congressional, to 100,000 to 100,000 Congressional, Congressional, government, military and government, government, military and military industry leaders haveand attended industry leaders industry have leaders attended have attended the conferences organized by the conferences the conferences organized by team. by William Loiry andorganized his William Loiry William andLoiry his team. and his team. For more information, For moreFor information, more information, visit williamloiry.com. visit williamloiry.com. visit williamloiry.com.

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

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Tallahassee Business Journal

CONTENTS

6 DEVELOPMENT

The TallahasseeLeon County Office of Economic Development is working to identify areas in which the capital region can compete on a global scale.

10 URBAN

REDEVELOPMENT

Transformative projects are changing the landscape at Cascades Park, in the South Monroe neighborhood and at Washington Square.

12 SBDC AT FAMU

Regional Small Business Development Center director Keith Bowers helps beginning business owners understand and realize their potential.

16 HEALTH CARE

Technological advances are changing the ways in which medical care is being delivered at Tallahasse hospitals.

22 BLACK NEWS CHANNEL

A new nationwide network promises to undo stereotypes and amplify the voices of an often disenfranchised community.

24 TALLAHASSEE AIRPORT

Officials have identified 14 uses appropriate to parcels that surround Tallahassee International Airport and are available for development.

26 U.S. ATTORNEY LARRY KEEFE

Moved by a desire to engage in public service,

12 Larry Keefe approached a congressman/friend with a wild notion: Was there a chance that he might become a U.S. Attorney?

32 DOWNTOWN

IMPROVEMENT AUTHORITY

New CEO Elizabeth Emmanuel is leading

people to discover all that downtown Tallahassee has to offer.

36 THE MITCHELLS Award-winning agency succeeds by immersing itself in the lives and experiences of the clients it markets.

ON THE COVER: In establishing the Black News Channel, J.C. Watts and Bob Brillante have embarked on much more than a niche product. They intend to change the national conversation. PHOTO BY ALEX WORKMAN

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PHOTO BY DAVE BARFIELD (6) AND BRUCE PALMER (12)

6 ECONOMIC

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Tallahassee Business Journal

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

GAINING MOMENTUM The outlook on Tallahassee is evolving By Steve Bornhoft

n her efforts to foster economic development, Cristina Paredes, the director of the Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality, favors a ball-control offense: one that is deliberate, intentional, targeted and designed to capitalize on her community’s strengths. Paredes became OEV director in October 2018, a week before a Category 5 storm battered much of North Florida and dictated that she focus initially on resiliency issues and capacity. But she soon immersed herself in an ongoing OEV inquiry: In what areas is the Tallahassee/ Leon County region most capable of competing on a global scale? What do we do best? Or, in marketing terms, what is our unique selling proposition and to whom should it be directed?

POWERFUL ATTRACTANT The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at FSU gives economic developers in Tallahassee a unique asset that appeals to researchbased companies.

Several developments, Paredes explained, have occurred as a result of that pursuit. “We had a great champion in Ricardo Schneider, the president and CEO of Danfoss Turbocor Compressors, who stepped up and said we excel at magnetic technologies and should focus our energy there,” Paredes said. “So under his leadership, we started a Magnetic Technology Taskforce made up of private and public partners.” The group meets every six weeks to work on strategies for promoting business development. The goal, ultimately, is to create a cluster of magnetic technology businesses in southwest Tallahassee. For Paredes, recent moves made by Danfoss bolster her confidence in Tallahassee/Leon County as a place ripe for business development. Danfoss, she noted, expanded in Tallahassee with the addition of a research-and-development facility, then embarked upon an expansion of its production capacity that will add 120 jobs paying 200 percent of the prevailing local salary. Danfoss, a designer and manufacturer of centrifugal, highly efficient compressors for commercial air conditioning systems, has close, strategically important relationships with two of Tallahassee’s key, highly attractive assets: the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at FSU and the FAMU/ FSU School of Engineering. Those assets, Paredes said, have the capacity to attract businesses from around the world. In October 2018, the OEV hired a specialist who is tasked with pursuing business development opportunities exclusively in the areas of applied sciences

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and advanced manufacturing, a duty that applies to companies engaged in both research and production. Further, the OEV contracted with a consultant, Research on Investment, to help with business attraction by generating project leads. The firm, whose U.S. headquarters is in Chicago, “is hyperfocused on our targeted industries,” Paredes said. The investment in the staff specialist and a consultant are generating an impressive ROI. “It’s been a great year of discovery,” Paredes said, one in which the number of projects in the OEV pipeline grew from eight to 38. “The buzz is building about the Magnetic Capital of the World.” That growth in the pipeline mirrors growth in private-sector employment and productivity that already was underway. Paredes said that the private sector accounted for 61 percent of GDP in Tallahassee/Leon County in 2001, a figure that grew to 69 percent in 2017. “In the last five years, we have added

It’s been a year of discovery. The buzz is building about the Magnetic Capital of the World.” Cristina Paredes, director, TallahasseeLeon County Office of Economic Vitality

Capital City Scorecard Tallahassee is climbing lists

PHOTOS BY DAVE BARFIELD (MAGLAB) AND COURTESY OF DANFOSS TURBOCOR COMPRESSORS

Danfoss Turbocor Compressors, a designer and manufacturer of components for commercial air conditioning systems, recently added a research and development facility, above. Rendering depicts an office expansion scheduled for completion in January 2020.

15,300 private-sector jobs while, in the same period, public-sector employment declined slightly,” Paredes said. “Go back six years and private-sector growth has been close to 17,000 jobs.” From March through August, four companies visited with the OEV, and Paredes was preparing in September for another three or four. That number of visits is unprecedented, Paredes said, noting that most visitors ask first about research opportunities. “And that’s great,” she said. “But we want to grow those relationships so that they turn into business activities and people staying here.” The discovery phase that Paredes alluded to will yield over the next two to three years to what she called “years of attraction.” (As befits the Magnetic Capital of the World.) Meanwhile, infrastructure projects affecting southwest Tallahassee, including the widening of Capital

»N o. 9, “Best Cities in the South,” Southern Living magazine

» T op 10, “Great Circle SW and the airport gateway project will be advancing toward completion. “The airport has come through a master planning process and is building an international arrivals facility,” Paredes added. “They have submitted a Foreign Trade Zone application, and that’s important to companies engaged in importing and exporting products and materials. Right now, there is no FTZ between Panama City and Jacksonville. “To see all these activities and projects moving forward at the same time is pretty neat,” Paredes said. Visitation has a $1 billion annual economic impact on Tallahassee/Leon County, and Paredes applauded the work of Visit Tallahassee and its director, Kerri Post. “Leisure and hospitality is one of our fastest growing industries, both in employment and in infrastructure,” Paredes said, “especially in the areas of sports tourism and outdoor adventure.”

Small Towns for Big Vacations,” Travel Channel

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»N o. 54, “100 Best Places to Live,” Livability.com

»H ome to three of Florida Trend magazine’s “Top 25 Companies to Work For”

2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 7

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

GOV-TECH A Municode employee’s attention is divided only by multiple screens. Tallahassee’s Office of Economic Development plans to build on the city’s status as a center of businesses like Municode that provide software solutions to local units of government.

THE GOV-TECH SECTOR

In assessing Tallahassee’s strengths, the OEV discovered that the city is home to a number of businesses that specialize in providing software solutions to government entities — businesses such as Municode, Marquis Software Development, Ruvos, VR Systems, Diverse Computing and Inspired Technologies. “In the same way we did with applied sciences and advanced manufacturing, we are pulling people together and putting them around a table to talk about how we can raise Tallahassee’s profile as a gov-tech center,” Paredes said. “It’s not the kind of activity that most people are aware of.” Paredes is cognizant that, in a lowunemployment environment, it can be hard for businesses to find employees. Accordingly, the OEV works with institutions of higher learning and organizations, including the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and CareerSource Capital Region, to enlarge the talent

pool. In particular, the OEV hosts the Leon Works Expo, which unites students, employers and schools in an event designed to make young people aware of skills training and careers. Formerly held at the Lively Technical Center, the Expo moved this year to the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center, where

it attracted a record 37 vendors and 450 students. Collaboration, Paredes stressed, is a key component of the OEV’s game plan. “Business development is a team sport,” said her colleague Susan Emmanuel, the public information officer at Leon County’s Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency.

The Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality is your concierge for business resources: small business assistance, relocation, and expansion; economic data and analytics; grants and incentives.

850.219.1060 OEVFORBUSINESS.ORG 8 / 2019–20 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

Tallahassee Business Journal

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Tallahassee Business Journal

URBAN REDEVELOPMENT

URBAN TRANSFORMATION Developers overcome obstacles and forge ahead By Audrey Post

he face of downtown Tallahassee continues to evolve, with work progressing on Cascades Park, the South Monroe revitalization and the Orange-Meridian Placemaking Project. Easement issues related to the Loews Hotel in Washington Square appeared to have been resolved as of September, and work on the project was set to resume, assuming other legal challenges could be resolved.

CASCADES PARK

Cascades Park developer North American Properties announced in late summer that Marriott International AC Hotels will bring AC Hotel Tallahassee to Cascades Park, ending speculation about which chain’s flag would fly at an upscale boutique hotel at the project. In a press release, NAP managing partner Shawn McIntyre said the downtown area’s dynamic, eclectic amenities would attract visitors to downtown businesses and the city’s universities. Marriott’s AC Hotel line

Proof Brewing’s burgeoning beer-making operation and tasting room occupy what used to be a soft-drink bottling plant. Proof has made a significant contribution to the invigoration of the South Monroe neighborhood.

Marriott International AC Hotels is bringing AC Hotel Tallahassee to the Cascades Park development. The hotel is part of a development that encompasses two city blocks and also includes retail and residential components.

blends European charm with a modern feel. The hotel will have 154 rooms, and the project will also include townhomes, apartments, retail space and parking. Several changes have been made to the plan over the past year. The original seven-story design for residential space was scaled back to four stories, in order to blend better with buildings in the surrounding area. And, after considerable public outcry over the removal of most of the trees on the site, developers decided to spare the legacy live oak tree at the corner of Gaines and Calhoun Streets. The two city blocks that encompass the Cascades Park hotel/residential/retail project were sold to North American

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Properties and border Cascades Park, a reclaimed former Superfund cleanup site that is now a 24-acre greenspace and park in Tallahassee’s downtown center.

SOUTH MONROE REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT

SoMo continues its transformation, as planned projects continue to see reality. Businesses continue to move into the South Monroe area, such as Proof Brewing, which occupies the old Coca-Cola Bottling Plant. Blueprint’s Monroe-Adams Placemaking project is making progress. The developers of Cascade Gardens, a combination residential, retail, entertainment venue just south of Cascades Park on South

Monroe, continue to fine-tune their proposal as they weigh community and market needs, according to planning officials. And then there’s the Junction at Monroe, a venue that supports local musicians with a performance space, retail space for their products, and a food space that sells sloppy Joes to patrons. Local planning officials tout this as independent investment in the area not tied to or funded by tax dollars, but something that is bringing people and consumer dollars into the area. Near the South Monroe developments, the Orange Avenue-Meridian Street Placemaking Project continues to be a driver in the entire South Tallahassee revitalization project. One of the key components is the new South City Transit Stop/Transfer Station at the corner of Orange Avenue and South Meridian Street. The area had been home to a group of people who held informal flea markets and food distributions in a vacant lot, which often left it trash-strewn and inhospitable. The city’s bus system, StarMetro, identified it as a key driver for ridership and targeted it as an area for improvement and a potential bus transfer station. The area has been cleaned up and landscaped as a temporary park, with sabal palm trees planted and debris removed. According to City Commissioner Curtis Richardson, who lives in South City with his family, Leon County Judge Nina Ashenafi-Richardson and their two daughters, the facility will have a bus transfer station on the ground floor and retail space on the second floor. But the StarMetro facility is just the beginning. Long-term plans call for converting the stormwater holding pond across Orange Avenue into a Lake Ella-style park. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a fountain for it,” said Richardson, who also serves as chair of the Southside-Frenchtown Community Redevelopment Agency through November 2019.

PHOTOS BY JANECIA BRITT (PROOF) AND RENDERING COURTESY OF NORTH AMERICAN PROPERTIES (CASCADES PARK)

LOEW’S HOTEL PROJECT IN WASHINGTON SQUARE:

The developer of the hotel — part of a mixed-use hotel, office space and garage complex between Calhoun and Gadsden streets behind the county courthouse — and the city came to terms Aug. 20 over a lawsuit regarding an easement involving the ground floor of a city parking garage adjacent to the property. The sticking point appeared to be an understanding of what the easement actually meant. The city believed the easement covered the garage, which was built on land the city leased. The developer believed the easement was tied to the land on which the garage sits. The agreement calls for the developer to drop its lawsuit against the city and to buy the easement to the first floor of the garage in a noncompetitive bid. Fairmont Tallahassee, the developer, also agreed to buy no-build air rights on the hotel property’s southern border, which gives it control over what can be built over the easement. What was not resolved in the settlement were several liens filed against the developer for nonpayment of contractors and subcontractors. Work had halted and no explanation had been given as to how the easement conflict prevented payment to construction contractors. 2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 11

Tallahassee Business Journal

SBDC AT FAMU

A HAND UP SBDC helps businesses flourish By Steve Bornhoft

unny Ilyas had no experience running a business, but he had what he confidently thought was a winning idea. Florida State University students, he believed, would be willing to subscribe to a meal plan supplying healthy food as an alternative to on-campus fare. For advice on how to launch his intended business, Ilyas turned to Keith Bowers, the regional director of the Small Business Development Center at FAMU. “I could never repay Keith for all the time and energy he invested in me,” Ilyas said. “He helped me get my business going. He taught me how to correspond with banks and prepare the kind of documents

12 / 2019–20 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

they require so I could obtain financing. He brought clarity to my business model and showed me where the opportunities and the pitfalls were.” Bowers recalls the inception of Vale Food Co. six years ago and Ilyas’s days as a kitchen surfer. “He didn’t have a commercial kitchen when he started,” Bowers said. “He borrowed kitchen time and equipment from restaurants who could accommodate him.” But, as his subscription rolls grew, Ilyas recognized that he was going to require his own place. He found a location in CollegeTown and, in addition to his meal plan business, started a dine-in restaurant. Today, Ilyas has seven locations — three

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (BOWERS) AND COURTESY VALE FOOD CO. (ILYAS)

Keith Bowers, the regional director of the Small Business Development Center at FAMU, finds that leadership in Tallahassee and Leon County has become increasingly supportive of entrepreneurial interests.

in Tallahassee, plus one each in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale — and employs a total of 150 people. He has pivoted, he said, away from meal plans but has maintained his focus on healthy food as a restaurateur and caterer. His Tallahassee and Gainesville locations target students, while the others operate from downtown locations and focus on people seeking a fast-casual but nutritious place for lunch. “Every time Sunny was looking to expand, we helped him analyze the market, looked at his own capacity, performed a financial analysis, and helped with projections and finding funding sources,” Bowers said. Critically, Ilyas said, “Keith kept me from making bonehead moves and steered me toward making good ones. He was my support system.” Bowers has been on the job at the SBDC for nine years. The agency receives funding from the state and federal governments and from FAMU in support of its efforts to supply start-ups and growth-minded enterprises with business development services. Bowers finds that entrepreneurship has gained momentum in the Tallahassee area in recent years. “The landscape in Tallahassee, Leon County and the region has changed and has become a lot more receptive to entrepreneurial interests,” Bower said. “And we are seeing a lot more engagement from people who want to start a business or grow a business and expand their market share. “A lot of our (approximately 600) clients feel that now is a great time to be in business.” Bowers noted that Tallahassee historically has been associated with public-sector activity. “But we’ve seen a seismic shift,” he said. “There’s been a wave for the last seven years toward locally owned and supported businesses — and businesses have done a great job of leveraging the resources available. The City of Tallahassee and Leon County are focused on economic development and job growth and the private sector is a lot more nimble than the public sector. It reacts quickly to opportunities.” Bowers pointed to Reamonn Soto, the founder of Sensatek Propulsion Technology Inc. in Daytona Beach, as an entrepreneur who took advantage of resources, some of them uniquely available in Tallahassee. “He made the rounds,” Bowers said of Soto. “The Jim Moran Institute, the SBDC, the

Entrepreneurial Excellence Program — and he worked with Innovation Park and received a Small Business Innovation Research grant.” Sensatek has developed wireless sensors that measure firing temperatures in gas turbine engines, enabling operators to extend maintenance intervals and avoid the substantial costs associated with incidents of overheating. “Industrial gas turbine production is expected to increase over the next 14 years, and these turbines will operate at much higher temperatures to achieve higher efficiencies, thereby being prone to more incidents that involve overheating,” Sensatek notes on its website. Unlike alternatives, Sensatek sensors may be placed inside gas turbine engines and thus do a superior job of detecting hotspots. In 2016, Sensatek won the $50,000 first prize in the Megawatt Ventures Competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Megawatt Ventures supports the commercialization and success of cleantech innovations developed by university students. Soto attended FAMU and EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University. “We helped Raemonn with his business model and customer discovery,” Bowers said. “His research has implications for the energy industry and large commercial operations.” Bowers said in September that Soto was involved in a second capital raise, seeking $2 million. His research has attracted the interest of Seimens, which manufactures turbines, and aerospace giants NorthropGrumman and Boeing. Any entrepreneur or any small business with 100 or fewer employees and whose revenues do not exceed $20 million is eligible for SBDC services. “We’ve worked with most industries in the Tallahassee area,” Bowers said. “We sit down with you, understand who you are as an entrepreneur and understand more about your business. Our approach is not one-size-fits-all.” Often, MBA students at FAMU get involved. A capstone course at the School of Business and Industry tasks students with producing specific deliverables for SBDC clients. “Students may work on market research, social media, financial analysis, campaigns, supply chains and logistics and more,” Bowers said. “Our engagements with businesses usually last two to three years. We’re with you from conception to completion.”

Keith kept me from making bonehead moves and steered me toward making good ones. He was my support system.” Sunny Ilyas, owner Vale Food Co.

Making an Impact

SBDC at FAMU delivers return on investment ROI since 2011

JOBS IMPACTED

10,290

SALES GENERATED

$1.2 BILLION

CAPITAL ACCESSED

$32.1 MILLION

GOV’T CONTRACTS ACQUIRED

$167.2 MILLION BUSINESSES STARTED

154

2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 13

Tallahassee Business Journal

HEALTH CARE

DELIVERY SYSTEMS Technology advances patient care at Tallahassee’s hospitals

round the world, technology is changing how health care is delivered. In Tallahassee, Capital Regional Medical Center and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare are using cutting-edge techniques to improve patient care in a variety of ways. One of the biggest changes is heightened convenience, with more options for patients to receive care without having to travel to the hospital. Satellite medical facilities have been game-changers for both patients and health care providers, and telemedicine, while not appropriate in every instance, can help health care providers expand geographical reach to treat many illnesses and injuries. What follows is an overview of what each of Tallahassee’s hospitals is doing to take advantage of technological advances to improve patient care and outcomes.

CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER EXPANDING ITS FOOTPRINT

Capital Regional Medical Center is opening two new freestanding emergency rooms in late 2019 and in 2020. The SouthWood ER, at the intersection of Capital Circle SE and Orange Avenue, will offer emergency medical care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and will be staffed with board-certified emergency physicians and emergency nurses, CEO Alan Keesee said. Early next year, the Lake Jackson ER will open on North Monroe Street.

“Northwest Tallahassee is growing quickly,” he said. “We are bringing resources and access to quality medical services to support this growth.” Together, the two new ERs represent a $30 million investment and 62 new full-time jobs, including nine emergency physicians being recruited to Tallahassee. This is in addition to the freestanding emergency room it has operated in Gadsden County for the past 10 years. Capital Regional also offers primary care and specialty services in Crawfordville and Quincy. Primary care services are available in Chattahoochee. Earlier this year, CRMC opened a clinic in Thomasville, Georgia. There, cardiology services are available one day a week; additional specialties were due to be added by the end of 2019. Other new ventures opening in 2019 include an outpatient burn center, which Keesee said will give Florida Panhandle residents within the Big Bend access to burn care, and a behavioral health clinic near Florida State University, open to all university students in Tallahassee. All of these services include exciting technological advances in conjunction with telemedicine and telestroke services.

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New ventures at Capital Regional Medical Center include an outpatient burn center, above, and a behavioral health unit near the FSU campus, which will be available to all area university students.

Northwest Tallahassee is growing quickly. We are bringing resources and access to quality medical services to support this growth.” Alan Keesee, CEO of Capital Regional Medical Center

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS (BURN CENTER) AND COURTESY OF CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER (KEESEE)

By Audrey Post

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HEALTH CARE

Telestroke services are measured by “Door to Needle” time, that is, the time that elapses from when the patient enters the ER to when health care providers are able to administer clot-busting medication. Keesee said CRMC is well below the 60-minute standard, which has allowed it to meet this “golden threshold” for patient survival and recovery from a severe stroke. Robotics are also an exciting development in health care. Keesee said Capital Regional offers robotic-assisted knee replacement and spinal surgeries, which allows for more precise alignment, resulting in less pain and faster recovery for patients. Tallahassee Community Hospital opened in 1979, and in 2003 was replaced by the larger Capital Regional Medical Center. As leadership celebrates CRMC’s 40-year anniversary, the focus now turns to anticipating the area’s medical needs for the next 20 or 30 years. Keesee summed it up nicely: “CRMC is committed to growing alongside the health care industry in Tallahassee.”

TMH EXPANDING ITS REACH VIA TELEMEDICINE

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare serves a 17-county region in North Florida and South Georgia, and through its network of outpatient specialty practices, primary care physicians and small hospitals in rural areas, it is bringing big-city health care to small communities. “It’s much like Facetiming or Skyping with family and friends, but doctor and patient are together in a virtual room via computer,” said Lauren Faison-Clark, administrator over Regional Development, Population Health and Telemedicine. The instruments are mind-blowing. Bluetooth stethoscopes allow a doctor who is miles away to hear the heartbeat of a patient, as though they were in the same room. Digital cameras allow doctors to see into the ears and down the throats of patients from great distances. There are plenty of advantages to having a doctor diagnose through telemedicine, particularly for patients in rural areas. So many times, Faison-Clark said, rural hospitals need to send a patient to Tallahassee by ambulance to see a cardiologist or other specialist, when the expense of the ambulance ride sometimes can be avoided using telemedicine. TMH’s freestanding emergency room, near I-10 and Thomasville Road, is affiliated with

Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville. “Our board-certified ER docs can log into the computer and get an immediate consultation with a double board-certified physician at Wolfson,” she said, meaning a doctor boardcertified in both emergency medicine and pediatrics. TMH’s hybrid clinic at The Kearney Center, Tallahassee’s homeless shelter and the hub for services for the homeless and those on the verge of homelessness in the eight-county Big Bend region, is an example of various sectors of the community working together to solve a societal problem. Clients who don’t feel well or are experiencing a health crisis can visit the clinic, and the nurse or medical assistant will ring up a doctor. Most times, the client can be diagnosed and treated without a trip across town to a hospital. But perhaps more importantly, people who have been without adequate health care for a long time get an opportunity to regain good health. Bobbie Carrin is so grateful for the care she has received that she agreed to tell her story in a promotional video. A thyroid cancer survivor who also has a heart condition, Carrin lost access to her medications for three years. Depression followed, and she retreated further into herself. TMH and The Kearney Center got her back on her medication. “I’m just feeling so much better,” she said. “I have energy. And I have hope again.”

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MarySue Occhiuzzo, a registered nurse, assists a patient during a telemedicine session that originated at The Kearney Center in Tallahassee.

It’s much like Facetiming or Skyping with family and friends, but doctor and patient are together in a virtual room via computer.” Lauren Faison-Clark, administrator over Regional Development, Population Health and Telemedicine, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS (TELEMEDICINE) AND TMH.ORG (CLARK)

Tallahassee Business Journal

Congratulations

TMH

215 S Monroe St #200 Tallahassee, FL 32301 (850) 222-3533 PenningtonLaw.com

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A DV E RT I S E M E N T

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was enacted in 2017, a piece of the legislation that promised large benefits for the real estate community was the creation of the Opportunity Zone Program. Justin Beck, CEO and President of Real Estate at Beck Partners, said the program presents an enticing opportunity for real estate investors who have done their homework. The program’s purpose is to spur economic development in low-income urban and rural communities throughout the United States. To achieve this, it provides significant tax incentives for long-term private sector investments in these areas, which have been certified by the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). “There’s an opportunity to avoid almost 100% of capital gains tax by investing in Opportunity Zones,” Justin explained.

HOW CA N I B E N E F I T ? You don’t have to live or own property in a Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) to receive tax benefits. Anyone with gains from the sale of stock or property can invest in an Opportunity Zone Fund and potentially receive tax benefits. A taxpayer can invest their gain into a Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF) and defer tax on any prior capital gains until at least Dec. 31, 2026.

FINDIN G O P P O RT U N I T Y ZO NES There are now designated Opportunity Zones in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. Justin noted that in the state of Florida there are Opportunity Zones in every single county. That’s the case in several other states as well.

BE C K C A N A S S I S T Beck Partners has experts like Justin who are well-versed in Opportunity Zones, and we work closely with accounting firms to provide you with the resources and assistance you need to navigate the confusing terrain.

BENEFITS of INVESTING IN

OPPORTUNITY

ZONES WITH A PARTNER YOU CAN COUNT ON

» Learn the basics of opportunity zone investments » Understand how to find an opportunity zone best for you » How to find a partner you can count on in your investments TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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We understand Opportunity Zones and the complex nature of them. At the end of the day, it comes down to knowing where the opportunity lies.

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THE BENEFITS OF INVESTING IN OPPORTUNITY ZONES

850.477.7044 I TeamBeck.com

POW E R O F T H E P L U S Beck Partners not only provides you with a full scope of services covering Commercial Real Estate, Insurance and Property Management, but we give you the Power of the Plus: a wealth of business expertise. From the little questions to the most important decisions facing your business, Beck can lend you the advice you need to travel along a path of exponential growth.

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2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 19

Tallahassee Business Journal

BLACK NEWS CHANNEL

REVERSING MARGINALIZATION Black News Channel seeks to empower a community

n a couple of ways, Bob Brillante intends that his latest project, the Tallahassee-based Black News Channel, distinguish itself from other enterprises offering what passes for broadcast journalism. One, he said, the channel will be culturally specific, produced by and tailored to an African-American audience. Secondly, he said, it will deliver news. “We will not be ideologically driven at all,” Brillante said. “You will never see on our network pundits screaming at pundits. We will cover political and policy issues that have an impact on the AfricanAmerican community, but we will address every issue intending to find solutions and pull people together to solve the problems and conquer the challenges we face. We are not interested in scoring political points.” That is, the channel will adhere to a philosophy espoused by its vice president for news and programming, Gary Wordlaw, a 50-year veteran of broadcast news and the winner of eight Emmy Awards. “It’s viewer perspective journalism,” Brillante explained. “We want to cover the news by providing our audience with access directly to the newsmakers. We will interview the people involved who can make a difference and impact the lives of our viewers.” Brillante, a Tallahassee resident since 1984, brings extensive experience as an entrepreneur and television executive to his role as a Black News Channel cofounder. His father started Florida Cable, the first cable television network in the Sunshine State. Upon his graduation

from college, Brillante went to work for the Florida Cable Telecommunications Association as director of legislative and regulatory activities and later became its executive vice president. Brillante joined with a partner in launching the all-sports Sunshine Network, which eventually would become a Fox Sports Net affiliate. And he established a 24-hour cable news network, Florida’s News Channel, based in Tallahassee. Gray Television acquired FNC in 2004. Ever since, Brillante has been working toward bringing about a national news channel for the African-American community. Polling revealed that 28 percent of the audience for Florida’s News Channel was black, and additional research discovered a strong demand among African Americans for news and educational programming — and a willingness to pay for it. In one poll, 89 percent of African Americans surveyed said it was “very important” to have a news channel programmed by people of color. “I was satisfied even in 2005 that the time was right to introduce a black news channel,” Brillante said. “But today, as a result of the identity politics that we all have to endure, the need for a channel that brings people together and bridges the divide between cultures in our country is probably greater than it has ever been. Certainly, the need is greater today than it was when we started this project.” The Black News Channel is scheduled to launch on Jan. 6, 2020. Its headquarters office and Network Operations Center, where news from around the world is

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aggregated, are located in Tallahassee, from which its primary signal originates. At launch, the channel anticipated having news bureaus in place in New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and New Orleans. Plans called for the addition of bureaus in Chicago, Dallas, Jacksonville and Los Angeles, optimistically by year’s end. At one time, Brillante was looking at locating the Black News Channel on the FAMU campus. However, due to journalism program enrollment growth at the school, FAMU no longer had sufficient room to accommodate the station. Still, the relationship with FAMU will be close. “We remain committed 100% to the training of aspiring young journalists in Tallahassee,” Brillante said, “and to giving students interested in TV production, graphic arts and design hands-on training with the latest and most state-of-the-art equipment in the business. We would hope, of course, to retain the best of the best in Tallahassee as employees of our network.” Brillante said the Black News Channel would have 70 employees in Tallahassee at launch earning an average of 250 percent more than the average salaries in the Tallahassee Metropolitan Statistical Area. Those MSA figures are $45,343 for women and $60,114 for men. “I heard that data and my first thought was, we must be overpaying folks,” Brillante said. “But the reality is that we are a national news channel and we have to bring in talent the likes of Fred Hickman and Leonard Pitts. We’re not in New York City, but we are paying New York rates to acquire the best talent.”

PHOTO BY ALEX WORKMAN

By Steve Bornhoft

Along with Brillante, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts is a founder of the Black News Channel. Brillante first encountered his now-partner when Watts addressed the 1996 Republican national convention in San Diego. “When J.C. reminded his own party that character is best judged by what a person does when no one is watching, I

told myself, ‘One day, I am going to work with that guy.’ ” Watts would eventually call Brillante after learning of his efforts to bring about a black news channel, an aspiration that Watts shared. Brillante was working at the time with a group that included boxer Evander Holyfield, homerun hitter Cecil Fielder and Michael Jackson’s brother, Marlon.

‘”J.C. and I made arrangements to sit down together and, literally five minutes after that meeting began, we knew we were partnering,” Brillante said. In October, billionaire businessman Shad Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, announced that he was set to become the majority investor in the Black News Channel. “I believe there is an undeniable calling for everything the Black News Channel will deliver to African-American television audiences, who have historically been underserved in an era where networks have otherwise successfully targeted Former news to specific Congressman demographic groups J.C. Watts, left, and interests,” Khan and Bob Brillante, said in a press release. co-founders of “My decision to the Black News invest is an easy one, Channel, have because we get to been encouraged by the responses answer that calling.” of advertisers “We’re going to to their new create a platform for TallahasseeAfrican-American based network. leaders,” Brillante stressed. “In many areas of our country, they have to take their message to the streets to be heard. In the mainstream media, African Americans too often are marginalized. They are consulted only for sound bites related to sports, drugs and entertainment. “That we are going to change. You empower a community by providing information. Knowledge is power. And we are going to create role models for AfricanAmerican youth. We will be profiling black achievers from around the country — not just athletes, dancers and entertainers, but doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs.” Advertisers have responded, enthusiastically. Brillante said in September that the Black News Channel already had sold enough advertising to ensure that the operation will be cash-flow positive in its first year. “That’s a comfort,” Brillante said. “I didn’t have that with the Sunshine Network and Florida’s News Channel.” And, about that pledge to remain culturally specific? Watts and Brillante are sure to keep one another honest that way. “You won’t see any dilution,” Brillante said.

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Tallahassee Business Journal

TALLAHASSEE AIRPORT

STEADY AS SHE GROWS Forecast projects modest increases in Tallahassee airport’s operations

allahassee International Airport officials took delivery of an updated master plan in June. It was prepared by Pittsburgh-based consultant Michael Baker International, Inc., whose primary objective was to “produce a 20-year development program that would maintain a safe, efficient, economical and environmentally acceptable aviation facility while also identifying recommendations for improving customer service and technology.” The consultant’s report focuses on airport operations and also identifies uses appropriate to developable parcels surrounding the airport. The complete update may be found at talgov.com/airport.

Average annual growth in enplanements projected for 2015-2035

1.00%

Average annual growth in air cargo revenue ton miles (weight in tons multiplied by mileage carried) projected for 2015-2035

943,295

17,116 791 Total airline operations projected for 2035, assuming no new operators

Total number of developable acres contained in nine parcels described by the master plan

ONE THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-TWO Total air cargo operations projected for 2035

Total airline passengers projected for 2035, assuming no new operators arrive at the airport

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Fourteen Activities seen as appropriate to one or more developable parcels surrounding the airport, namely aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul; air cargo freight and logistics; flight training; manufacturing; surface freight logistics; light industrial; commercial allied aviation services; solar power generation; intermodal logistics center; hotel; hospitality; restaurant; travel plaza

Source: Tallahassee International Airport Master Plan Update

PHOTO COURTESY OF TALLAHASSEE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

1.74%

T A L L A H A S S E E

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

A I R P O R T

WHERE OPPORTUNITY TAKES FLIGHT  485+ Acres of Developable Land  Future Foreign Trade Zone  Within Five Miles of Interstate 10

 Affordable and Easily Accessible Parking  Minimal Lines Including TSA PreCheck  Conveniently Located Concourses

FlyTallahassee.com Whether you’re looking to grow your business on the ground or in the air, the Tallahassee International Airport offers business professionals both a convenient travel experience as well as opportunities for development.

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Tallahassee Business Journal

U.S. ATTORNEY LARRY KEEFE

NEW PROSECUTOR IN TOWN U.S. Attorney Larry Keefe establishes public corruption unit in Tallahassee

or Larry Keefe, page 51 of Vol. 1 of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” precipitated what he called a “firestorm.” That page described efforts by the intelligence team of the general staff of the Russian army (GRU) to invade the computer systems of county governments in Florida. In November 2016, the report notes, the GRU sent spearphishing (scam) emails to more than 120 county officials responsible for administering the 2016 general election. Attached to the emails was a Word document coded with malicious software. And here, then, was the report’s firestorm accelerant: “We understand the FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government.” Keefe had been on the job as U.S. attorney for the 23-county Northern District of Florida for just three months when a redacted version of the Mueller report was made public. Speculation about which county’s system had been infiltrated developed immediately upon the report’s release. “It was a lightning bolt,” Keefe said. In response, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence community focused intense attention on Florida.

Rachel Rojas, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Field Office in Jacksonville, was named to lead a task force that also included Keefe and Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee. “Florida is a high-value target,” Keefe said in September. “We’re the third largest state, a state where national elections are decided. We need to have our game at its best.” So it was that Keefe has found himself spending chunks of time in classified briefings about election security along with the “best and the brightest from Homeland Security and the FBI at the national level.” “There is scant time remaining between now and the 2020 election,” Keefe said. “For me, there is no higher priority.” It was not a priority that Keefe anticipated as he moved through confirmation proceedings leading up to his swearing-in ceremony in January. Early in his 33-year career as an attorney in private practice, Keefe considered that his dream job might be that of assistant U.S. attorney. The son of an Air Force fighter pilot who grew up immersed in Okaloosa County’s defense community, he was drawn to public service. “I had encounters with people who were prosecutors, particularly federal prosecutors, incidentally, socially and occasionally professionally, and I always liked that concept,” Keefe said. “It was the DOJ, not the DOD, and it was words and paper and

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justice, not bombs and bullets, but there was a cause, there was right and wrong, there was an opportunity to serve others. But I got married and we had four sons, and life overtakes you and you keep going forward and keep going faster.” Keefe enjoyed private practice, but life eventually slowed down. His sons were out of the house, and he became willing to consider an off ramp. Among his sons, one is an attorney who, at this writing, is clerking for Judge Mark Walker, the chief U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Florida. The others are a Secret Service agent, an Air Force special operations pararescueman scheduled for deployment to Iraq and a student on athletic scholarship at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. The opportunity to apply for his “dream job” didn’t present itself, so Keefe sought out a congressman whom he had hired once upon a time as an attorney right out of law school. “Do you think there is any chance that I could be put in for a U.S. attorney, any plausible chance at all?” Keefe asked U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz. Keefe had no government experience and had never worked as a prosecutor or as a criminal defense lawyer, for that matter. But, as an attorney, he was accomplished. He had tried many cases in state and federal courts and had credibility as someone who had headed up a multi-office law firm. Discussions developed.

PHOTOS BY ALEX WORKMAN

By Steve Bornhoft

In August 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Larry Keefe to become U.S. attorney for the 23-county Northern District of Florida. Upon entering the job, he found out just how little he knew about the inner workings of the office.

On Aug. 16, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Lawrence A. Keefe of Shalimar to fill a job that had been occupied by an acting U.S. attorney since 2015. And at that, Keefe redoubled efforts to learn all that he could about the operations of a U.S. Attorney’s Office and the office in Florida’s Northern District, in particular. “It’s difficult at the outset to figure out what’s going on,” Keefe discovered. “A U.S. Attorney’s Office is a very opaque organization. For an outsider, there is not much to glean except for what’s on the office’s website and public filings such as indictments, pleas and sentences. It’s hard even to find out who the assistant U.S. attorneys are.” Based on the public record, Keefe assumed that a U.S. attorney deals primarily with trafficking in people, guns and drugs. And, he was aware of a pending public corruption investigation in Tallahassee involving a city commissioner, the one-time director of the Downtown Improvement Authority and a prominent developer. As a nominee, Keefe responded in writing to generic questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee. He answered questions unique to him from Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Diane Feinstein of California. He had telephone conferences with counsel to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and counsel to the ranking minority committee member and their staffs. Then U.S. Attorney General 2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 25

U.S. ATTORNEY LARRY KEEFE

Jeff Sessions interviewed Keefe. So, too, did the deputy to Rod Rosenstein, who was assistant attorney general at the time. As a U.S. attorney, Keefe is a departure from form not just as to his résumé, but also his age. Typically, U.S. attorneys are in their 30s or early 40s and often view the job as a stepping stone to a judgeship or a run for elective public office. “I am able to bring a lot of energy to the job even though I am 57,” Keefe said. “I have a lot of desire, accumulated over three-plus decades, to do this. And I am able to do this as more of a sprint. I’m not looking at another 20-year career. And I am unencumbered to the point that I can move around the district pretty easily. “I’m a circuit rider.” Keefe has an apartment located just a couple of hundred feet from his office in the federal courthouse in Pensacola and a condo across Monroe Street from the federal courthouse in Tallahassee. He makes frequent trips to Panama City and to Gainesville, where he went to the University Florida School of Law after playing football for coach Charley Pell as an undergraduate. On weekends, he may go home to Shalimar or his wife Lynn, a pediatrician, may visit him in Tallahassee. Cognizant that he was in many ways green, Keefe gave himself a month to assess U.S. Attorney’s Office personnel before installing his own leadership team. “The covenant is that they are road warriors like I am,” Keefe said. “They have families and most live in Pensacola — when they are not operating out of hotels. But if you want to be an excellent leader, and they are, you have to be omnipresent in the district.” Keefe is responsible for 85-90 employees “who benefit from my authority and my ability to make decisions and make things happen, and I benefit from their knowledge and experience, but just because we’ve always done it one way doesn’t mean we can’t do it another way.” Under Keefe, the new way has come to include the establishment of a public trust unit (PTU) whose purview includes public corruption, economic espionage, intellectual property theft, election security and counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations. The PTU’s role has less to do with arresting, indicting and convicting wrongdoers than disrupting and discouraging unlawful activity before harm is done.

Located on the third floor of the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, the PTU represents a collection of skill sets, including forensic accounting and intelligence analysis. Keefe has bolstered its ranks by hiring retired FBI agents. “In sleepy old North Florida, we have military bases that are doing all sorts of cutting-edge stuff,” Keefe said. “They are not simple, low-level recruiting and training facilities. The level and extent of

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information collection by foreign actors that takes place at our universities had never occurred to me.” As to terrorism, Keefe said, efforts to root out foreign cells continue, but there is an increasing emphasis on “white nationalism and white supremacy. A lot of this activity is inherently domestic, so you don’t have elaborate networks of communication linking foreign actors engaged in radicalization to domestic folks. Instead, you have discreet

PHOTO BY ALEX WORKMAN

Tallahassee Business Journal

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U.S. ATTORNEY LARRY KEEFE

pockets of domestic terrorist groups, and they blend in rather well.” In assembling his PTU, Keefe recognized that he had at his disposal counterterrorism specialists with limited experience or background in public corruption. But the skill set required to be effective in either area is similar, he said. What is needed, Keefe said, are “people who like to get together in rooms with white boards and sticky notes creating string-art connections between people. You are dealing with complex cases that involve taking in lots of information, organizing and sharing that information, and identifying relationships among people or organizations that move money or other assets around.” Those assets can include knowledge. “The communist Chinese government has an expectation of students who attend universities in the United States that they will bring back whatever they can,” Keefe said. “Students have remarkable levels of access to million and millions of dollars of research and work product. The government’s directive to them is ‘Get whatever you can, bring it back in a pile, and we’ll sort it out and determine what’s useful.’ ” How do you disrupt that? “We’re working on that right now,” Keefe said. “Tools are being fashioned. The idea is not to pick off one student, or one professor, at a time as they leave or attempt to leave with material, but it’s getting to the enablers and the facilitators in the university environment.”

PUBLIC CORRUPTION

In a case that he inherited, Keefe and members of his team negotiated plea agreements from one-time Tallahassee mayor and city commissioner Scott Maddox and his business associate Paige Carter-Smith, who was the director of the Downtown Improvement Authority when indicted. In August, each pleaded guilty to two counts of honest services fraud and one count of tax fraud conspiracy. “Public office is the highest form of public trust, and the pattern of criminal activity by these defendants violated the sacred trust of the people,” Keefe said after the pleas were accepted by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle. “When Maddox should have been looking out for the best interest of the citizens of Tallahassee, he was instead lining his own

pocket with Carter-Smith’s help. This U.S. Attorney’s Office places the utmost priority on rooting out and pursuing public corruption and will continue to do so in order to restore the public’s trust in its government and elected officials.” “Maddox admitted to having taken large sums of money in exchange for favorable actions on various issues that came before the City of Tallahassee,” Keefe’s office reported in a news release. “He participated in a scheme to defraud and deprive the City of Tallahassee and its citizens of its right to honest services through bribery. Carter-Smith admitted to participating with Maddox in these criminal acts.” A federal grand jury indicted Maddox and Carter-Smith in December 2018, and a superseding indictment in May added developer J.T. Burnette in various counts. Maddox and Carter-Smith were scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 19. Burnette’s trial was due to commence on Nov. 4.

an arrest and trial, if the victims, who had been dependent on the perpetrator, have no place to eat or sleep, they take off.” Keefe said he is working to establish relationships with social services agencies capable of transitioning victims to a new life and helping to make sure they are around when it comes time to testify.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Keefe said the Northern District finds itself dealing with illegal immigration cases, but not nearly to the extent that jurisdictions in the Southwest do. He said his district primarily sees cases involving repeated unlawful entries associated with criminal activity, usually drug running. “Drugs used to come up to our area from the Caribbean,” Keefe said. “Now, they tend to originate in China, move through Mexico, cross the Texas border onto I-10, go from Mobile to Atlanta and then down I-75 into North Florida. Some of our largest drug-related takedowns occur in rural counties, like Gadsden, with small SEX TRAFFICKING populations and a limited law enforcement In August, Keefe announced that a Pensacola presence. They are out of the way, but still business owner, David C. Williams, had there is quick access to interstates.” been arrested on a federal warrant and Election interference, then, comes as charged with using interstate facilities while a growing concern on top of many other engaged in racketeering, money laundering moles to whack. conspiracy, and the harboring of illegal aliens “We don’t want to wait until after 2020 for financial gain. and have Mueller 2.0,” Keefe said. “The Williams was arrested in connection with PTU works to be preemptive and proactive. his operation of multiple Asian massage To protect the integrity of elections, we parlors in Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania. are concerned about cyber activity, of According to a news release, more than course. But we also have to be attuned to a dozen search warrants were executed the potential for old school interference — at massage parlors linked to Williams in fraudulent registrations, improper voter roll locations including Pensacola, Gulf Breeze purges, irregularities associated and Gainesville. with absentee balloting.” Cases like the one against Is Keefe confident about Williams are not easily tried safeguarding the 2020 election? in court, Keefe said, owing to “In terms of what we the unreliability, many times, learn and know, every day is of victims as witnesses. a different snapshot.” Keefe “If the victim is a bank said. “And there are limits to that was robbed or somewhat the federal government one who was kidnapped, My staff can do. The feds do not witnesses are available and benefits play a significant role in the stable and motivated to from my authority curating and certification of show up in court,” Keefe and my ability to an election. We can provide said. “Sex trafficking is difmake decisions the Florida secretary of state ferent. Victims are often and make things and the 67 supervisors of subject to difficult circumhappen, and I elections with information stances in life, there may be benefit from their about activity we suspect, and substance-abuse issues inknowledge and then we largely have to go volved, and a lot of victims experience.” away. We can’t intrude upon are teenage runways. In the U.S. Attorney their role.” six or nine months between Larry Keefe

28 / 2019–20 TA L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L

PHOTO BY ALEX WORKMAN

Tallahassee Business Journal

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Tallahassee Business Journal

DOWNTOWN IMPROVEMENT AUTHORITY

YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART Tallahassee’s urban core is pulsing with activity By Steve Bornhoft

Elizabeth Emmanuel, the CEO of the Downtown Improvement Authority, is confident that Tallahassee has all of the infrastructure and assets it needs to attract a widening circle of area residents to its downtown.

When Paige Carter-Smith resigned her post as the DIA’s director after being indicted on federal charges, three of which she pleaded guilty to in August, Emmanuel decided to apply for the position. She takes no offense at suggestions, made by persons

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with knowledge of her employment history, that she was the perfect woman to breathe new life into the organization. Emmanuel immediately began “giving talks all over town,” assuring audiences that “the bad press of the past year doesn’t

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

lizabeth Emmanuel admits that she has never much succeeded in escaping downtown Tallahassee. Not that she’s complaining. She grew up in the capital city’s Lafayette Park neighborhood and, in March, she assumed the helm of its Downtown Improvement Authority (DIA), working to move the organization past the headlines that enveloped her predecessor in that role. Emmanuel strayed from Tallahassee just long enough to earn a degree at the MidAmerica College of Funeral Service in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Upon graduating, she found employment at a small, locally owned funeral home back where she belongs. There, she worked for 10 years, taking on roles as funeral director, embalmer — and director of community relations — before considering whether her skill set would transfer to other industries. “Of course, the embalming didn’t, but the marketing and PR part did,” Emmanuel said. She went to work for Leadership Tallahassee, a program of the Chamber of Commerce and, as an extension of that job, served on boards including that of the DIA.

Let us help you work ‘ON’ your business. SMALL BUSINESS EXECUTIVE PROGRAM (SBEP) Participants learn to think differently and become more efficient running their business. The overall goal of this program is to help particpants work “ON” their business. There is no cost to participate. For more information about the program, or the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship, visit jmi.fsu.edu. CONTACT Mike Campbell (850) 644-4414 mscampbell@JimMoranInstitute.fsu.edu jmi.fsu.edu 2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 31

DOWNTOWN IMPROVEMENT AUTHORITY

represent who we are and what we’re doing. Give us a chance to prove that to you; attend one of our events.” All DIA events are free. They include the Sundown Concert Series at Cascades Park, yoga classes at Kleman Plaza and the long-running Downtown Marketplace happenings held at Ponce de Leon Park offering fresh produce, the works of local artists, music and more. “We’ve got the right infrastructure, the right bones,” Emmanuel said. “We have great restaurants with great operators, lots of museums, and we are rich in public amenities. We have more green spaces, more parks and more free parking than most urban communities have.” Emmanuel is always mindful of the approximately 650 urban-core property owners who pay ad valorem taxes assessed by the DIA’s special taxing district, and intends that they get a good return on their investment. Events generate foot traffic to their benefit. In addition, the DIA has undertaken beautification projects — traffic-control and utility boxes are being dressed up and murals are replacing graffiti — to promote civic pride. Thirty girls from the Oasis Center for Women and Girls transformed a blighted wall into a beautiful public art element. “They got to be part of making a lasting, positive change, and how great is that?” Emmanuel enthused. “They are growing

Downtown Improvement Authority-sponsored events, like this yoga class at Kleman Plaza, are free. They serve to attract visitors to downtown and increase the likelihood that they will return.

POWERFUL PROMOTERS From left to right, Word of South Festival director Sara Marchessault; Betsy Couch, executive director, Knight Creative Communities Institute (KCCI); Downtown Improvement Authority CEO Elizabeth Emmanuel; and Liz Joyner, founder and CEO of the Village Square, joined in a KCCI placemaking event at the Rootstock restaurant.

up knowing what it feels like to be part of a solution.” In her first five months working for the DIA, Emmanuel had conversations with more than 100 downtown businesses and supporters from outside the taxing district about what the agency is doing right and what it could do better. In so doing, she was reminded that there is more work to be done in discouraging the impression that downtown is for white men in suits. “We want people to see downtown as the heart of our community, not just a place for business,” Emmanuel said. “We might have to clear some arteries and put in some stints, but when you get it beating again, it’s a wonderful thing. That takes a lot of buy-in, and it’s not something that any one organization can accomplish. You have to have the community on board.” Maximizing buy-in means making downtown inclusive. More attention needs to be paid to members of minority groups who live or own businesses downtown, Emmanuel said. Public spaces need to be evaluated in terms of their accessibility by persons with disabilities. “We are trying to better integrate the DIA into the community, make it less detached,” Emmanuel said. “We have been pulling together focus groups of restaurateurs, hospitality industry folks

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and representatives of cultural institutions. And we’re asking what we can do to help.” Themes emerge, including public safety, walkability and the need to tempt greater numbers of visitors downtown. “If we provide them with a good experience, people drawn to a free concert at Cascades Park are likely to revisit downtown and may attend ticketed events,” Emmanuel said. “They may frequent a restaurant on their next trip.” Downtown development and redevelopment activities are sending visitors the right message: the heart of Tallahassee’s pulse is strong. “When you start to get large-chain hotels arriving downtown, it’s a sign of a vibrant economy,” Emmanuel said. “They do market research. They’re not guessing. We should feel good about meeting their requirements.” Emmanuel was impressed by the downtown business community’s response when FSU’s football opener versus Boise State was moved due to Hurricane Dorian from Jacksonville to Tallahassee with little notice. “Our hotel operators and restaurants reacted quickly to a huge unanticipated influx of people,” Emmanuel said. “It was a real testament to how good they are. They are a big part of the reason I look forward to doing what I do every day.”

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS

Tallahassee Business Journal

LOCAL

MEETS

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Rogers, Gunter, Vaughn Insurance, a HUB International company 1117 Thomasville Road | Tallahassee,FL 32303 | 850-386-1111 2019â&#x20AC;&#x201C;20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 33

THE MITCHELLS AGENCY

The Mitchells won Best of Broadcast recognition in the 2019 American Advertising Federation Awards for a commercial (still shots, above) that promoted awareness of children’s emergency care services available at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. The agency’s Erich and Robin Stefanovich, left, display divergent tastes in reading.

M SLIPPIN’ AND SLIDIN’ TO THE TOP The Mitchells agency succeeds by mining for insights By Steve Bornhoft

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arketers Robin and Erich Stefanovich prize unexpected insights, nuggets discovered as the product, not of data analysis, but of research that is likely to include interviews and may involve walking a mile in a client’s shoes or those of its customers. The Stefanoviches — of the two, Robin seems a lot less likely to speed through curves — have led The Mitchells, an integrated marketing and communication firm in Tallahassee, going on four years. The key customers they inherited include Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. But, rather than simply build on past efforts, Erich, the agency’s chief creative officer, wanted to understand TMH’s operations by doing his own research. “It’s really an ‘old school’ approach,” he said. “If I want to know how a trucking company works, I may go and sit in the passenger seat with the trucker while he makes deliveries. At TMH, I have actually watched heart surgeries performed. How am I going to sell heart surgery if I don’t know how they do it?”

PHOTO BY BRUCE PALMER (STEFANOVICHS AND LLAMA) AND DAVE BARFIELD (PANTONE BOOKS AND AWARDS) AND COURTESY OF THE MITCHELL AGENCY (COMMERCIAL CLIPS)

Tallahassee Business Journal

As a result of Erich’s experience as an operating room observer, he learned that the life of a heart surgeon is more chaotic than he would have thought. Inherently, doctors aren’t always sure how a case will proceed and cannot predict what tomorrow might bring. “That’s their life at work,” Erich said. “It’s war, it’s a battle. You can’t get those insights sitting here. You’ve got to get out there and see how people are actually living their lives. It’s virtually connected, but we live in a real world.” Robin, the president and CEO at The Mitchells, commented that “data-driven” is taking its turn as a big buzzword. “Yes, we look at data, but it’s really about the human contact and speaking with our client’s audience and then the client’s team to find out what they think about themselves,” Robin said. “If we are given the leeway to do those deep dives, what comes out of it is really pretty amazing. It’s fun when everything clicks.” Everything clicked when the Stefanoviches and their team at The Mitchells produced a multi-media campaign focused on the availability of children’s emergency services at TMH, a project that earned the agency its first national American Advertising Federation awards. (That’s a big deal.) “Children and trauma, it doesn’t paint a very good picture in your head for starters. It’s yucky, even gory,” Erich said. “So we went to another ladder to find other implications of those words. We did a common sense thing. Children have mommies and daddies, so we went to talk to parents.” Internally, agency team members found themselves reliving their own childhood experiences. Erich recalled tumbling down a flight of stairs in a cardboard box to the amusement of his older siblings. “That’s what kids darn do,” Erich said. “Now, how do you make that into a commercial?” In a 30-second TV spot, a little red-haired girl prepares to speed downhill on a Slip ’n’ Slide and through a hula hoop of fire. The commercial concludes with the line, “As long as kids will be kids, we’ll be ready.” Working on a budget, Erich cast the spot with actors from Atlanta and employed a Tallahassee business, Evolution Media, to shoot and edit the 30. “We took out the fear and trauma and replaced it with hope and care and reassurance,” Erich said.

“Everything came together and obviously resonated with people,” Robin said. “And we won national awards. To get national recognition for an agency our size, in a town this size, is pretty phenomenal. But that exemplifies our attitude about ourselves. We are an agency based in Tallahassee, but we are not a Tallahassee agency.” The marketing world, given the proliferation of messaging platforms, has evolved at breakneck speed. To keep pace, the Stefanoviches pay up to secure the best employees, from down the street or across the country, and embrace a “thought leader philosophy.” “I remember days in New York when a kid would come in off the street with a sketch on a napkin and say, ‘I’ve got a great idea for an ad,’ and you’d hire him,” Erich said. “Those days are gone. Today, you’ve got to be able to do those social, techy kinds of things. We look for people who are entrepreneurial, for people who are thinkers and can serve as thought leaders at the

agency. People who push the envelope and aren’t afraid to fail.” Those who catch on report to an old house with a fireplace. Erich sweeps the walk every morning. It’s humble. But that’s appropriate, Robin said, to an agency that views itself as “superstar talent without the ego.” “It’s not about creating art for art’s sake,” Robin said about her thought-leader way of thinking. “It’s about understanding what our client’s audience needs and wants and what inspires them to remain loyal to a specific brand.” Erich said art, science and gut instinct all play a part at The Mitchells. “Most agencies look at topical data. Say 500 people want vanilla and only 10 people want cherry. Let’s sell vanilla, you might say. That’s easy. “But the 10 people who want cherry, how can we make that 500 people? You start with the data, but you have to discover insights about what drives the behavior. That’s what we do.”

The Mitchells has embraced the llama as its spirit animal. The creative team at the agency recognizes the importance of elements, including color, packaging and messaging to the success of marketing efforts. 2019–20 T A L L A H A S S E E B U S I N E S S J O U R N A L / 35

One of

THE SOUTH’S

STANDOUT food and beverage

FESTIVALS.

APRIL 23–26, 2020 Grand Boulevard at Sandestin® Miramar Beach, FL

Thursday • Winemakers & Shakers • 5pm–7pm Friday • VIP Wine Tasting Kick-Off • 4pm–6pm Friday • Craft Beer & Spirits Jam • 6pm–9pm Saturday & Sunday • Grand Tastings • 1pm–4pm

A dazzling roster of dozens of celebrity winemakers, distillers, chefs, brew masters and entertainers converge in South Walton, Florida to wine, dine, educate and entertain guests as part of the four-day celebration of wine during the South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival held April 23-26, 2020 throughout Grand Boulevard. Attendees enjoy such attractions as Jackson Family Wine World, featured wine celebrity Alessia Antinori of Marchesi Antinori, Savor South Walton Culinary Village, Nosh Pavilions, Tasting Seminars, Craft Beer & Spirits Jam, live entertainment and more than 600 wines presented by knowledgeable wine industry insiders.

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SOUTH WALTON BEACHES WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL POURS MORE PREMIER WINES THAN EVER

Sips, swills, spirits and surprises expected at eighth annual festival

ight years ago, Chan Cox envisioned a wine festival that promised world-class wines, fabulous food and a generous check for charities. These remain the fundamental tenets of the South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival, but he intends each year to bring something new to the festival — and attendees have taken notice. From April 23–26, thousands of wine lovers from around the country will gravitate to the Town Center of Grand Boulevard to taste from an impressive roster of winemakers, distillers, brewers and chefs. The last weekend in April also happens to be when the Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation holds their top-ranked charity wine auction, making South Walton the epicenter of the wine universe. Wine, charity and fun converge for Northwest Florida’s ultimate wine week. The festival’s creator and founder of Wine World, Cox has spent decades fostering strong relationships with winemakers, and that will become more apparent this year. “One of the things that is so compelling about this festival is that we mix it up every year, and this year is no exception,” said Stacey Brady, executive director of the South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival. “We work to keep it fresh and incorporate unexpected details that attendees absolutely love.” Historically, the festival has poured over 800 wines, but this year will mark an exciting shift from quantity to superior quality. In 2020, more than 600 wines will be

poured, still an impressive selection, complemented by the best wines the festival has ever had. Another new and exciting element of this year’s festival is the Jackson Family Wine World showcase, which will be a central feature during the Grand Tastings on Saturday and Sunday. Jackson Family Wines has wineries around the world, and the showcase will feature designs that emphasize international stations paired with international wines. Alongside these new additions will be crowd favorites such as: nosh pavilions featuring specialty foods; spirits row packed with distilleries; celebrity seminars; the Friday night Craft Beer & Spirits Jam; and the VIP Tasting on Friday. The Friday evening VIP Tasting is for the serious wine lover, allowing them to taste collectible and rare wines and talk directly to the winemakers. VIP tickets earn attendees access to all of the weekend’s events. While the festival has been highly awarded and is acknowledged as the Southeast’s premier wine and food festival, the most gratifying aspect is that each ticket sale contributes to the Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation, which supports 16 charities throughout Northwest Florida. “Our attention to detail is what makes this a first-class experience, providing access to the finest wines, creative culinary experiences and leading trends in the wine festival industry,” said Brady. The South Walton Beaches Wine & Food Festival presents an unparalleled opportunity to sip, swill, taste and try flavors that will enliven your taste buds and engage your mind.

For more information and to buy tickets go to SoWalWine.com 850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

Difference

Makers

Pinnacle Award winners shape communities STORY BY STEVE BORNHOFT // PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE FENDER

owland Publishing and 850 Magazine celebrated 11 prominent, highly successful — and, each in her own way — formidable women at the sixth annual Pinnacle Awards luncheon, held in August at Florida State University Panama City. The Pinnacle Awards program, which was suggested at its inception by Gulf Power Co., recognizes women who have distinguished themselves professionally and in service to communities. And, there is another common denominator among them: leadership. “Populate a chess board with pawns only, and there is no opportunity to think strategically, no opportunity to achieve goals,” 850 Magazine’s editor said in addressing the sold-out luncheon. “All you have is a scrum. Fill a room with brilliant minds and challenge them to fix the housing shortage created by Hurricane Michael in Bay and surrounding counties, and it’s likely that no progress will be made until someone emerges as a leader. “The history of the world is the history of leadership. The history of Northwest Florida is substantially the history of women in leadership roles.” Indeed, Pinnacle winners from 2019 and previous years plan to use their collective clout to benefit Northwest Florida. They departed the Holley Academic Center at FSU PC with plans to call for a greater focus at the state level on Hurricane Michael recovery. The Pinnacle Awards Class of 2019 included Kristine Knab, a steadfast believer in justice for all who died in July 2018 after leading Legal Services of North Florida for nearly 40 years. Erin Kenney of Tallahassee was on hand to accept the Pinnacle Award in her mother’s memory.

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CLASS OF 2019

Rowland Publishing and 850 Magazine honored 11 accomplished women with Pinnacle Awards in August.

PINNACLE AWARDS

The Class of 2019 also includes: » Mona A. Amodeo, Ph.D., Founder/President, idgroup » Cindi Bonner, Director, Rally Pensacola » Stacey Brady, Marketing and Communications Director, Grand Boulevard at Sandestin » Daryl Rose Davis, Co-Founder, Seaside, Florida » Marsha Doll, Owner, Marsha Doll Models » Amy Hoyt, Senior Evening News Co-Anchor, WMBB-TV » Kimberly Krupa, Executive Director, Achieve Escambia » Tiffanie Nelson, Founder/CEO, Food for Thought » Sandy Sims, Director of External Relations, Gulf Power Co. » Michelle Ubben, President/Partner, Sachs Media Group Daryl Davis, remarkably, traveled to Panama City from Houston, where her husband Robert was undergoing cancer treatment, to participate in the awards luncheon. She presumably spoke for all when she said, “It is an honor to be chosen to receive a Pinnacle Award. Of course, I know many of the women who were recognized here today. People at the forefront of things tend to bump into one another.” McKenzie Burleigh, Rowland Publishing’s vice president for corporate development, acknowledged at the luncheon the sponsors who make the Pinnacle Awards program possible. This year’s presenting sponsor was Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Additional sponsors were: Sacred Heart Health Systems; Gulf Power Co.; Counts Real Estate; CareerSource Gulf Coast; FSU PC; ResortQuest by Wyndham Vacation Rentals, which supplied a weekend vacation as a door prize; Vivid Bridge Studios video production, which recorded interviews with the honorees; and Project Style Salon, which provided hair and makeup services, ensuring that honorees looked their best when they took the stage to receive their awards. Karen Moore served as the luncheon’s keynote speaker. A Pinnacle Award winner in 2017, she is the founder and CEO of Moore, a

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

Kristine Knab

Tallahassee, Longtime Executive Director, Legal Services of North Florida Honored posthumously

WINTER 2019

Clarence Earl Gideon was a middle school dropout, a habitual, two-bit scofflaw and an on-again, off-again jail inmate. In 1961, he was arrested for breaking into a Panama City, Florida, pool hall and stealing coins from vending machines. He was subsequently tried and convicted. Gideon had asked for an attorney, but the trial judge said Florida provided attorneys only to indigent defendants in capital cases. Gideon, with handwritten letters, would appeal first to the Florida Supreme Court and then to the U.S. Supreme Count for relief from his conviction, arguing that it was unconstitutional because he had been denied representation. The highest court in the land, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Hugo Black, sided with Gideon. Gideon v. Wainwright — Louie L. Wainwright was the director of the Florida Division of Corrections — provided the basis for much of Kris Knab’s life’s work. As the executive director for nearly 40 years at Legal Services of North Florida, she fought, fought against the dying of that right. She gave a voice to the voiceless, a chance to the otherwise disfranchised. She did not go gentle into that good night. Leslie Powell-Boudreaux, Kris’s successor at Legal Services of North Florida, chooses words including inspirational, principled and uncompromising

850businessmagazine.com

Too, Moore encouraged women to take risks. “When you hear that voice that tells you to go for it, go for it,” she said. Moore went for it in 1992, leaving behind “the best job in the world at Florida State University” to launch her own business at a time when she was by herself as the only female CEO in Tallahassee. She adopted “virtual mentors,” she said, to guide her progress: Thomas Edison, Walt Disney and Mother Teresa. For Moore, the trio represents persistence despite failures, marketing genius and selflessness. Precisely the kind of qualities that the Pinnacle Awards are all about.

to describe Knab, who died July 19, 2018, following 2½ years in which she fought pancreatic cancer with the kind of vigor she might have shown a corrupt circuit court judge. “She could be ferocious,” Powell-Boudreaux said. “She was a straight shooter. You knew where she stood.” And, she was magnanimous. “She made time for anyone who reached out to her for legal advice,” said her daughter, Erin Kenney. Knab was born in 1951 in Buffalo, New York. She graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and went on to earn her law degree at FSU. Her specialized coursework anticipated her career path. She focused on civil rights and liberties, legal problems of the poor and public sector labor law. Her community activities included service to the Orange Avenue United Tenants Association and the Leon County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. She was the first recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Public Service. She was recognized by Tallahassee Community College as a Woman of Courage and Vision. Last October, the FSU College of Law honored her with its inaugural Exemplary Public Service Career Award. Her portrait hangs in the Law School rotunda.

“When I moved to Tallahassee from Pensacola,” PowellBoudreaux recalled, “I knew Kris was a hard worker who believed in justice for all. What I did not know was her embodiment of that commitment. Each time I met someone in Tallahassee, they knew Kris. They had served with her on a commission, or their children had played soccer together. And each told a story something like this: Kris would sit on the bleachers or a camp chair or a towel, reading a grant, article or report, pencil in hand, making notes, while at the same time cheering every goal or welldefended play. Kris knew everyone and greeted all with a warm smile. Yet amid that friendliness, she never lost her fierceness. “When Kris believed one of our primary funders was moving away from our mission of helping people in poverty, she spoke firmly and diplomatically, advocating for the importance of legal aid funding. My favorite Kris story is also a sad one, as she reserved her final Saturday before she passed for a call with that very funder to emphasize the importance of focusing on the root causes of poverty. She planted seeds firmly, deliberately and thoughtfully. A year after her passing, I see daily the fruit trees that sprung from the seeds she planted throughout the community.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KNAB FAMILY

Tallahassee-based communication and integrated marketing firm that has been named to prestigious lists, including Florida Trend Best Places to Work and the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll. Moore, drawing in part upon lessons contained in her 2016 bestselling book, Behind the Red Door: Unlock Your Advocacy Influence and Success, encouraged the members of the audience at the sold-out luncheon to serve as their own champions while complimenting others for their work and contributions. “Conduct your own brand assessment,” she advised. “What one word do you think comes to mind when people hear your name? What word would you have them think of first?”

PINNACLE AWARDS

Dr. Mona Amodeo Pensacola; Founder and President, idgroup

A nun, a football coach and an industrialist walked into a life. Collectively, eventually, they would profoundly affect the course and the work of a branding agency in Pensacola, Florida. Mona Amodeo, the founder and president of idgroup, was a secondgrader when a Catholic nun, Sister Mary Margaret, encouraged her and her classmates to drop nickels and dimes in a

jar on the face of which was a photo of the Earth and three words, “For the Children.” “She taught us that we were citizens of the world,” Amodeo said. Art Williams was the football coach when Amodeo encountered him at Kendrick High School in Columbus, Georgia. She wasn’t on the team, but Williams nonetheless demonstrated to her the power of purpose and teamwork. He went on to build the largest term life insurance business in the world. Amodeo was doing work on her doctorate at Interface, Inc., a carpet manufacturer in Atlanta, when she met

Ray Anderson, the business’s founder and chairman. “He redefined my purpose and strengthened my belief in my power to make a difference with what we do at idgroup,” Amodeo said. Amodeo and her team at idgroup help companies cut through the clutter of a busy marketplace in which countless promotional messages are in circulation and position them so that they “stand out and stand above.” “Today, people want to do business with, work for and contribute to companies and organizations that have something that they stand for and stand behind,” Amodeo said. “People ask themselves, ‘What does buying something from you say about me?’ ” Amodeo is confounded by businesses that spend tremendous time and effort on attracting customers and spend no time figuring out how to keep them. She and the members of her team collaborate with businesses to clarify their identities, crystallize their narratives and ensure that their messages align with customer experiences. Amodeo incorporates a strengths-based approach to her work. “Study what’s wrong, and you are apt to get more of what’s wrong,” she said. “Study what’s right and what’s working and build on that, and you are likely to be better off.” After a business successfully works on its identity, story, messaging and relationships with its customers, there remains more work to do, Amodeo said. A company must demonstrate that it is a responsible global citizen. idgroup does so with initiatives including Brand On Us, in which it partners with local nonprofit organizations to meet branding and organizational development needs with campaigns valued at $100,000. “People who work to benefit people and the environment in addition to their balance sheet are the people who will win,” Amodeo said. “Others will be left at the bus stop.”

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

PINNACLE AWARDS

Cindi Bonner

Pensacola; Director, Rally Pensacola Immediately upon learning in 2013 that a 4-year-old neighbor boy had bone cancer, Cindi Bonner was inspired to do much more than deliver casseroles to a family dealing with a devastating diagnosis. She helped the family establish and manage a Facebook page and a website designed to promote awareness of the boy’s plight. And she soon discovered that the boy’s circumstances were far from unique. Indeed, she would learn, new childhood cancer cases arrive at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola at the rate of almost one a week.

WINTER 2019

850businessmagazine.com

Bonner proceeded to establish Rally Pensacola, an extension of the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research in Atlanta. As the leader of Rally Pensacola’s fundraising and advocacy efforts, she raised more than $1 million in the last three years alone. Fundraising events include “Rally On the Runway,” where Rally Kids, children who are fighting or have defeated cancer, strut a runway arm in arm with athletes and other celebrities. The professional models who participate in a spring fashion show as part of the same event can scarcely compete with the endearing amateurs.

“The work that Cindi is doing benefits so many children and their families,” said Carol Carlan, president of the Sacred Heart Foundation in Pensacola. Money raised by Bonner goes to research and to defraying extraordinary expenses incurred by families with children who are undergoing treatment for cancer. Those expenses may include room nights, transportation, meals and even medicine. “We are so fortunate to have Cindi and her passion for helping others,” Carlan said. “She has an office on the Sacred Heart campus and is a member of the hospital’s advisory council, and we see her interacting with families every day, identifying needs that might otherwise go unaddressed.” “I have seen what happens to families when a child is diagnosed with cancer — the financial burdens,” Bonner has said. “I have seen them struggle to pay their power bills, and quit jobs to stay home to care for their children. And I have gone to funerals.” In February, Bonner received the Rally for Research Award from the Rally Foundation in Atlanta. The award recognized her significant impact as the volunteer director of Rally Pensacola. “Cindi has been a true partner for Sacred Heart,” Henry Stovall, CEO of the Studer Family Children’s Hospital, said at the time. “From visiting families during hospital stays to achieving spectacular fundraising initiatives for childhood cancer research, her leadership knows no bounds.” Bonner earned a double undergraduate degree from the University of Denver, majoring in child psychology and drawing. She later earned a master’s degree in exercise physiology, founded Fitness Onboard LLC, and secured a patent for a standup paddleboard specific to fitness. “Cindi is a tireless advocate for pediatric oncology patients,” Carlan said. “In addition to hosting an annual candlelight vigil for childhood cancer patients, she has rallied at the U.S. Capitol and spoken before a congressional summit on childhood cancer. “She even ran a fundraising half-marathon pushing an IV pole.”

Stacey Brady

Miramar Beach; Marketing/ Communications Director, Grand Boulevard In 2006, the Howard Group had embarked on an ambitious project, Grand Boulevard at Sandestin. The developer was capable, certainly, of carrying out the design and construction phases of the job but needed someone to craft the story of the development and breathe life into its brand. To fill that role, the Howard Group’s Myra Williams brought on board as a consultant Stacey Brady, whose work in the community and on behalf of entities, including the Seaside Development Corp., had impressed her. Thirteen years later, Brady is the marketing and communications director for Grand Boulevard and, said Myra, “she continues to own and cultivate the brand. She has expanded the audience for the development with the many events she has created and managed there. By design, we build a charitable component into the events conducted at Grand Boulevard, and Stacy has kept that vision alive. “She is constantly growing partnerships.” In so doing, Brady has turned a venue where people splurge on fine meals and

shop for nonessentials into a place that helps feed the hungry. Beyond the Boulevard, Brady’s community-based work has included service as marketing committee chair for the Visit South Walton Tourist Development Council; co-founder, advisor and board member for the Florida Public Relations Association; a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC); the director of marketing and public relations for the Seaside Community Development Corporation; and marketing and business development director for Charter Behavioral Healthcare Corporation. Her list of professional awards won is arm’s length. Asked to name an event whose growth and success exceeded her expectations, Brady runs through a list in her mind and settles on two examples: The Festival of Trees, launched in 2011 and held at the Grand Boulevard Town Center, has become one of the most anticipated events on the crowded Emerald Cost holiday season calendar. Local nonprofits compete for $8,000 in prize money awarded to the charities that create the Christmas trees that most impress a panel of judges. The South Walton Wine & Food Festival,

born six years ago and held in April, showcases fruits of the efforts of some of the top vintners and chefs in the world, with net proceeds benefitting the Destin Charity Wine Auction. Williams, meanwhile, admires Brady’s consistency. “With her skill set and her tenacity and her enthusiasm for life, Brady is always confident about outcomes,” Williams said. She said Brady loves a challenge and, in particular, the research involved in event planning and management. “She is very open to ideas, and then she distills them into what’s appropriate,” Williams said. “She thinks strategically about how charities and businesses will benefit from an event.” And she’s formidable, Williams said. “When she sets her strategy, she tries to adhere to it. In today’s world, especially with social media, there are opinions galore. But Stacey places objectives ahead of personalities and focuses on accomplishing the mission. She entertains input along the way, but she doesn’t let that slow down momentum. “I have never had the feeling that something wasn’t going to happen when Stacey was involved. Trust in her is never misplaced, and that’s a good feeling.”

850 Business Magazine

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Tiffanie Nelson

Santa Rosa Beach; Founder/CEO, Food for Thought Tiffanie Nelson was unprepared for what she learned the day she enrolled her firstborn child in kindergarten. Never had she considered the various serious issues that might have deleterious effects on child development, all of them screened for as part of the enrollment process: homelessness, hunger, abuse and more. Nelson had come in off the road after years spent working large territories for Ralph Lauren and Under Armour. Now, she was working in one location, and despite rearing two small children as a divorced single mother, she was looking for an opportunity to become involved in the community. “I looked at my son Avery, and I couldn’t imagine sending him to school when he hadn’t eaten for days,” Nelson said. “I thought about the stress and fear and anxiety that would cause. I became familiar with the term, ‘student security.’ ” Nelson called Tammy Smith, who was

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then the principal at Butler Elementary School in Santa Rosa Beach. Smith described the challenges associated with trying to educate and care for at-risk children. Nelson resolved to help. She started small. Nelson visited Good News United Methodist Church in Santa Rosa Beach and explained her desire to furnish students with food beyond that which they received at school. Her pitch succeeded. She received $300 from the church’s community fund and off she went to the grocery store with Avery and daughter Emma. “We started by helping out six kids,” Nelson recalled. “Then it grew to 16, 36, 48. My table was covered with apples, bananas, bread and peanut butter and jelly. Friends started delivering food to my house. Word got around, and soon there was a waiting list for our help.” After a year, Nelson established Food for Thought as a 501(c)(3) organization. Today, Food for Thought is Nelson’s full-time job. The program serves students in 33 schools in Walton and Okaloosa counties. In the 2018-19 school year, the program distributed more than a million

food items. During the school year, the operation requires more than 250 volunteer hours each week. Food for Thought’s annual budget exceeds $1 million. During the school year, students carry home food in backpacks on Fridays for consumption during the weekend. Food pickup stations are established during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and summer breaks. “Hunger affects physical, emotional and cognitive development,” Nelson said. “If you are starving, your ability to focus and pay attention is really diminished. You start to fall behind, and then you get left behind.” Two years ago, Food for Thought launched Full Circle Kitchen, a program that gives at-risk students opportunities to work with local chefs and to learn how to prepare food on a budget. The goal is to equip students for restaurant industry employment. “One of our students helped us start to realize that goal,” Nelson said. “He now works with Emeril Lagasse at his restaurant at Grand Boulevard.” BAM!

PINNACLE AWARDS

Marsha Doll Tallahassee; Owner, Marsha Doll Models

Marsha Doll is given to highly infectious energy and will launch into a motivational speech at the slightest provocation. Asked whether beautiful people are too often content to try to get by on their looks, Marsha was triggered. “No one is going to knock on your door looking for you,” she said. “People sit around and procrastinate and they

want this and they want that, but what are they really doing about it? Especially in modeling, you’ve got to be on your game; there are a billion talented people out there who want in, and you’re not going to get there unless you take the time to learn, to practice and to put yourself in a situation where it can happen. Proactively set goals and every day do at least one thing that brings you closer to achieving them. Get out there and get uncomfortable, because nothing comes from being comfortable. Don’t get me started now.” Doll would herself appear capable of

assuming control of any situation, of softening the hardest heart, of causing a confirmed stoic to sing and dance. She was 14 when her mother took her to a merchandise mart in Atlanta to buy clothing for the store that Marsha’s grandfather opened upon his arrival from Lithuania in Perry, Florida, in 1925. A model scheduled to report to an exhibitor at the mart failed to show up. The exhibitor, whose product line was children’s clothing, sized up Doll, commented that she was tall and thin and asked, “Can you model?” Doll put herself out there and got uncomfortable, and career seeds were sown. While a student at Florida State, Doll did modeling work for Eileen Mitchell, the owner of an agency in Tallahassee and Valdosta, Georgia. Mitchell escorted her to New York where she was accustomed to hanging out with Kennedys and big dogs from high-fashion agencies, including Wilhelmina. The mentor and her mentee from Perry, Florida, traveled in limousines and visited the exclusive Studio 54 discotheque. “If not for Eileen, I wouldn’t have gotten around to doing what I’m doing in a million years,” Doll said. She had established her own agency in Tallahassee when she was hired by a marketing firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, to staff booths at Doak Campbell Stadium on football Saturdays with young people who would entice fans to fill out credit card applications in exchange for a T-shirt. Other such operations were taking place at sports venues around the country, but Doll outperformed them all and was rewarded with additional gigs from the University of Miami to Southern Cal. She was in the money. Big money. People present themselves successfully, Doll said, when they exhibit confidence and passion. Like she does. “I want to continue along the path that I have created for myself over 30 years, to live the rest of the movie and go out with a bang,” Doll said. That much is assured.

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Amy Hoyt Panama City; Senior Evening News Co-Anchor, WMBB-TV

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For 25 consecutive years, Amy Hoyt has been delivering the news to viewers of WMBB-TV in Panama City. In the industry she first entered in 1980, such stability is an oddity, but she never aspired to a job in a major market or with a network. Hoyt’s first TV job was at WMBB rival WJHG, where the iconic Joe Moore hired her as a weekend anchor and weekday reporter and served as her first news director.

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“Joe was a good man and a great mentor,” Hoyt said. “He gave me my start in television, and I can never forget that.” These days, Hoyt is a mentor to reporters — now called “multi-media journalists” — who are younger than her own children. “We give them challenges, and they meet every one of them,” Hoyt said. “And we give them a lot to do. In a small market, they do it all.” Some news days are slower than others. “If we have the kind of day that doesn’t result in a lot of breaking news, that gives us the opportunity to air the story about school groups that we didn’t have time for the day before,” Hoyt said. “News doesn’t have to be bad to make our broadcasts.” Hurricane Michael is the biggest story Hoyt has covered in her career. She and fellow members of the WMBB news team covered developments, kept their cool and remained in professional character until Category 5 winds knocked them off the air and they became part of the shared storm experience. Asked about on-air gaffes she’d like to forget, Hoyt didn’t immediately recall one. Then, a smile overtook her face. “We were doing a health story on the benefits of exercise,” she said. “When I got to the word, pedometer, I said ‘peed-o-meet-er.’ My co-anchor at the time, Chris Cato, leaned into the shot in front of me and said, ‘Amy, it’s pedometer.’ We laughed pretty hard.” And that is Amy Hoyt — affable, fallible once in a great while, never flamboyant and always, it seems, neutral. She is a broadcaster who listens well and has a genuine interest in people. “It’s fun to be first,” she said, “but I’d rather be right. It’s our job to try to be perfect.”

PINNACLE AWARDS

Daryl Davis

Seaside; Co-founder of Seaside, Florida Early in the 1980s, when the first spec houses were being built in Seaside, Daryl Davis enrolled in a design class at a technical school. She wanted to be able to create flyers to promote the low-cost events that she and her husband Robert were conducting to attract people to the nascent community they were developing on 80 acres given to Robert by his grandfather. Events like watermelon-seed-spitting and tall-tale-telling contests. “The first few lots we sold went for $7,500,” Davis recalled. “In real estate, you want to convince potential buyers that if they don’t act now, they are going to miss out on an opportunity. But we had this big tract of land, and we were just getting started.” They knew what they were aiming to

create, however, even if they didn’t know exactly how to get there. They had traveled the South, at times with two architects newly minted by Princeton University, and taken note of those features of small towns they most liked. In Europe, they had visited beach towns, hundreds of years old, and studied the ways in which people interacted with them. They resolved to bring about a community like those built before World War II, one whose houses would reflect influences from the Old South. On the porch of a model home, Daryl and Robert and two professors from the school of architecture at the University of Miami developed a one-page set of specifications for Seaside. The specs addressed street dimensions, building heights, public spaces and building materials. Without realizing it, Davis and the others were writing an outline for a movement that would be known as New Urbanism. Davis decorated

and staged model homes at Seaside and, in so doing, defined a lifestyle. Her development as a businesswoman paralleled the development of Seaside, itself. Her first enterprise was a roadside produce stand. She established Perspicasity, a collection of 56-square-foot huts, offering grocery items, Italian pottery, children’s clothing and more. Over time, when a particular hut performed especially well, she would devote a full-size store to the hot-selling merchandise. “The huts were like incubators,” Davis said. Today, she owns five businesses at Seaside and has owned many more. She is a celebrated philanthropist whose giving reflects her passion for the arts and compassion for people battling drug and alcohol addiction. She is indebted to her mother Rose, who buried three husbands and taught her the value of self-reliance. “She was an inspiration,” Daryl said.

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Sandy Sims

Pensacola; Director of External Relations, Gulf Power Co. In 35 years as an employee of Gulf Power Co., Sandy Sims has had the opportunity to experience just about every aspect of the business. She started as a drafting clerk while working toward a college degree at night and has worked in operations, customer service, corporate communication, external affairs, economic development and community development. She has messed

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around in coal piles and worked in Gulf Power offices across Northwest Florida. “I tell people I have done everything but climb a pole,” Sims said, and then quickly added, “I have been to poleclimbing school, they just didn’t have climbing hooks small enough for me.” Indeed, it may be that, given the breadth of her experience, she is better qualified that any other single employee of Gulf Power to start a utility from the ground up. Sims, for decades, has enthusiastically devoted time, talent, energy and treasure to building and enhancing communities.

A mere sampler of her civic and charitable involvements might include her service as chair of the Niceville Chamber of Commerce, as chair of the board at Pensacola public television station WSRE, and her role as a founder of Impact 100 of Northwest Florida. Eight-year-old Impact 100 was begun when 100 women each pledged to contribute $1,000 annually to benefit nonprofit organizations in Okaloosa and Walton counties. It now includes more than 500 women who combined for more than a half-million dollars in grant awards this year. “My husband Randy doesn’t even want to know how much money I gave to that endeavor as it was getting started,” Sims said. “Much more than $1,000.” When Hurricane Michael rushed ashore, Sims was Gulf Power’s district general manager in the Panama City area. She earned plaudits from local governments, businesses and individuals for her accessibility after the storm and her selfless attention to the priorities and needs of others. Next Era Energy, which acquired Gulf Power in January, has since made Sims a director of external relations, an assignment that required her to move back to Pensacola from Bay County. It means, too, that Sims has had to extricate herself from several community involvements, but she plannned to remain chair of Bay County’s Economic Development Alliance until the end of 2019. “What a great time to be EDA chair,” Sims enthused. “We’re getting all kinds of inquiries and visits despite Hurricane Michael. Things are working just the way the model is supposed to work. GKN Aerospace came to town and now secondtier companies are expressing interest because of the great community that Bay County is.” As to Sandy Sims, Panama City’s loss will have been Pensacola’s gain.

PINNACLE AWARDS

Kimberly Krupa

Pensacola; Executive Director, Achieve Escambia The serpent in George Bernard Shaw’s collection of plays, Back to Methuselah, says to Eve, “You see things, and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and I say ‘Why not?’ ” No one would liken Kimberly Krupa to a snake, but her outlook on her community, as the product of personal evolution, now involves looking at the familiar as a starting place, not a resting place. In the early years of her professional career, she worked as a journalist for newspapers in New Jersey and Louisiana and developed a desire to more fully understand communities. Krupa went back to school and earned advanced degrees in urban studies. She

learned about forces that lead to change, good and bad. As the executive director of Achieve Escambia, a partnership dedicated to bringing about optimal outcomes for students, Krupa has learned to effect transformational progress. Debbie Calder, a 2017 Pinnacle Award winner, helped show her the way. Debbie, as board chair, was Krupa’s boss throughout her first 18 months at Achieve Escambia. “She was my guide to the community, and she with me with her vision for Achieve Escambia,” Krupa said. “She inspired me to accelerate to action.” As the quarterback of an elaborate partnership, Krupa is skilled at collaboration. “Building shared ownership of issues outside of traditional systems is probably my No. 1 job,” Krupa said. For example, she led Achieve

Escambia partners to help create a preschool program for 3-year-olds at a Pensacola school that is one of the most disadvantaged in Florida. “We heard from the school, from parents and from the community that they needed a high-quality preschool program that would start earlier than voluntary pre-K and Head Start programs,” Krupa said. In response, the private sector pulled together to fund what Krupa called an “intervention.” “You can’t be afraid to put your toe in the water,” she said. “One program for 3-year-olds isn’t going to save the world. We’re looking at starting small and building more programs in our community in a way that really will be transformative.” By the way, fully 100 percent of children exiting the new program are ready for kindergarten.

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Michelle Ubben

Tallahassee; President and Partner, Sachs Media Group Surely, Michelle Ubben manages somehow to bend time and get 27 hours out of each day, maybe more, because there is no way she could accomplish all that she does in a mere 24.

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A highly accomplished, award-winning communications and public relations professional, Ubben is the president of Sachs Media Group, whose reputation in areas including crisis management is national in scope. But she is also a mother of six children, a daughter who regularly finds time to spend with her mother — who is 99 at this writing — and a highly effective community volunteer.

With Ubben at the helm, the Sachs firm has twice been honored statewide for producing the year’s single best public relations campaign. She has earned a national Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media; a “Top Women in PR Award” from PR News; an international Stevie Award for Women in Business; and two Emmy awards. She was a finalist for the National Public Relations Executive of the Year and was named a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of the Florida Panhandle. Under Ubben’s leadership, Sachs Media was named PR Agency of the Year twice, best PR agency for Nonprofit Communications and Public Affairs, and one of Florida Trend’s 100 Best Companies to work for. Her work to rebrand the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs led to a 95% increase in services to veterans and an additional $2 billion of benefits drawn down which earned the All-Florida Grand Golden Image Award for the top statewide PR campaign of the year. She championed “Explore Adoption,” a campaign to promote public adoption in Florida that led the state to set records for two straight years in the number of finalized public adoptions. She led a multiyear effort benefiting efforts by Lauren’s Kids to prevent child sexual abuse and encourage child abuse reporting. As someone thoroughly involved in the life of her community, Ubben has worked with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Women United, the United Way of the Big Bend and the Leon High School Foundation. While he was Leon County’s superintendent of schools, Jackie Pons made Leon High School principal Rocky Hanna an assistant superintendent. At the time, Hanna wasn’t ready to be kicked upstairs. He liked being in touch with students every day and was a popular principal. Ubben, at the time, had children who were students at Leon High. She was among members of the Leon High School community who were upset that Hanna might be departing.

PINNACLE AWARDS

“Michelle came to me and asked if it would be OK if she took part in a peaceful protest calling for Rocky’s reinstatement as principal,” recalled Ron Sachs, the founder and CEO of Sachs Media Group, where Ubben has worked for the past 20 years. “I thanked her for asking, but told her she didn’t need my permission to do something like that,” Sachs said. Sachs, however, was unprepared for what greeted him a day later. There, above the fold, on the front page of the Tallahassee Democrat, was a photo of Ubben, behind a bullhorn, leading the protest on the steps leading to Leon High School’s main entrance. “Michelle is passionate about what she believes in,” Sachs understatedly said about Ubben. “Without exception, she is absolutely the most talented person that I have

the time, and Sachs recommended to the governor that he make her his successor. Ubben, with young children at the time, declined the opportunity and, like Sachs, started her own shop, renting office space from Sachs. About three years later, she joined the Sachs team. Today, as president, Ubben serves the agency as talent scout, mentor and coach. She is responsible day to day for client satisfaction and fulfillment and is heavily involved in the agency’s crisis management practice. She is engaged in much of the pro bono work that Sachs Media performs for good guy organizations. “People meet her, and they feel the warmth from her and her professionalism,” Sachs said. “She doesn’t ever raise her voice to make her point, and that’s a winning quality.”

ever worked with,” Sachs added. “And, she also has become my best friend. We have spent 20 years together growing this company, and it has been an exciting professional ride. “One of the things I love about her is that she has such terrific family values and has found a way to balance work and life better than almost anybody you could imagine. She is involved in her church. She has attended just about every event of consequence that her children have been involved in. She will never be an empty nester because her children love her so much, they will always want to come home. I have immense respect and affection for her.” Sachs resigned his job as director of communications for Gov. Lawton Chiles in the late 1990s to begin Sachs Media. Ubben was the communications director for the state Department of Agriculture at

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PROMOTION

2019 PINNACLE AWARDS RECAP

Rowland Publishing and 850 Magazine celebrated the contributions of Northwest Florida women of influence at the sixth annual Pinnacle Awards luncheon, held at Florida State University Panama City. Honorees (photo at top left) represented walks of life ranging from marketing and nonprofit administration to modeling and community visioning. All unselfishly undertake activities that make life better for others. Karen Moore, a previous Pinnacle Award recipient, served as keynote speaker. The honorees departed the luncheon resolved to work as a group to assist hurricane recovery efforts.

Thank you to all the sponsors who made this event possible PRESENTED BY 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE

SPONSORED BY

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grow your business With a local banking team that lives and works in Northwest Florida, we understand the value you bring to the community. We are committed to your success and can help your business grow with strategic advice, guidance and solutions that make business easier. We are proud to serve your business needs. That is why we are always asking: David Hulse Market President Commercial Banking Market Manager

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Rising Storm from the

Panama City is taking pages from the New Urbanism playbook BY STEVE BORNHOFT

PHOTOS RENDERING COURTESY OF COURTESY OF DOVER, KOHL & PARTNERS

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retired two-star general, Mark McQueen started work as the city manager in Panama City less than three weeks before Hurricane Michael stormed ashore, destroying trees, homes, businesses and public and private infrastructure. In the storm’s aftermath, he convened meetings populated by department directors whose names he hadn’t yet learned. In September, as part of a Seaside Institute symposium, “Transforming Communities Through New Urbanism After a Natural Disaster,” McQueen described the scope of the mess created by Michael and Panama City’s plans to build back “better, bigger and stronger” in response to it. Then, he entertained a few questions. “What can we do to help people like you?” came a question from the back row, asked by a woman who identified herself as an Air Force veteran. “Pray,” McQueen said, and then he paused, visibly emotional, before resuming. “People in Panama City are hurting,” he said. “They need a new hope.”

REIMAGINING DOWNTOWN Consultant guidance and public meetings have produced a plan that would transform intersections with features that would slow vehicular traffic and make streets more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. EXISTING

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“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” — Mark McQueen, city manager in Panama City To invest the city’s estimated 26,000 residents — Panama City’s pre-storm population was 36,000 — with that hope, McQueen plans to employ “policy, programs, processes and procedures in ways that will enable the city to realize its potential.” If that sounds like military-speak, it is. McQueen brought no municipal background to his job as city manager, but he almost surely has had more experience rebuilding cities than any of the other 80 individuals who applied for the position he now holds. For example, as the commanding general of the 108th Training Command headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, McQueen directed approximately 7,000 soldiers whose assignments included rebuilding Baghdad. About post-storm Panama City, McQueen remarked, “It was Baghdad with trees. I’ve learned a lot about trees lately.” He noted that countless pine trees in and around Panama City were snapped at a height about 20 feet above the ground. That, he has learned, was the level to which sap in the trees had fallen as they began to prepare

MAXIMIZED MARINA Panama City officials have long viewed the city’s downtown marina as an underutilized and undervalued asset. A strategic vision unveiled in October foresees the marina enhanced with plantings, green spaces and the addition of a hotel.

EXISTING

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for winter dormancy. Today, standing trees are dying in big numbers because their systems for distributing water and nutrients were irreparably damaged by the storm. Panama City’s “long-term planning project,” McQueen said, comprises four fundamental components and includes concepts embraced by new urbanists: ■ Clearly defined “lines of effort,” including

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providing for safety and security, shoring up vital infrastructure, restoring and growing the city’s economy and enhancing quality of life. A team approach, driven by citizen input. A commitment to 10 cornerstone ideas: waterfront access, downtown activity, downtown living, safety and security, sustainable building, resilient infrastructure, connections, placemaking, gathering spaces, updated standards. Uptown land development and transportation improvements, including the reconfiguring of “Malfunction Junction,” the confluence of U.S. 231, U.S. 98 and Harrison Avenue. Victor Dover, an urban designer and the principal lead with the Miami planning firm of Dover, Kohl & Partners, is leading a team of teams all working on the Panama City project and representing specialties ranging from transportation to debris removal. He was the symposium’s opening speaker. In response to disruptions such as natural disasters, Dover said, “designers put lines on paper. We try to lend order to the chaos. Someone has an idea, and we draw a picture and ask them if it is what they had in mind.” That is, they lead by design. Dover said he has learned to respect the reality that people don’t like to be told what to do. And, he said, “everything does not have to be figured out in advance,” emphasizing that people are “addicted to choice.” “Chevrolet stole a lot of market share from Ford when it introduced cars in colors other than black,” he pointed out. Disasters need not precede

To see more images depicting Panama City as it exists today and as it may become if a new strategic vision for the city is implemented, visit our website, 850businessmagazine.com.

PHOTO RENDERINGS COURTESY OF DOVER, KOHL & PARTNERS

CORNERSTONE IDEA The effort to arrive at a new vision for Panama City’s downtown and marina included an emphasis on providing greater waterfront access for both residents and visitors. A proposed hotel would invite visitation, while spacious, shaded promenades would invite runners, walkers and bicyclists.

transformative work, he said, but they help by bringing people together and making it easier to achieve consensus, or at least consent. McQueen said that surveys have established that 78-90 percent of Panama City residents approve of the approach to the recovery project. He spoke with appreciation to the role played by first responders in the immediate wake of the storm and saluted utilities workers for

restoring systems as quickly as they did. McQueen said that 124 of the city’s 127 lift stations were knocked out by Michael and untreated sewage flooded streets and flowed into St. Andrew Bay. He added that the storm exacerbated problems that had been neglected for too long, citing lift stations that were built in the 1950s and the clay pipes that make up much of the city’s wastewater system. Dover said Panama City’s downtown had been decaying for decades before the storm, owing to factors including the construction of a shopping mall and the spurning by people of walking in favor of “happy motoring.” He and others involved in the Panama City project, including transportation planner Richard A. Hall, hope to influence the state to rework projects designed to speed traffic to Panama City Beach

in ways that may lead people to discover downtown. Businessman, consultant and visionary Quint Studer quoted Harvard Business School professor John Kotter in telling symposium participants that “70 percent of failure results from a lack of urgency” or what Studer called the absence of a “burning platform.” In Pensacola, where Studer has led downtown revitalization efforts, that platform was the realization that the city was becoming increasingly unable to retain talent. “Young people,” he said, “want three things: affordability, opportunity and a vibrant downtown.” In Panama City, where some 5,000 children are homeless, the wish is more elemental, for now. But, for McQueen, the Great Disrupter of Oct. 10, 2018, was many things, including an invitation to move forward by doing things differently. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got,” he said. 850 Business Magazine

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Office

Spaces Suddath and Perdue are forging a new standard in workplace design

STORY BY AUDREY POST // PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER

 CREATIVE SPACE Partners, officers and employees at Sachs Media Group find that the redesign of their offices in downtown Tallahassee has translated to enhanced esprit de corps and an improved work product.

ashion changes over time, and workplace fashion is no exception — not only in business or business-casual attire for the workers, but also in the design of the work space itself. Over the past few decades, rows of desks have given way to rows of cubicles with low walls to rows of cubicles with high walls to modular workspaces with no walls that can be reconfigured from desktops to seating, as needed, on the spot. The changes have also reflected the changes in the workforce, and smart companies understand that getting the best from their employees means providing the best environment for their success. Two companies in North Florida that understand the concept keenly have joined forces. The result: seamless, comprehensive solutions to workplace environments that boost creativity and employee engagement, thereby enhancing recruitment and retention. Suddath Companies’ acquisition of Perdue Inc. earlier this year brings together the country’s largest commercial moving company with the region’s leading office furniture supplier. Perdue also gives Suddath clients access to Steelcase, the world’s leading office furniture manufacturer. Both companies are headquartered in Jacksonville, both have a history of outstanding customer service, and both, like Steelcase, have been in business more than 100 years. “The office landscape has changed dramatically over the past five to seven years,” said Jack Mozley, Perdue’s sales manager who runs the Tallahassee location at 313 N. Monroe St. “Cookie-cutter solutions don’t work.”

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“As a creative communications firm, we thrive on collaboration. By changing how our physical space is configured and outfitted with Perdue’s help, we’ve seen remarkable changes in how we work together and even improvements in our actual work product.” — Michelle Ubben, president and partner of Sachs Media Group The dynamics of office configuration

Suddath’s small office furniture dealership is being incorporated into the Perdue brand under the Suddath Companies umbrella. Perdue will continue to operate from its current Tallahassee and Jacksonville locations. But big plans are being made for a few years down the road, including a new corporate headquarters in Jacksonville and a freestanding Perdue location and warehouse in Tallahassee. Mark Scullion, Suddath’s president of Workplace and Commercial Services, said pairing a commercial moving company with an office furniture company brings labor, logistics and transportation under the same umbrella. “Every time a business purchases furniture, it’s undergoing a relocation, be it external or internal,” he said. “We create a single point of accountability, start to finish.”

 DESIGN SCHEME Beginning by offering design advice, Perdue Inc. reconfigured the offices of the Florida Dental Association in Tallahassee, brightening them and creating a contemporary, clean look.

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Although Steelcase is Perdue’s flagship brand and proprietary to the company in the eastern Panhandle to Jacksonville market, the company carries more than 100 brands. Mozley has been in the business for 25 years, helping to design and furnish office spaces. “We get information on how the business flows,” he said. “If it’s an attorney’s office, more private spaces are needed. If it’s a marketing firm, it needs more space for creative collaboration.” By doing extensive research and understanding the client’s needs — and the needs of the client’s clients — Perdue can design a customized workspace that is more efficient and creates a fun place to work. That’s important to most employees, but it’s vital for recruiting and retaining millennial workers, Mozley said. “If they have a choice of a vibrant, fun, lively space, that’s the one they’ll choose,” he said. Other cutting-edge aspects include open spaces for collaboration that have alcoves where one or two people can have private conversations, or an employee can have a private conversation with a doctor’s office or a child’s principal. Lots of natural light and desks that can be standard sit-down or convert to stand-up desks are also an asset. “When we’re fortunate enough to work with someone, we want to be a partner in your success,” Mozley said. “We want to create great spaces of timeless design that don’t have to be repeated every few years. It’s a ‘soup to nuts’ concept.” In moving a workspace, Suddath-Perdue schedules time to disconnect all electronics and equipment, bag them and reconnect. Sometimes it’s overnight or over the weekend; sometimes it takes several days and requires employees to work remotely. At every step, it’s important to keep everyone informed, Mozley said, to make employees feel valued and included so productivity is affected as little as possible. And clients can’t praise Perdue’s work enough.

PHOTOS BY BRUCE PALMER (SACHS MEDIA) ANTHONY RUSSO COURTESY OF PERDUE, INC. (FLORIDA DENTAL ASSOCIATION)

“As a creative communications firm, we thrive on collaboration,” said Michelle Ubben, president and partner of Sachs Media Group. “By changing how our physical space is configured and outfitted with Perdue’s help, we’ve seen remarkable changes in how we work together and even improvements in our actual work product.” Perdue also reconfigured the offices of the Florida Dental Association. FDA’s Greg Gruber said the association was “incredibly happy” with the job Perdue did, spending time helping it with the design and giving ideas for the process in the hope of getting the business — which ultimately helped it land the job. “They did a great job start to finish,” Gruber said, “and came in ahead of schedule and basically right around our budget.”

Two Century-old Industry Leaders

growth has been our ability to keep managers in touch with the move through our Tracker app.” Tracker, an award-winning move monitoring system, provides real-time updates and digital photos at the original location and the Suddath » Rooted in Florida destination. This helps to ensure the desks and for 100 years desktops are set up correctly so that employees » 14 locations have a seamless transition to the new space. nationwide And, for ongoing facility support after the » Moves more than 100 million squaremove, Suddath’s proprietary app, Portal, feet of commercial allows customers to place and manage service real estate annually requests online with visibility through a digital » Relocates more dashboard. than 500,000 employees yearly All these improvements are leading Suddath »O nly commercial and its companies toward more of a self-service mover in the model with plans in the works to expand use industry that utilizes award-winning, of its technology applications to integrate proprietary video surveying. Instead of having a company technology representative drive to the location and do a Moving toward the future manual walk-through, Suddath’s customers Perdue » Over 100 years Moving a business is a lot more than packing up could self-perform a video survey at a time of experience the desks and computers and then unpacking that’s convenient. Then, the video would be in Florida them at the new location. In addition to the uploaded into Suddath’s third industry-first » Largest Steelcase dealer furniture and desktops, there’s the server application, Estimator, which provides instant in North Florida room — the business’s IT brain — as well and accurate contracting, saving time and » Consistently as the cabling, the HVAC to make sure the money. But one of the biggest benefits of having ranked No. 1 for servers stay at the proper temperature, and access to applications like Tracker, Portal and more than 10 years by Jacksonville the fire suppression system. Any business that Estimator is the visibility and control provided; Business Journal doesn’t use a comprehensive company that can they help clients stay on top of their move, » NAIOP 2018 handle the move and the new office design and enhancing employee morale. Design of the Year setup might end up serving as its own general Award winner “How you communicate with employees » No. 1 in the contractor, trying to corral all the various during a move is critical,” Scullion said. “If you 904 Award vendors and tasks that need to be completed. give them simple, digestible information that winner for Office Suddath has built a reputation of being on top they can consume at their convenience, instead Design in 2019 of every aspect of relocation. The company’s of cramming it down their throats, it gives you a website is filled with glowing testimonials from satisfied jump right out of the gate and helps them prepare.” customers, but Scullion sees even more opportunities on All these innovative practices come with a price tag, but the horizon. Scullion and Mozley both believe they can quantify the “The moving industry is so far behind the curve in using benefit and show clients the added expense is an investment. technology, in simple things like tracking inventory during a “An inspired employee is going to work a lot harder and commercial move,” Scullion said. “We move tens of millions smarter for you than one who is uninspired,” Scullion of dollars in inventory, everything from confidential data to said. “There’s a connection between human resources employee coffee mugs, and one of our biggest accelerators of and real estate.”

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

DEAL ESTATE Just Listed

10 Office Building Sites Ready in Panama City JENKS CROSSING IS A MASTER-PLANNED PROFESSIONAL OFFICE DEVELOPMENT with 10 vacant pad-ready office building sites. Centrally located with easy access to downtown Panama City and all major commercial traffic arteries, this development is conveniently located between both area hospitals. All vacant sites are shovel ready with stubbed utilities and an owners association already in place.

Listed Price: $950,000 (individual lots start at $110,000) Address: 1399 Jenks Ave., Panama City

Appeal: All common infrastructure is in place, including driveways, parking, central storm water retention and lush professional landscaping and irrigation. Current owners include three doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s offices. Contact information: Charlie Haas, Counts Real Estate Group, Inc., (850) 249-3640, Charlie@ CountsRealEstate.com

WINTER 2019

850businessmagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLIE HAAS

Features: Driveway connections on Jenks Avenue and 13th Street, monument signage on Jenks Avenue, on-site dumpster pad, perfect for medical or professional office sites

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© 2019, The St. Joe Company, “St. Joe”, the “Taking Flight” design and VentureCrossings® are registered service marks of The St. Joe Company or its affiliated companies. This advertisement may contain information that is based on current development plans. Actual development may not be as currently proposed. All information reflected in this advertisement is subject to errors, omissions, changes or withdrawal without notice. This advertisement contains selected information pertaining to the featured projects and does not purport to contain all the information which prospective users may desire. Prospective users should review all available information either from the owner or from independent sources and make decisions based upon their own conclusions. This material does not constitute an offer and the owner shall not be bound to any obligation until a mutually agreed-upon, binding agreement is executed by all parties.

850 Business Magazine

11/4/192019 12:37| PM WINTER 81

DEAL ESTATE Just Listed

Space for Rent in Capital Regional Building THE CAPITAL REGIONAL MEDICAL OFFICE BUILDING in Tallahassee contains 38,225 rentable square feet and offers a mix of firstand second-generation office/medical spaces for lease. The building is located on the campus of the Capital Regional Medical Center Hospital off Capital Circle. The tenant mix provides current and future tenant referral opportunities within the building.

Listed Price: $19 per square foot per year Address: 2626 Care Drive, Tallahassee Square Footage: Building: 38,225; available: 1,432â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4,513 Year Built: 1998

Appeal: Competitive leasing and build-out packages, plus medical space available for immediate occupancy Contact: Shawn Maxey, Sales Associate, (850) 477-7044, cell: (850) 240-1252, smaxey@ teambeck.com

WINTER 2019

850businessmagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BECK PARTNERS

Features: The building features a covered drop-off area in the front of the building, a beautiful lobby on the first floor, elevators, monument sign and abundant parking.

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

CONGRATULATIONS Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare on the new M.T. Mustian Surgery Center

115763

We are proud to be your lifesaving partner.

WINTER 2019

850businessmagazine.com

2019 SPECIAL REPORT

YO U R H O S P I TA L FOR

the Future M .T. M U S T I A N C E N T E R

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 1

YO U R H O S P I TA L

the Future

FOR

CREATIVE, SALES & OPERATIONS Publisher Brian Rowland

Vice President/ Corporate Development McKenzie Burleigh

Director of Production and Technology Daniel Vitter

Client Service Representative Melinda Lanigan Managing Editor Jeff Price

Creative Director Jennifer Ekrut

Publication Designer Sarah Burger

Contributing Writers Steve Bornhoft, Rosanne Dunkelberger, Rochelle Koff

2 | M.T. Mustian Center

Welcome to the M.T. Mustian Center, Tallahasseeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new state-of-the-art surgical and adult ICU facility at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. This new cutting-edge complex was years in the making, and it will meet the needs of community healthcare today and for decades to come. In the following pages, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll read about the long hours, hard work and dedication that helped make the M.T. Mustian Center a reality. See how the M.T. Mustian Center will serve as not only the most advanced surgical and adult ICU facility in the region but also a job creator as it draws top physicians and surgeons from around the nation and world. So please, join us as we help reshape the landscape of Tallahassee healthcare together.

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

4 6 10 14 17

M.T. MUSTIAN LEGACY EMBRACING THE FUTURE PUTTING PATIENTS FIRST ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S A PRETTY BIG DEAL OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

18 20 22 24

THEY ALL PLAYED A PART

TIMELINE

DRESS REHEARSAL

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

Factoids provided by Brian Smith, Operations Manager at BRASFIELD & GORRIE, LLC

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 3

M .T. M U ST I A N Quietly, he stabilized TMH and nurtured its growth

n his 96 years, longtime Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) Administrator M.T. Mustian found little time for small talk. “He liked to cut to the chase and get on with the matter,” said his son Mark, an attorney and former Tallahassee city commissioner. “But I found that people respected that about him. Generally, people want you to be straight up with them. They prefer that, if you disagree with them, you just tell them.” M.T. Mustian, who passed away in May of 2017, was the kind of person to whom people applied the words “pragmatic and visionary” or “conservative and progressive” in the same breath. “He was good at thinking strategically, and I have discovered that’s a rare talent,” Mark said. And he was a good listener. “He would spend hours walking around the floors of the hospital and in the doctors’ lounge listening to what their problems were,” Mark said. “People appreciated that.” Those appreciative people included Alexander D. Brickler, MD, who was delivering babies at the hospital at Florida A&M University when Mr. Mustian arrived in Tallahassee in 1964. Not long thereafter, the State of Florida ceased funding the A&M hospital, and Tallahassee was faced with the need to integrate TMH.

4 | M.T. Mustian Center

BY STEVE BORNHOFT

“M.T. and I and the hospital’s medical director at the time got together in clandestine meetings and decided how we were going to proceed,” Brickler said. The trio, led by Mr. Mustian, determined that they would first integrate the old A&M facility by establishing an OB-GYN clinic there for indigent patients. The move proved successful and helped pave the way for a broader integration of healthcare services in Tallahassee. “The clinic saw an influx of white patients, and that softened the resistance of the militant segregationists so that we could pull things together and proceed to integrate TMH,” Brickler said. It was an early example of the value of Mr. Mustian’s capacity for strategy. There would be many others, including the purchase by TMH near the end of Mr. Mustian’s tenure as administrator of 84 acres that some called “Mustian’s Folly.” “Critics wanted to know what we were spending all this money for, but my father could see the day when the hospital campus would have to be expanded,” Mark said. “It was a smart move.” In the first place, M.T. Mustian arrived in Tallahassee knowing that TMH was struggling financially. His road to Tallahassee had been decidedly indirect.

M.T. Mustian was born in Texarkana, Texas. His father was an itinerant farmer who moved about the Lone Star State, pausing wherever the cotton was doing the best. Mr. Mustian graduated high school in Atlanta, Texas, and then enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving as a medic in Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army in World War II. He was wounded in the battle for Koblenz, Germany, and was awarded a Purple Heart. After the war, he attended Baylor University on the GI Bill, received his bachelor’s degree in 1949 and served as an assistant administrator at hospitals in Alexandria, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi. He met his wife, Jackie, in Alexandria, where she had grown up. Both were employees of the Baptist hospital there. “He was the business manager — and he was handsome,” Jackie recalled. “And a budding relationship got started.” She was the Secretary to the Chaplain and the Director of Nursing. For a time, it seemed that M.T. Mustian’s life would be as nomadic as his father’s had been. He checked in at Bay Medical Center in Panama City, Florida, where he served as CEO for four years, before moving to Gainesville and becoming Alachua General Hospital’s Chief Administrator. He next boomeranged to Texas, but he and Jackie disliked Houston and soon began shopping for a less urban environment.

M U S T I A N L E G AC Y

Mark said his father accepted the administrator’s job at TMH in 1964 after concluding, “things were so screwed up there that he couldn’t possibly make them any worse.” He would remain in the job for 25 years. His wanderings were over. “M.T. came along and did a marvelous job with the hospital,” Brickler said. “He made things right. You would never expect M.T. to be out front with a banner demonstrating for a cause, but he would work behind the scenes to get things done.” Indeed, Brickler said, M.T. Mustian changed the dynamic of hospital operations. Prior to his arrival at TMH, the administrator was subservient to the medical staff and did not much generate doctors’ respect. “M.T. was straight-laced and no nonsense but very fair in his thinking,” said Brickler, who retired in February after he and his son, also an OB/ GYN, combined to deliver a baby via Caesarean section on his 90th birthday. “If M.T. said he was going to do something, he’d do it. His word was his bond. He earned the complete support of the medical staff, which was hard to do at that time.” As a result, Mr. Mustian ensured that the hospital’s administration would have as much to say about the direction and operation of the hospital as the doctors did. That was new, Brickler said. “M.T. always said it was our job to run the hospital, and it was the job of physicians to deal with issues including quality of care and physician pay,” said Bill Giudice, TMH’s Vice President, Chief Financial Officer. “He was a master at avoiding entanglements with the medical staff. He would go to them with an issue, tell them it was their responsibility and let them solve it.” Giudice credited Mr. Mustian with always maintaining a cordial relationship with staff, no matter the tension that sometimes inevitably developed between doctors and the administration. “There were people who didn’t like him very much, but there were few people who didn’t respect him,” Mark said. Giudice and Brickler agree that Mr. Mustian always was careful about not revealing too much of himself, but there were times when people glimpsed his sense of humor. Giudice’s desk is given to neat piles. Nonetheless, Mr. Mustian walked into his

office one day about two years after Giudice had started at TMH, muttered, “Cluttered desk, cluttered mind,” and walked off without saying another word. The episode bothered Giudice and, two days later, he visited his fastidious boss’ office, attracted his attention by clearing his throat and wondered aloud, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?” Giudice lingered for a moment but heard nothing in response. Years later, Giudice asked Mr. Mustian’s executive secretary if he had ever said anything about the “empty desk” remark. “She told me that was probably the day that M.T. was satisfied that he had the right person as CFO because I wasn’t going to be a ‘yes’ man,” Giudice recalled. “And she said that right after I left, he closed his door and busted out laughing, but he wasn’t going to do that while I was standing there.” Mark said his dad liked “silly humor” and recalled Mr. Mustian’s fondness for shows including “Hee Haw” and “The Dukes of Hazard.” Jackie remembers times when the family would gather around the television to watch “The Beverly Hillbillies.” “I think we sort of identified with them,” Jackie said. Mr. Mustian was a highly regarded executive, yes, but he was also a gardener, one with zero tolerance for weeds. “He wasn’t much for exercise for exercise’s sake,” his wife, Jackie, said. “He believed in work, and he loved to work in the yard and in the garden. He would pick the beans and have me wash them so we could give them to the neighbors. And we had the most wonderful Vidalia onions. M.T. was a farmer more than a gardener. His garden was never just for us.” TMH was a small hospital of about 200 beds when the Mustians came to town, and Mr. Mustian would do much to nurture its growth. “We got to see a lot of things happen,” Jackie said. “But M.T. was always patient centered. He wanted everything to be right for the patient.” Jackie said she was shocked to learn that TMH’s new surgery center would be named in honor of her husband. “Still, I can hardly believe it,” she said. “But M.T. loved TMH. “Make no mistake. He loved it.”

“M.T. was straight-laced and no nonsense but very fair in his thinking. If M.T. said he was going to do something, he’d do it. His word was his bond. He earned the complete support of the medical staff, which was hard to do at that time.” — ALEXANDER D. BRICKLER, MD

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 5

E M B RAC I N G

the Future 28 BY ROCHELLE KOFF

mart beds that can speak to patients in 23 languages. An app to help visitors find their car in the parking lot. Operating rooms equipped for the latest surgical techniques. These are just a few of the new features that will help set Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) apart with the newly opened $275 million M.T. Mustian Center. The term “state of the art” is frequently, and aptly, used to describe the advances in this mammoth healthcare addition. “The place is so full of new technology,” said Henry Hanson, TMH’s Project Engineer for the M.T. Mustian Center. To put it simply: “We’ve got some really cool things,” noted Linda Fox, the hospital’s Service Line Administrator for Surgical Services. The gleaming center features 28 operating rooms; four interventional suites for neurosurgical and vascular procedures; 72 adult medical/ surgical intensive care beds (compared to 40); and related support services. The ICU beds in the M.T. Mustian Center replace all the adult ICU beds in the original building. “All 28 of the operating rooms are designed to do any case, any time,” said Fox. “The only exception to that is we have four interventional suites. If patients need heart surgery and they have to go on what we call a bypass pump, it requires different technology, which these suites are equipped with. It’s the only thing that makes a difference in the suites compared to our OR’s.” The six-story, 340,000-square-foot M.T. Mustian facility nearly doubles the size of Tallahassee

6 | M.T. Mustian Center

Memorial, but the implications of this new tower go way beyond an increase in space, according to the many professionals who played a vital role in planning and launching the center. “When you really drill down to the basics of what we’re trying to do for the people in our region, it’s to give them state-of-the-art surgical technology in the safest and most efficient environment possible — but to also leave our door open to be able to grow and improve as technology improves,” said Chris DeRosier, MD, a reconstructive plastic surgeon who serves as Chairman of Surgery at TMH. “The question posed to us was, ‘What do we need to do to be a regional leader in surgical technology?’ ” All in all, technology offers “the ability to do things in a more modern fashion, makes things easier to do,” said Hanson, who has worked at TMH for 35 years. “All kinds of things that you wouldn’t think of.” Some advances just pertain to making a trip to the hospital easier for patients and families — apps can show visitors how to navigate the hospital and where they parked their car. But many changes take treatment to a new level. DeRosier applauded the ability of physicians to “sit down with our administration and say not only what technology do we need right now, but also where does it look like the future is going and where do we expand? Not only does having that technology allow people to stay closer to home, this is another tool that we have to recruit new specialists.

O PERAT IN G RO O MS

“All 28 of the operating rooms are designed to do any case, any time.” — LINDA FOX, Service Line Administrator for Surgical Services

E M B R AC I N G T H E F U T U R E

“I think we will be able to grow our capabilities within specialties,” added DeRosier, who practices at Southeastern Plastic Surgery. “Various surgical specialties are becoming more and more technologically heavy with the use of robotic surgery, along with complex angiography. “Physicians in these new specialties want to come to an environment where the technology is there to support them and they don’t have to come in and reinvent the wheel from the ground up. It’s very much like showing a new car buyer the top-of-the-line European luxury car. And that’s what it (the new center) is going to be.” Like a luxury vehicle, the M.T. Mustian Center has some top-notch accessories. Just consider the beds, “which are each about $30,000,” said David Adkins, the Supply Chain Executive Director who oversaw purchasing equipment for the building. The beds are much more than a place to sleep. “They’re amazing,” said Barbara Alford, TMH’s former Vice President, Chief Clinical and Nursing Officer. “They speak several languages — the bed communicates with all of us.”

The beds can be programmed to ask yes-and-no questions to patients in 23 languages, from French to Farsi. “You can customize the list of questions,” said Adkins. Patients hear questions from speakers next to their heads. “The bed can ask patients questions like ‘Are you in pain? Yes or no?’ ‘Is your pain greater than an 8? Yes or no?’ You can customize the questions,” he said, noting that having this ability cuts down on delays to get the patient needed care. “It’s a huge benefit for our teams. It eliminates the need to wait on a translator at times and to care for the patients as fast as possible.” The beds “also play music,” he added. And are able to weigh the patient without the effect of moving the patient (which is one of the leading causes to back injuries in nursing). The new beds also enable patients, particularly those with breathing or lung problems, to be easily rotated. “You have to turn a patient 45 or 60 degrees to keep the fluids moving,” said Adkins. In the past, this

was done manually, unless the hospital rented a specialized bed. “The bed goes from a horizontal surface to a sitting-up surface so the patient can actually sit up,” said Alford. “And you can stand the patient up, which will be wonderful for early ambulation for patients still on ventilators. “They are also self-propelling,” she said. “The nurse doesn’t have to push the bed. It doesn’t take two people to transport a patient. You can transport with one person. It’s just like a touch of your fingers. You have to guide it a little, but it’s amazing.” Another ICU room safety feature for both staff and patients is a lift system, said Alford. “The lift is bolted into the ceiling; it’s part of the ceiling structure,” she said. “It

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 7

E M B R AC I N G T H E F U T U R E

E LEVATORS

1,261 ROOM SIGNS

6,500

LIGHT FIXTURES

1,700

LIGHT SWITCH ES

8 | M.T. Mustian Center

moves on a track and goes vertically and horizontally.” There’s a support system hooked up under the patient. “You can move the patient into a chair, you can move the patient to a stretcher, and you can move the patient to a standing position,” said Alford. “The device helps move the patient without having stress or strain on the colleagues or the patient.” Adkins said the lift has a “1,000-pound capacity. It’s a huge safety factor for our staff. I was blown away by the staggering statistics on back injuries due to movement of a patient. It’s customized for any size person, and it moves around the room, so it’s awesome.”

Other vital technology allows a close-up look of what’s going on during surgery, with a camera that collects images that can be shared. The operating rooms have at least four big monitors that will enable everyone in the room to see what’s happening during surgery at the moment, said Fox. The information can also be saved to medical records. “If surgeons needed to go back and see something they did, whatever they chose to save would be available,” she said. “And then it helps us connect with the patient’s family immediately post-op to be able to communicate what they actually did.”

E M B R AC I N G T H E F U T U R E

New technology will allow doctors and nurses to share information and make decisions with cutting-edge efficiency.

“We don’t have the ability to do that now,” said Fox. “Oftentimes you’ll see the surgeons will draw pictures trying to explain what they did. Now they can show actual images.” The technology also enables pathologists to immediately review tissue to help make a diagnosis. “If there are questions, both the pathologist and the surgeon can see the tissue at the same time and have a conversation,” said Fox. “That does not currently exist.” The technology will help surgeons communicate with other physicians in a more direct way than ever before, said Dr. DeRosier. “A surgeon can be in the room down the hall and have something they’d like me to see,” he said. “If I’m in a room where I can’t see it, I can pull up their camera feed and be able to see what they are looking at in real time. It really provides a powerful tool.” Another new feature is “shadow lighting,” said Dr. Andrea Friall, TMH Chief Medical Officer and a gynecologist/obstetrician. Lights over the operating table will allow surgeons to be able to see into a deep surgical opening even if someone has their head in the way.

“We’re excited about the lighting technology,” she said. Cutting down on the time it takes to get equipment from one place to another was also a priority. Aiding in that process is the Hänel inventory system, which connects the supply operation, where instruments and other sterile items are stored, from the basement to other floors. Fox refers to the system as a “vending machine.” Adkins calls it a “three-story rotisserie.” If a surgeon needs a different size of a tool or a piece of equipment that wasn’t expected, the Hänel system gets it to the operating rooms quickly. In the old system, someone would have to leave the operating room and go find the equipment, which could be time consuming. Under the new system, “Colleagues are going directly to the Hänel system (which is located in the central corridor of all OR rooms) and type in what I’m looking for,” said Fox. “Within 15 seconds, the vending machine will find the item and send it to the correct floor. The doors will open up for colleagues to easily grab and return back to the OR.”

Robotics are a hot topic, so aside from the advent of more artificial intelligence in surgery, you’ll see robotics used in other ways, like a supply cart that travels around the facility. “It’s an intelligent cart and even has manners,” said Adkins. “If it sees anything in front of it, it will wait. It will say ‘excuse me.’ It will take the elevator and stop at the appropriate room.” In many ways, humanity mixes with technology to advance the best patient care — and that will be true in the new M.T. Mustian Center as well as the original TMH, said Barbara Alford, retired TMH Nursing Officer, who oversaw a staff of nurses that range in age from 20 to 77 — five generations working in the hospital. “It’s great to put a new graduate nurse who’s 20-something with one of our more seasoned nurses because they teach each other a great amount,” said Alford. “The new graduate teaches us older nurses about technology. Experienced nurses bring to that new nurse their life experience, their nursing experience. Pairing them up to share life experiences and skills — it’s a real benefit to everyone. That’s exciting to watch.”

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 9

P U T T I N G PAT I E N TS F I R ST

and Their Families BY ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

hecking in for surgery can be nerve-wracking when an already uneasy patient and their concerned family members have to navigate a bewildering labyrinth of hallways, elevators and procedures. Administrators knew that years of additions and remodels at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) had made the hospital one of those less-than-user-friendly spaces. So years ago, when plans were being formulated for the M.T. Mustian Center, right at the top of leadership’s to-do list was to create a

10 | M.T. Mustian Center

welcoming, easy-to-navigate facility staffed with colleagues who would make a visit there as smooth and easy as possible. But when it gets down to the nitty gritty, who better to ask than the patients and families themselves? TMH already had a Patient Family Advisory Council, and the architect was meeting with the group even before ground had been broken on the M.T. Mustian Center. Planners and staff had already suggested some improvements, but changes big and small were incorporated into designs of the

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the group’s suggestion. “They definitely wanted to have a separate consultation room instead of standing in the hallway or talking to the doctors inside the room when the patient was there … which we don’t have currently,” said Patricia Kenney, Executive Director of Patient-Centered Care at TMH. “That was something they were excited (to learn) was on the plans initially.” Another request was a “nice-sized waiting room … that was family friendly with bathrooms and even showers,” she said. As

P U T T I N G PAT I E N T S F I R S T

the service area of TMH expands across the Panhandle and into Georgia and Alabama, “a lot of times you come from out of town and you might want to sleep beside your family member. They even have washer and dryer hookup so they can wash their clothes.” Again, early on in the process, the lay advisors were taken to an off-site warehouse facility that housed a mock-up of an ICU room and immediately noticed a big problem: The bathroom — something rare in ICU rooms to begin with — was inconveniently placed, right by the room’s entrance. Designers moved the bathroom to the back of the room, which created three distinct areas in the ICU room: the clinical space for nurses to do their work, the patient’s bed and a place for family along the back wall that could accommodate up to five visitors. The council also suggested larger windows and OK’d the murals of nature scenes from in and around Tallahassee taken by local photographer David Barfield. Other small but convenient additions include a

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 11

P U T T I N G PAT I E N T S F I R S T

reading light for guests, a shelf for flowers, a lockable closet, controls for the TV and blinds, USB ports and a cabinet for hiding trash cans and laundry baskets. “It sounds like a simple thing, but they won’t have to look at it, they won’t have to smell it,” Kenney said of the hidden receptacles. “Again, the architect said ‘Whoa, that’s not something I would have thought about.’ ” The couch has a pop-up table that can be lifted and lowered. Like a futon, the couch can transform into a full-sized bed for family members that prefer to stay overnight. TMH already has implemented changes that allow 24/7 visitation in the ICU rooms, a huge departure from most others, which ICU ROOM S greatly restrict the number and duration of visits. “The evidence shows that patients’ families want to be with their loved ones,” Kenny said. “Many times they would INTERVENTIONA L bend the rules. But then we SUITES said, ‘Why are we bending the rules? Why don’t we just make the rules that we are a welcoming facility.’ ” It wasn’t done at the behest of patient advocates, but a DOORS major design innovation in the ICU units is the addition of a central corridor so that everything the patient needs — dietary, trash, linen, pharmacy, supplies — comes to the unit but doesn’t have to be pushed past the patient rooms. It added square footage, and cost, to the project but was an innovation suggested by evidence-based studies. “The environmental stressors — there’s evidence to show all of the traffic and noise really do take their toll on patients and families and staff and physicians,” said TMH’s former Vice President, Chief Clinical and Nursing Officer Barbara Alford. “That’s important because that central corridor will then afford patients the quiet, the peace and

72 4

850

12 | M.T. Mustian Center

During long days and nights, visitors can grab a cup of locally made Lucky Goat coffee at the Eyes of Texas Café — a nod to M.T. Mustian’s Texan roots.

really healing environment they don’t get now with everything twirling past them, with carts and people hustling and bustling.” Those coming to the new facility for surgery can say goodbye to the old upstairs/ downstairs arrangement that was confusing and, at times, isolating for patients. Now, one can walk in the door and be greeted by a person who will direct them to either the first or second floor — they’re identical, once you get on the floor, you stay there — for check-in and pre-op. The patient is taken to a room, and the family can stay there up until the time of surgery, during surgery, recovery and then after the patient has been returned to the room post-op.

“What I am just thrilled about from our patient and family standpoint is that separation won’t occur. All rooms in our surgical care unit are private rooms, and family members are going to be able to stay with the patient until they actually leave for surgery,” said Linda Fox, TMH Service Line Administrator of Surgical Services. “They’ll be able to see the anesthesiologist, they’ll be able to see the surgeon, meet … the team that’s going to be caring for that family member in surgery and really stay connected.” New tracking technology will allow the family to know where their loved one is at all times, and photographic equipment in the operating room allows surgeons to show

actual photos to better inform them about the procedure that just occurred. “It is very important to us that the family always feels connected to the experience that their loved one is going through,” Fox said. For those leaving after surgery rather than being hospitalized, a separate back entrance allows for fast and easy pickups. “To be a part of creating what that patientcentered care area is going to look like, the family area is going to look like, it’s just exciting,” said Alford. “To be able to create something that’s state of the art and that’s evidence-based has been really important for us.”

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 13

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S A PRETTY

Big Deal

BY ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

14 | M.T. Mustian Center

IT’S A PRETTY BIG DEAL

f you go just by the numbers, the newly opened M.T. Mustian Center at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) is, without a doubt, a big deal. A $275 million price tag, requiring a foray into New York’s bond market for financing. A massive, 340,000-square-foot, six-story building, with planning and construction spanning 11 years. Twenty-eight operating rooms and four interventional suites — some twice the size of existing ORs — and 72 intensive care beds with room to grow. More than 50 hospital departments involved in planning and executing the expansion. But the impact of this new state-of-the-art facility is currently being felt well beyond its white and glass walls — and will continue to do so far into the future. “ORs and ICUs are the most expensive and complicated spaces in any healthcare facility. You don’t just on a whim decide to make changes,” said Mark O’Bryant, President & CEO of Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. “Recognizing this, we actually started talking about this prior to 2008. But we put it formally in our strategic plan … and the reason why we decided to do that is because we realized if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right.” O’Bryant channels hockey great Wayne Gretzky — who famously said he doesn’t skate to where the puck is, but where it will be — when talking about what he calls a “50-year building.” “You don’t build one of these facilities only to meet the needs of the community that day,” he said. “If you’re going to make this type of investment, you need to make sure it’s an investment that’s going to have value for a long time.”

For a number of reasons, Tallahassee and the region are big winners with the expansion. While much of the existing staff will move from where they currently work, the new facility adds about 100 jobs to the local economy. And not just nurses and other clinical staff, but also in food service, environmental services and other positions necessary to the smooth running of the building. Administrators expect that number to continue growing as the spaces that formerly housed ORs and ICUs are repurposed. “All those positions will support the growth moving in, but the continued growth is going to be important as we backfill the space that’s been vacated and we’ll be able to increase the number of beds,” said former Vice President, Chief Clinical and Nursing Officer Barbara Alford. In a competitive healthcare job market, the state-of-the-art equipment and even just the newness of the M.T. Mustian Center gives TMH recruiters a leg up, said Steve Haynes, TMH’s Vice President, Chief Human Resource Officer. “Anytime you have new patient care space, from a recruitment standpoint, it’s a pretty big deal. And anytime you have new operating suite and ICU space, it kind of exaggerates that big-deal effect because of … so much new technology,” Haynes said. “It’s an opportunity for an organization to replace some equipment. Just like cars or computers, there’s always the latest and greatest and all the new features. We are beginning to see the appeal, especially to some. If you’re a nurse or an imaging technician or a pharmacist … from a career standpoint, that’s something they want to be a part of.”

“If you’re going to make this type of investment, you need to make sure it’s an investment that’s going to have value for a long time.” — MARK O’BRYANT, PRESIDENT & CEO OF TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE

45,000 LINEAR FEET O F AU GE RC AST PIL IN G

29,000 SQUARE FEET O F CO N C RE TE PAV IN G

13,000

CUBIC YARDS O F CO N C RE TE

TMH works closely with Florida State University, Florida A&M University and other local colleges and schools to create a pipeline from student to employee. The hospital was instrumental in helping create a four-year nursing program at Tallahassee Community College as well as supporting training for other health professions at TCC’s nearby Ghazvini Center for Healthcare Education. “If they do their clinical training here, we’ve got a reasonable chance of recruiting them,” Haynes said. “They know some of our leaders, they’ve gotten a chance to take a peek under the hood, so to speak, for a number of months, and our goal is for it to be a natural next stop when they start their careers.” Even before ground was broken for the M.T. Mustian Center three years ago, the hospital sought to create programs that would attract doctors who are on the cutting edge of medical care, including ones that allow complex heart surgeries without opening the chest and brain surgery conducted through the femoral artery.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 15

IT’S A PRETTY BIG DEAL

450 TONS

OF CO N C R ET E R E I N FORC IN G STEEL

2,700 TONS

OF ST RUC T U RA L ST E E L

100,000 SQUARE FEET OF MODIFIED B I TU M E N R OOFING

“Already we’ve seen fewer and fewer people leave to go out of town for medical care,” said O’Bryant. “And that’s mainly because we’ve been expanding the scope of services that we’ve provided. We’ve always been a strong safety net facility, but in the past, we’ve not had the breadth of services that we have now.” But even more prosaic surgical procedures are part of a healthcare future envisioned by TMH. “It’s looking like hips and knees,” quipped TMH’s Vice President, Chief Financial Officer Bill Giudice. “Back in the day 10 years ago, your stay was five, six, seven days in the hospital.

16 | M.T. Mustian Center

Now it’s two and three days, and it’s rapidly reaching the point where you’ll have major joint replacement on an outpatient basis. We’re watching these trends change.” Those staying in the hospital will have more need of ICU and intermediate care, he said. And before the M.T. Mustian Center, “we had an inadequate facility for that.” O’Bryant says it’s an economic boon any time a doctor sets up a practice in Tallahassee. “That’s about a million-dollar business for every new (physician) that comes in,” he said. “What it does more than anything else is it gives people access to services and a medical home so they don’t have to leave. This is a transformative facility, to say the least.” It also greatly widens the area served by TMH as patients travel here for surgeries and services. “That will continue to make a difference to bring patients here who don’t have the ability or means to get to California or Minnesota or New York, and now they can get (care) right here in Tallahassee,” said Alford. “That’s going to be a real benefit for patients and families.” As her role as project manager for the M.T. Mustian Center winds down, Katie Hill,

Project Manager of the M.T. Mustian Center, echoes the sentiments of many of those involved in the planning and construction of a facility that changes Tallahassee’s landscape and the lives of those who will use it. “I almost feel kidlike, I guess, sometimes when I see it,” she said. “The contractor does this business a lot. The architect designs buildings a lot. But to see something like this coming out of the ground like it has, and the impact it’s going to have on treating patients, it’s pretty exciting.” While the M.T. Mustian Center building — one of the biggest single construction projects in Tallahassee — is an impressive structure, there is a value to the community that goes far beyond bricks and mortar. “We always talk about the quality of life of Tallahassee. We have a great quality of life and we brag about it,” said O’Bryant. “One of those foundational components of quality of life is quality of health, and no organization has a greater responsibility in affecting and impacting the quality of health in our region than TMH. We want to improve the quality of life to our community by providing a better, more secure, safer environment for the quality of health of this region.”

Overcoming CHALLENGES BY ROCHELLE KOFF

single page diagrammed with 55 boxes tells a behind-the-scenes story about the launch of the M.T. Mustian Center at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH). Each small box on the chart features deceptively simple labels like “Demolish Offices,” “Save the Dove,” “Relocate chilled water on roof of laundry,” but each one represents a challenge in the creation of the 340,000-square-foot, $275 million hospital complex. “There are a lot of memories in those boxes,” said Brian Smith, Senior Project Manager for Birmingham-based contractor Brasfield & Gorrie, which built the hospital’s new Central Energy Plant as well as the M.T. Mustian Center. “These were all the things that needed to happen for us to be able to start construction.” Work on these “enabling projects” began in 2015 after years of planning the new addition and with the help of the Gresham Smith architectural firm. “The hardest part of this job was getting to the starting point,” said Laurie L. Dozier, a consultant for TMH on the M.T. Mustian Center. And then, “The greatest obstacles were before we put the foundation in.” He won’t get any argument from the project’s engineer, Henry Hanson. “My opinion is that the biggest challenges happened in the beginning,” he said, noting that many vital elements of the hospital’s infrastructure were located on the site of the future M.T. Mustian Center. “The addition was, in effect, placed in our back door where we received all our materials, where everything took place, where the oxygen tanks were, where the things were that you had to have to run the hospital,” said Hanson. “All those things are fairly big in nature. Moving people — we move people

quite a bit, so that wasn’t as hard — but keeping yourself in business while you’re moving the things that keep you in business gets to be tough.” The employees who had to be relocated included, “Human Resources, Information Technology functions, education functions — all those had to find a home” so those three buildings could be torn down, he said. The ambulance ramp also had to be demolished. “Ambulances needed a new way to get into the building, so that was another project that had to happen in conjunction with emergency services,” said Katie Hill, Project Manager for the M.T. Mustian Center. The box on the chart marked, “Save the Dove,” referred to a special project on the construction site. A 7,000-pound concrete dove encased in bricks was originally part of a wall for Holy Comforter Episcopal Church. Tallahassee’s Childers Construction Company, subcontractors on the M.T. Mustian Center, worked diligently to remove the dove intact and relocate it to Holy Comforter’s new location, said Smith. “You wouldn’t believe the planning that went into how the dove could be saved,” he said. A less emotional but also dramatic challenge was moving the 50,000-pound cooling tower that supplied cold water for airconditioning in the hospital. “It was on top of the existing building,” said Smith. “We had to find a place where we could physically drop it through and then put it on huge steel stilts to drop it down. “There was a lot of gymnastics in that one,” said Smith, who had as many as 500 employees working on the construction site at one point. Dealing with new technology and lots of equipment also presented challenges.

23,000 SQUARE FEET OF G LASS

31,000 SQUARE FEET OF T ILE

10,000 SQUARE FEET OF T ERRAZZO

262,000 SQUARE FEET

OF SHEET FLOORING

“Probably the most complicated thing to build in the hospital is the OR (operating room), and we had 32 of them,” said Smith. “There’s a lot of coordination that goes into all the equipment that’s in the OR.” Having an off-site mock-up of the intensive care unit rooms and operating rooms helped to avoid problems, down to where to place the outlets, he said. “If you don’t like where the outlets go, you’re not changing it five times but 72 times (for 72 intensive care beds). Knowing where things were going was very important.” Smith called the M.T. Mustian Center “the most challenging project I’ve ever been involved with.” He also called it one of the “most rewarding.” “We met every challenge,” he said.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 17

all

THEY P L AY E D A PA R T BY ROCHELLE KOFF

alk to just about anybody involved with the planning of the new M.T. Mustian Center, and they’ll quickly mention one crucial component: An unprecedented number of people played a part in the planning of this ambitious addition to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH). “The architects say they have never in their history worked on a project where so many of the people that were going to use the building touched it in the design phase,” said Laurie L. Dozier, who was a consultant for TMH on the center.

18 | M.T. Mustian Center

Katie Hill, TMH’s Project Manager for the M.T. Mustian Center, said as many as 50 departments were consulted during behindthe-scenes planning. “There were a whole lot of people devoting their time to it in addition to keeping their day jobs,” said Hill, who played a role in all aspects of the center. “If we were talking about the intensive care rooms, those nurse managers were part of the design. The satellite pharmacy? Pharmacy was at the table.” And that table kept growing. “One of the most important parts for us, particularly in nursing, was that this was a

project that from its very inception had nurses at the table,” said Barbara Alford, former Vice President, Chief Clinical and Nursing Officer. “That was new for us. The fact that the nurses, who were taking care of patients, and the patients and their families could have a voice from the very beginning of the project — not just to ask them what they thought after we built it — was the most exciting thing for all of us, I think.” With the help of a physical mockup built in a hospital warehouse, patient and family advisors as well as staff shared their vision for the building — from choosing what Dozier

T H E Y A L L P L AY E D A PA R T

calls “cutting-edge equipment” to deciding where to place the outlets. And details mattered. “We needed to know if the plug was in the right place to be able to run that piece of equipment,” said Linda Fox, TMH’s Service Line Administrator for Surgical Services. “We measured the length of cords — all those kinds of things to make sure that it all fit. All the little things that you don’t necessarily think about, but we simulated it.” Physicians also had a hands-on role, from determining “where do we put computer screens, where do we put the beds in the rooms, how will we get clean instrumentation in the room to actually participating in the vendors selected to provide technology for the operating rooms,” said Dr. Chris DeRosier, a specialist in reconstructive plastic surgery who served as TMH Chairman of Surgery when the project launched. For physicians who offered their input in planning the center, “It invokes a sense of pride, to know we helped build it,” he said. To get that input, TMH cast a wide net, said Dr. Andrea Friall, TMH Chief Medical Officer and an obstetrician/gynecologist. “Everybody who operates in this facility or does procedures had the opportunity to participate.” And all these ideas came to TMH’s David Adkins, who negotiated all the deals and oversaw the installation of equipment. “I’ve kind of been the quarterback for all the equipment for the building and planning for the building and operations,” said Adkins, who oversees 68 employees in eight departments, from the laundry to clinical engineering, as TMH Supply Chain Executive Director. For many of those involved with the center, there has been a personal and professional connection. When Mark O’Bryant, TMH President & CEO, asked Laurie Dozier to be a consultant on the M.T. Mustian Center, he pitched that connection. “He told me the hospital was in my DNA,” said Dozier. And no wonder. His grandfathers were Jack W. Simmons, Tallahassee’s mayor in the 1940s who made the motion to build the hospital, and Dr. Laurie L. Dozier, one of

TMH’s founding physicians. And his father, also a physician, later served as president of the TMH Foundation. Dozier was born in TMH as were his siblings and his three children. He was chairman of the TMH Board of Directors when the vote was taken in 2013 to build the M.T. Mustian Center. “There are operating rooms working today that were there when I was born in 1950,” said Dozier. “These rooms have been there my whole life, but they won’t be there any more.” As a consultant, Dozier’s role has been able to “drive decisions” during the entire building process. “Mark O’Bryant offered me the opportunity of a lifetime to go out on top,” said Dozier. “It’s my crowning achievement to work on such a project, with the history I have with this institution. It’s special. I can’t say it any other way.” For Henry Hanson, the Project Engineer for the M.T. Mustian Center, his latest role has

been the culmination of a 35-year career at the hospital. Hanson has worked on every major expansion at TMH since he came on board, starting with the south wing and later the Bixler Trauma & Emergency Center and the Alexander D. Brickler, MD Women’s Pavilion. But the M.T. Mustian Center is “bigger, much more technically oriented,” he said. “It has a special meaning as it relates to me because it’s named after the person who hired me to come here,” said Hanson. “That may be one of the reasons why I’ve stayed so long to see it done — because Mr. Mustian hired me in 1984.” For Alford, to be able to play a part in creating something that’s “state of the art” and as “patient-centered” as the M.T. Mustian Center “is just exciting.” “Now to see your vision of what you thought it was going to be, and to really see it live and up, it’s beautiful,” said Alford. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 19

TAL L AHASSEE MEMOR IAL HEALTHCAR E

History

June 30, 1976

1985

TMH becomes Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center, Inc.

TMH opens the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Newborn, or Neonatal, Intensive Care Unit. 1996

Oct. 19, 1964

M.T. Mustian is appointed administrator of TMH. His tenure with the hospital lasts 25 years.

1979

TMH residency programs begin.

TMH launches the first Electrophysiology Program in the area as part of the Heart & Vascular Center. Dr. Marilyn Cox was the founding physician. TMHâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s program is one of only a handful in the country to be founded by a female physician.

1972

1977

1981

January 1988

TMH establishes the first ambulance service for Tallahassee. Before this service, funeral homes handled emergency calls.

In an effort to unify nonprofit hospitals nationwide, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, along with 29 other organizations, establishes the Voluntary Hospitals of America (VHA).

TMH unveils its helipad, allowing faster transportation services for patients during emergencies.

Duncan Moore, administrator of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia, becomes president and CEO of Tallahassee Memorial.

20 | M.T. Mustian Center

H I S TO RY

April 23, 1948

1951

TMH is established at the former Air Force base known as Dale Mabry Field. The hospital was housed in barracks used during WWII.

Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center gains accreditation. It is the longest continuously accredited cancer program in Florida.

1958

TMH undergoes its first renovation, adding a new wing to add emergency, obstetric and expanded surgical services, in addition to a new medical unit.

Nov. 4, 1949

Tallahassee Memorial Hospital opens its doors on the corner of Magnolia Drive and Miccosukee Road.

2005

A statewide study recommends a trauma center be established in the Big Bend. TMH steps up to the plate and establishes the Bixler Trauma & Emergency Center, a level II trauma center for the region.

2001

TMH launches a hospitalist program with four doctors; these physicians are based exclusively in the hospital and care for patients during their hospital stay. Today, it includes more than 30 physicians.

2013

TMH establishes a nurse residency program for new nurses transitioning into their professional career.

2016

2011

TMH debuts its new Cancer Center for outpatient cancer care.

TMH teams up with Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville to expand pediatric specialty care in the capital area, starting first with pediatric cardiology.

1998

2003

2011

2015

Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center becomes Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.

Mark O’Bryant joins Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare as President and CEO.

TMH opens the Transition Center, an innovative concept focused on helping patients discharged from the hospital receive the follow-up care and resource support to help them get healthier.

TMH Emergency Center Northeast opens to provide greater access for the community in the city’s growing north side.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 21

M .T. M U ST I A N C E N T E R :

Dress Rehearsal BY ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER

n a Broadway production, the actors learn their parts, the technicians plan the light and sound, the designers set the stage and, finally, it all comes together a few days before the opening with dress rehearsals. And so it has been with the new M.T. Mustian Center, as departments from throughout the hospital did their part to ensure the opening of this state-of-theart surgery and intensive care building would become a hit with the Tallahassee community. But just to torture the analogy a little bit further, the stakeholders in this process were rehearsing while the play was being written.

22 | M.T. Mustian Center

About five years ago, in a warehouse a few miles away from Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH), planners had created a “stage” that would simulate how the rooms in this future complex would look and function. “We did a mock-up of an OR room, of an intensive care room, of a pre- (and) post-op room and recovery bay,” said Katie Hill, Project Manager for the M.T. Mustian Center. “The clinical team accessed it from their perspective of caregiving, but then the patient and family advisors assessed it from a vantage point of a patient and what kinds of things they like to see and what would be meaningful for them.”

Representatives from non-patient care areas also were at the planning table, said Yashica Wilson-Hearns, TMH’s Vice President, Support Services. “Things on paper, you don’t see the fine details. If you’ve ever built a house, you’re looking at the plans, you think you might want a plug here; but when you actually walk the space, you think, ‘I should have put a plug here and maybe put a plug there,’ ” she said. “So the warehouse simulation brought everything together.” Her team also was able to give advice on surfaces, furniture and fixtures that might hold up best, be more easily maintained over

DRESS REHEARSAL

time and work throughout the hospital as other areas are updated with textures and colors, including a royal shade of blue they call “Mustian blue.” All of the equipment in the new operating rooms is new. During the selection process, doctors and staff were invited to try out different products and weigh in on what would work best. Linda Fox, Service Line Administrator for Surgical Services at the hospital, used the overhead lighting as an example. “We brought in multiple companies and had them install their products in the mock area,” she said. “The physicians and the OR staff together went over there. They looked at the quality of light … and then they looked at the mobility of it. Some lights could only swing to a certain degree around the operating room bed. Others had a longer degree of swing. Did you have to take two hands to try and move it, or could you move it with your finger?” In addition, Fox and her colleagues used the mock rooms to determine the most logical placement of equipment and supplies. To illustrate the process, she discussed the “clean core” area, each of which services seven operating rooms. Here, among other things, is where the team scrubs up for surgeries. “We did a lot of simulations … we had a lot of things we wanted to do in that space,” she explained. “So we made a list of everything we want to keep stored, or be utilized, or have available in that area and … we laid it all out and (created cardboard copies) in exactly the same size. If we need 15 of this size cart, where will they fit? Where do we need electrical plugs if something needs to be plugged in and kept charged? “We measured the length of cords, all those kinds of things, to make sure certain pieces like masks and soft goods all fit over a scrub sink … and a garbage can to throw stuff away. Little things that you don’t necessarily think about, but we simulated it.” She chuckled when she described what they dubbed the “Melinda Rule,” named after the

shortest team member, who’s under 5 feet tall. When placing supplies they asked themselves, “Can Melinda reach it?” Fox said. “And actually tried it.” TMH Education Coordinator Beth Cao has been working on the “people” part of the preparation for more than a year now. Some of that has been determining what training on what equipment needs to be offered and documented to satisfy accreditors. Cao said her goal was to train colleagues about the new facility in steps “from simple to complex.” “You can’t take someone on one tour and expect them to know where everything is,” she said. To begin, there were tours, “just introducing them to where they’re going to be working and some of the life/safety pieces, such as where the smoke doors, evacuation routes, fire extinguisher and oxygen pulls were located,” Cao said. “Next, any new equipment or technologies they’re going to be using, and then that last stuff is kind of putting it all together, going into their specific departments, seeing all those things in the actual space, and doing some scenarios, kind of like simulations that I was used to in nursing school.” In the end, people make the difference, said Fox. “It’s the human relationships that really make all of this happen and that we really want to continue to develop and expand on,” she said.

ACRE SITE

1,250,000 LINEAR FEET (O R 2 36 MIL E S ) O F DATA C A B L IN G

785,000 FEET

(O R 1 49 MIL E S ) O F CO N D U IT

3,000,000 FEET

(O R 5 69 MIL E S ) O F E L E C TRIC A L W IRE That is enough wire to roll out from the hospital to the Florida Keys.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare | 23

TH A N K YO U P LAT INUM SPO NSO R

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare salutes the sponsors who have made this special report possible.

GO LD SPO NSO RS

Brasfield & Gorrie LLC • Childers Construction Co. Rowland Publishing • The Mitchells • Gresham-Smith SILVER SPO NSO RS Capital Eurocars

Osceola Supply, Inc.

Ricoh Healthcare

Centennial Bank

Pennington P.A.

RT Electric

Ekk Realty Group Mad Dog Design and Construction Company, Inc.

Plaza Tower

Tallahassee Primary Care Associates (TPCA)

Prime Meridian Bank

The Carpet Studio

BR ONZ E SPO NSO RS AMWAT Moving Warehousing Storage

Encompass Rehabilitation Hospital of Tallahassee

Belimed Inc.

FMI Business Systems Hanger Clinic

One Blood Riley Palmer Construction Company, Inc. Southern Door & Plywood, Inc.

Capital Medical and Surgical, Inc.

Home Instead Senior Care

Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic

Carr, Riggs & Ingram

KCI an Acelity Company

TMH Federal Credit Union

24 | M.T. Mustian Center

Stryker Medical

FPO

850 Business Magazine

WINTER 2019

109

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S P E C I A L R E P O RT

MASTERING BUSINESS Across the country, a growing number of graduate schools are adding Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in Business Administration degrees and making them increasingly specialized. That trend, while giving students more options, complicates already difficult considerations: Is an MBA right for me? And, if so, which school is best? The answers will depend on a given personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goals, expectations and, often, occupation. For someone who concludes that the MBA experience will result in personal, professional and financial enrichment, there are outstanding programs at hand in Northwest Florida.

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MBA Programs

“I would say, in general, an MBA degree, wherever you are in your life, it will enhance it. You will grow not only in academic discipline in being a manager, but you’ll grow as a person in professional development … .”

The MBA Question Business schools tout flexibility in their efforts to attract jobholders by Pete Reinwald

s an entrepreneur in search of the gateway to business success, Tarun Gupta finds himself on the fence. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But he’s not sure whether he should pursue a Master of Business Administration degree. He wonders about opportunity cost — that is, what he could be giving up — and about the cost of the degree itself, which ranges from about $15,000 at an in-state school to well over six figures at a top-ranked university. “The average cost of an MBA these days, it’s kind of absurd,” said Gupta, a Tallahassee resident who earned his undergraduate degree in 2016. “I think people need to need to sit down and think what’s best for them.” Business schools throughout the country, including dozens in Florida,

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remain eager to help prospective students do so. A strong economy and a new generation of technology-focused entrepreneurs provide competition for business schools, many of which report stagnant enrollment in their MBA programs. According to a Kaplan Test Prep survey released in January, 70 percent of business schools in the U.S. reported declines in MBA applications in 2018. The survey of 150 admissions officers cited concern among international students about the political climate in the U.S. Other reasons for the declines included the strong U.S. job market, the cost of an MBA degree and questions about the value of an MBA, Kaplan said. A strong job market tends to keep prospective students in the workforce and out of graduate school, educators and analysts say. But business schools point to the cyclical nature of enrollment and trumpet the breadth, flexibility and enduring advantages of their MBA programs. “I would say, in general, an MBA degree, wherever you are in your life, it will enhance it,” said William Christiansen, MBA director at FSU. “You will grow not only in academic discipline in being a manager, but you’ll grow as a person in professional

development, in understanding of not only of business but understanding of life, understanding of how you fit in.” Business schools have gone to great lengths to make MBAs accessible to those who want them. Many offer accelerated one-year programs, part-time evening programs and, perhaps most notably, online programs. Some continue to offer executive MBAs, designed for corporate managers and leaders who want to stay in their jobs and continue to advance in their careers. Online MBAs typically offer the same curriculum and outcomes as traditional classroom settings, educators say, and often require few to zero campus visits. They’re particularly popular among working professionals and single parents who can earn a graduate degree during evenings or weekends from home. From prospective online MBA students, “Ultimately the questions I get are how flexible, what is the time commitment and how well can I continue to do this and still make my career goals,” said Naz Erenguc, director of admissions at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. So at many business schools, it’s in with the flexible and out with the traditional. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that a growing number of business schools are ending their conventional two-year MBA programs in

PHOTOS BY JOHN HARRINGTON (GUPTA) AND RAY STANYARD (MBA CLASSROOM) AND COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY (CHRISTIANSEN)

Dr. William Christiansen, MBA director at FSU

MBAs

by the Numbers

University of West Florida MBA programs: Part-time online, part-time evening Cost: Online MBA General, 33 semester hours, $15,065; Online MBA Area of Emphasis, 36 semester hours, $16,434; Evening MBA General, 33 semester hours, $12,461 (in-state); $34,229 (out-ofstate); Evening MBA Area of Emphasis, 36 semester hours, $13,594 (in-state); $37,341 (out-of-state). Average GMAT score among applicants accepted in spring, summer and fall of 2018: 478 Applicants accepted: 67.3 percent MBA enrollment for part-time students beginning fall 2018 through fall 2019: 379 students Tallahassee resident Tarun Gupta, at far left, has thought about pursuing an MBA, but plans first to try his hand at launching a small business. In photo above, FSU faculty member Dr. Darren Brooks works with MBA students Erin Apple and Brian Krecicki.

favor of shorter, specialized programs and online options. Specializations and concentrations give students more options that match job markets and technological, social and political trends. For its MBA program, the University of West Florida in Pensacola offers areas of emphasis in business analytics; entrepreneurship; hospitality and tourism leadership; human resources management; and supply chain logistics management. The Melbourne-based Florida Institute of Technology, like many others, offers an MBA in cybersecurity. MBA holders tend to swear by them and by the core courses that provide a foundation in areas such as finance, marketing, economics, operations management and human resource management. Take Gina Kinchlow, an instructor in the Florida A&M University School of Business and Industry. She earned an MBA from the University of

Florida, which U.S. News ranks 25th among business schools, in 2000, and she used it to launch Kinchow & Company, a consulting services firm. “It was a life-changing experience because it gave me the tools I needed as a mid-career professional to keep moving forward, to keep using it, to help me accomplish what I needed to accomplish,” Kinchlow said. She said her MBA education showed the keys to how businesses succeed and fail. She even relies on her MBA for home buying, retirement planning and other financial assessments, she said. Joey Ginn, market president of Centennial Bank in Panama City, earned an MBA at the University of South Alabama and says he thinks highly of job candidates who get the degree. “I think certainly having an MBA gives you a leg up on the competition,” he said. “To me it shows an additional level of commitment — somebody

What makes the program attractive or unique, according to MBA Director Melissa Brode: “The University of West Florida’s MBA Program focuses on high-impact practices that integrate real-world experiences into the curriculum. The use of live cases across the program prepare our working and aspiring professional students with the skills necessary to embrace future business opportunities.”

Florida State University MBA programs: Accelerated full-time MBA (39 credit hours), evening part-time MBA (39 credit hours), online part-time MBA (39 credit hours), online part-time MBA with real estate specialization; Joint JD/MBA pathway; joint MSW/MBA pathway Cost: On-campus, $18,693.48 estimated for Florida residents, $43,318.08 estimated for non-Florida residents; Online, $30,427.02 estimated for Florida residents, $31,599.36 estimated for non-Florida residents. Online programs are offered at a market rate instead of a tuition rate. Average GMAT score among students accepted: 575 Applicants accepted: 75 percent MBA enrollment: 457 students What makes the program attractive or unique, according to Michael Hartline, dean of the College of Business: “An FSU MBA will propel you forward, no matter what industry you choose. Not only do we provide flexible formats for obtaining your MBA, but you also can tailor your degree with a specialization — such as business analytics or supply chain management — and gain more expertise that employers demand.” 850 Business Magazine

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University of West Florida MBA and graduate accounting students gather for a study session at the College of Business. UWF’s MBA program places an emphasis on integrating real-world experiences into the curriculum.

that bodes well for prospective job canwho wants to further their education didates at those companies. and better themselves.” They also boast the pay. In its 2019 Said Scott Luth, CEO of PensacolaCorporate Recruiters Survey, the based FloridaWest Economic Graduate Management Admission Development Alliance: “You get the Council — an association of graduextra two years of doing the research and ate business schools — projected an definitely the theoretical side of busiannual base starting salary for new ness, and so when you’re looking to hire, MBA hires of $115,000, more than sometimes that’s a good strategic advandouble that of new hires who held only tage. How much of a strategic advantage a bachelor’s degree. depends on the position you’re looking But as the economy changes and for and how you leverage that additional technology drives it, graduate business skill set in your career search.” schools are coming under increased Business schools trumpet their relaCompensation: Basefrom Salaries pressure entrepreneur-minded tionships with businesses and corpo- Starting millennials who see more value in rations, pointing out that when their Adjusted forexperience inflation, the median than in an advanced degree. MBA graduates get jobs and do well,

They include Jason McIntosh, cofounder of DivvyUp, a Tallahassee-based custom-socks company. He and cofounder Mitch Nelson majored in entrepreneurship at Florida State University. “I’m sure an MBA might be useful,” McIntosh said. “But for us, it’s really been just jumping into the deep end and really trying to figure it out. I can say that’s been very valuable for us.” Gupta, the UNC-Chapel Hill graduate and Tallahassee resident, said he spent three years in Silicon Valley and found himself struck by the number of people who were doing well without MBAs. He says he’s working on opening Naantheless, “Utimately the a fast-food company spequestions I get cializing in Indian cuiare how flexible, sine. He doesn’t feel he what is the time commitment needs a graduate busiand how well ness degree to do that. can I continue “It’s not like I have to do this and still make my to wave a Harvard career goals.” MBA in people’s faces,” Naz Erenguc, director of he said. “But let’s say admissions at you’re trying to get the University of Florida a job at McKinsey. A Warrington Harvard MBA becomes College of annual base starting salary Business invaluable.”

for MBA talent at US companies is the highest on record Companies in the United States

Trend in MBA Median Annual Base Starting Salary for New Hires, by Survey Year Reported Median Annual Base Starting Salary

Adjusted Median Annual Base Starting Salary*

US Dollars

$150,000

Adjusted for inflation, the median annual base starting salary for MBA talent at U.S. companies is the highest on record

$100,000

$50,000

*Salaries are adjusted for inflation using the February 2019 Consumer Price Index Source : Graduate Management Admission Council

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*Salaries are adjusted for inflation using the February 2019 Consumer Price Index.

PHOTOS BY BEN SIMONS AND JOHN BLACKIE COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA

Compensation: Starting Base Salaries

ACHIEVING MORE with a FLORIDA STATE MBA Pursue your degree online or on campus

Samuel Pomilio, MBA ’19 Pomilio of Syracuse, N.Y., has worked in purchasing, audit support and web marketing. He received multiple job offers and accepted a supply planning analyst position with Johnson & Johnson in Boston. “Here at Florida State, you can really build relationships with the faculty. You are also given many opportunities to connect with employers so you can find the right fit.”

Haley Simard, MBA ’19 Atlanta native Simard has worked in strategic marketing and product development. Recruited by companies focused on sales or supply chain management, she accepted a post with Lockheed Martin in Orlando. “My long-term goal is to serve in an executive leadership role. I chose to continue my education so I could further hone my management skills. A graduate degree from the College of Business is a sound investment for me. Not only do the college’s academic programs continue to receive top rankings, but I was also able to get started as soon as I finished my undergraduate education.”

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

International Acclaim. Individual Attention.™

GMAT waivers available for highly qualified candidates

mba.fsu.edu/info

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MBA Diversity

A Shrinking Gap Gender disparity narrows in MBA programs by Danielle J. Brown

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Gina Kinchlow lectures students at FAMU, where she teaches courses on marketing, advertising and retailing. Diversity, she says, is good for business. Twenty years ago, she was one of just three people of color in her 40-member MBA graduating class at the University of Florida.

findings of the survey also indicate that more work remains to be done.” There is the matter of compensation, for example. In late 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that a pay gap persisted for most women who earned their MBA. After earning the degree, women earned a median $130,000 a year compared with $140,000 for men, according to a survey of alumni that the newspaper did in partnership with Times Higher Education. Before entering business school, women earned a median $63,000 a year and men $67,000, the newspaper reported, citing the survey. A survey by the Forté Foundation, a nonprofit organization that emphasizes women in leadership, reported that earning an MBA resulted in an average 63 percent salary increase for women and 76 percent for men. At the University of West Florida, women now make up 53 percent of MBA students, said UWF’s MBA director Melissa Brode. She also pointed to “very good representation across different races and ethnicities.” “I think it’s important for us to have different perspectives,” Brode said. “It’s what students are going to experience

out in the workplace. And what better environment than academia to engage with different people from different backgrounds and learn about them?” Gina Kinchlow appreciates the changes she’s seeing. She earned her MBA from the University of Florida about 20 years ago. She said her cohort included almost as many women as men but that she was one of only three people of color in her class of 40. She now teaches courses at Florida A&M University on marketing, advertising and retailing and sees a need “I remember when I was for diversity in business referred to as and classroom settings. ‘girl.’ Now I am Kinchlow said workpresident of a company in place diversity is good a very malefor the bottom line. dominated “I’ve always thought industry. And I don’t receive it’s the right thing to that any longer.” do, and it’s the smart Erin Ennis, business thing to do,” president of TallahasseeKinchlow said. “Your based Residential customer appreciates Elevators the fact that there are people working there who look like them. … It just makes business sense when you make the effort to be diverse.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OFERIN ENNIS AND GINA KINCHLOW

ot too long ago, women in business had a tough time earning the respect afforded men. Consider Erin Ennis, president of Tallahassee-based Residential Elevators. She earned her MBA from Florida State University in 1990 and found that people were surprised to learn she had an advanced business degree. “I remember when I was referred to as ‘girl,’ ” she said. “Now I am president of a company in a very male-dominated industry. And I don’t receive that any longer.” Business schools tout the strides they have made to close the gender gap — and to ensure that the business world takes women seriously. Over five recent testing years, the number of women who took the GMAT — a key business school admissions exam — increased 12 percent, according to a survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council, or GMAC, an association of business schools. GMAC, which administers the exam, also found that 35 percent of U.S. business schools saw growth in women’s applications. Women accounted for 45 percent of applications to business programs, according to the organization’s 2018 Application Trends Survey Report. “While these numbers demonstrate important gains being made by business school programs around the world in growing women’s representation,” GMAC wrote on its website, “the

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Getting Online Remote MBA programs growing in popularity by Danielle J. Brown

t is an impressive, high-mileage routine. At the start of her week, Natasha Reynolds departs Florida and drives nearly five hours to her job in Atlanta. She makes the same trip back to spend weekends with her family in Pensacola. To top it off, she is working toward a masters of business administration degree from Florida State University, with a logistical assist from the University of West Florida. That pursuit, she said, is made possible by the availability of an online MBA program. “It would not be feasible for me if I had to attend physically,” Reynolds said. “I have complete flexibility. … If I have to work and travel for work, I don’t have to worry about it. I can just take my laptop with me.”

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The Graduate Management Admission Council, or GMAC, an association of business schools, has found that about one quarter of MBA program applicants prefer an online program to the traditional alternative. “We understand market demands are moving in that direction,” said Naz Erenguc, associate director of admissions at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. At the University of West Florida, the number of online MBA applications has steadily increased since the school introduced its online program in 2015. “I think it’s a reflection of a busier workplace,” said Melissa Brode, West Florida’s MBA director. “The fact is that really most people do not work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5.” At West Florida and elsewhere, online students use online meeting platforms and take part in group projects, just as they would in a traditional setting. Curriculum and expectations stay the same, regardless of the instructional delivery method. And most institutions make no distinction on a diploma indicating whether the student earned a degree online or in person.

“So if you get an MBA, it’s an MBA,” Brode said. “In our view, there shouldn’t be a distinction because they are achieving the same student learning.” Some online programs require testing at a central location while others allow students to complete their entire graduate degree without going to campus. To prevent cheating, the University of West Florida uses a custom browser called LockDown, which prevents students from accessing additional applications or websites during an online exam. A webcam offers additional testing security, Brode said. Reynolds, the online student who works in Atlanta, said that when she’s in Pensacola and must take an exam for her FSU program, she does so at UWF’s testing center. Reynolds said her professors are accessible and responsive. And despite taking classes remotely, she has forged strong relationships with her online classmates. “You can make it as distant as you want or you can make it as relational as you want,” Reynolds said. “You can make Students who enroll it as distant as you want or you in online MBA procan make it as grams — as with tradirelational as tional MBA programs you want.” — Natasha — believe an MBA will Reynolds, help them become more online student versatile and secure promotions and pay raises, according to GMAC surveys. Reynolds aims for greater opportunities in the business world. “It’s not just the degree. It’s the knowledge,” she said. “It gives me quite a lot to contribute in conversation and on projects.”

PHOTOS BY MANGOSTAR_STUDIO / STOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS AND COURTESY OF NATASHA REYNOLDS

MBA Online Programs

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Upstart Programs Business schools diversify offerings with specializations by Pete Reinwald

elissa Stoker got her undergraduate degree in family psychology and wanted to build on it. She said she found herself most interested in studying, from a leadership perspective, how people work and what motivates them. Her dad has a Master of Business Administration degree and encouraged her to get one. Everybody and her sister seemed to have an MBA, so she sought something similar but not as prevalent and decided on a Master of Science in Management, or MSM. The degree carried the same core classes as an MBA, she said, but emphasized more soft skills such as communication and adaptability. Today, Stoker works as director of operations at the Pensacola-based

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FloridaWest Economic Development Alliance. “There has not been a single position that I’ve ever held that it has not applied to,” she said of her graduate degree from Indiana Wesleyan University. “Whether I was at the bottom or the top … anybody can take some of these skills and these lessons and apply them to any business practice.” Business schools offer myriad options for the business- or leadership-minded. In addition to a master of management, graduate degrees include masters of accounting, finance, data analytics and information technology. The Graduate Management Admission Council, an association of graduate business schools, said in its 2018 Application Trends Survey that graduate degrees in accounting had seen a 23 percent drop in student demand from the previous year. Graduate degrees in data analytics, meanwhile, had seen a 32 percent increase — consistent with a 21st-century emphasis on big data. Florida A&M University’s School of Business and Industry offers programs in facilities management and professional leadership development. Some schools, such as Jacksonville

University, offer joint degrees in business administration and business analytics. “Some students want to be more specialized,” said William Christiansen, MBA director at the Florida State University College of Business. “But MBA is still the king. MBA still dominates those in terms of numbers, in terms of demand.” To meet demand, FSU has added MBA specializations in human resources and business analytics. It says it also has seen a surge in interest in its MBA specialization in supply chain management. Samuel Pomilio said he chose that track at FSU after he saw others had done the same and had gotten good jobs with good companies. “It turned out to be the best thing I’d ever done,” he said. He graduated in May and now works as a supply-planning analyst at a unit of Johnson & Johnson in Boston. He said he also received a job offer from Lockheed Martin, which had been recruiting at FSU. Pomilio said he most appreciated an emphasis on case studies, which “helped us to understand actions that were taken by other people. … We had practical tips.”

PHOTOS BY CYANO66 / STOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

MBA Options

Congratulations to our founder, Daryl Rose Davis, this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recipient of a Pinnacle Award for Outstanding Leadership in Business.

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