April 2025 | Evan Williams
SPOTLIGHT
In 2021, Ken LaRoe founded Climate First Bank in Eustis as the world’s first FDIC-insured community bank made to combat the climate crisis. It boasts the fastest growth of any U.S. bank since 2009, establishing $900 million in assets in three years with an emphasis on non-governmental organizations and businesses dedicated to sustainability, and loan options for energy infrastructure, in addition to standard community banking services. Now LaRoe is stepping down from his leadership role, with the bank promoting current president Lex Ford to CEO.
Climate First says Ford is tasked with leading an ambitious growth plan, reaching $10 billion in assets in 10 years, using AI to drive efficiency and scaling up the bank’s footprint nationwide, as well as expanding its financial services for the cannabis industry.
Founder LaRoe, who plans to transition to the role of executive chairman of the board, says that his successor is “whip-smart, thoughtful and passionate about our work. Most important: He deeply understands that Climate First Bank’s success is not in spite of our mission, but because of it.”
Before coming to the bank as president in 2021, Ford was senior credit officer and then wingman to the executive chairman at First Green Bank (since sold to Seacoast National Bank).
“I’m thrilled to get to Lex Ford work,” he says.
AEROSPACE
- Titusville tourism company Space Perspective, which had been backed by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and had planned to send tourists into the stratosphere via hydrogen-powered ballons at $125,000 per ride, was evicted in January from the Space Coast Regional Airport by the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority. The company was reportedly more than $90,000 behind on rent and subsequently laid off most of its 140 employees.
- NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, along with the University of Florida, University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are charter members of the Florida University Space Research Consortium, designated as the state’s official space research entity. They’ll collaborate with NASA.
MALLS
- The once-bustling Seminole Towne Center mall in Sanford, a relic of the 1990s, closed its doors at the end of January after years of declining sales. Local news stations reported on the building’s ghost-town atmosphere with empty halls and moving trucks that defined its last days. Officials are looking toward redevelopment of the space, potentially with offices, retail stores and residences. The mall’s anchor businesses, including Dillard’s and JCPenney, remain open.
MUSEUMS
- Aaron De Groft, ousted as the Orlando Museum of Art’s director after a 2022 FBI raid, died in January following a brief illness. He was 59. The FBI said 26 paintings he touted as never-seen-before works by the late neoexpressionist painter Jean-Michel Basquiat were fakes.
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
- Orlando-based property management firm ZRS Management announced that Darren Pierce, the company’s president, has been appointed CEO. He succeeds Steve Buck, who ran the company for 30 years. ZRS ranks 19th on the National Multifamily Housing Council’s list of largest property managers in the United States.
JOB TRAINING
- The Florida Department of Transportation awarded Seminole County Public Schools $2.7 million, the district’s largest-ever single-program grant, to fund a career education program for fire and emergency services.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- The nonprofit tech strategy partnership Innovate Orlando named Sheena Fowler as its new CEO. She was previously a VP at augmented reality company Red 6, has been on the economic development team at the Orlando Economic Partnership and served as the region’s film commissioner.
- The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority aims to begin flights between Orlando International and South Korea’s Incheon Airport. Osceola County hopes to link its NeoCity tech district to the South Korean market.
IN MEMORIAM
“I think we have to teach authentic history. We have to be real and present an unvarnished version of what happened. … We cannot celebrate our triumphs without recognizing our trials.” — State Sen. Geraldine Thompson in a 2023 interview with Florida Public Media, a nonprofit representing two dozen public radio and TV stations. The longtime state lawmaker died in February at age 76 following complications from knee replacement surgery. She authored a book recounting 150 years of Orlando’s Black history and played a key role in establishing the Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture in Orlando.