March 28, 2024

People & Profiles: Archive

Good Vibrations
3/11/2024
Blake Richardson created a vibrating wristband that gently rouses firefighters when they get an emergency call. The device is designed to reduce the stress of traditional fire alarm systems, which can take a toll on first responders' health.
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Florida Icon: Jacqueline Quinn
3/8/2024
Environmental engineer at Kennedy Space Center who holds 12 U.S. patents, many involving soil contamination technology; inductee in the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Titusville; age 56
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Editorial Growth from Within
2/29/2024
FLORIDA TREND'S editorial success derives from its team of extraordinarily talented award-winning journalists. Their focus, dedication and attention to their craft is undeniable. Throughout its history, FLORIDA TREND has guided itself on its editorial integrity, its unbiased news approach and its ability to be a loyal and trusted source of business news and information for its readers.
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A Fresh Take
2/29/2024
I was recently a guest speaker in a new course called “Fresh Take Business” at the University of Florida journalism school. The course is an off shoot of an existing class called “Fresh Take Florida,” which has operated as a kind of student journalist news service and provides students with clips they've used to get jobs.
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Florida Icon: Lee Brian Schrager
2/19/2024
I always worked in restaurants. When I was 10, 11 years old, I used to bag Chinese takeout food, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, in a local popular Chinese restaurant. I worked in snack bars and movie theaters. I worked at Swensen's ice cream parlor, (and was a) valet car parker at a fine-dining restaurant. There was always something about the hospitality industry. The people in it are very special. And you know, I've always enjoyed wine and food.
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Education Guru
2/14/2024
Education was calling for Adam Giery. His mother was a teacher — he always dreamed of following in her footsteps — and he was inspired by his own teachers. “I'm a product of an American public education system that just wouldn't expect less from me,” Giery explains. “My teachers were there for me, my teachers set a very high bar and when given the choice to pursue a profession, ‘teacher' felt like the answer.”
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The Villages: The ‘Non' Final Frontier
2/1/2024
I have a personal connection to this month's cover story, “Endless Horizon” (p. 52) by Associate Editor Michael Fechter. It has been nearly 12 years since my parents bought their home in The Villages. At first it was their “second” home as they split time between Wisconsin (where they had lived their entire lives) and The Villages. Each year, the time they spent in Florida became longer and longer, until they decided to sell their home up north and make The Villages their permanent residence.
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Florida Icon: Annetta Wilson
1/11/2024
President of Speak With Ease, a Florida company specializing in communication skills for executives; former prime time television anchor in Central Florida, Lake Mary; age 66.
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Game On
1/10/2024
Kyle Morrand's game development studio is using augmented reality, virtual reality and other technologies to solve real world problems across a range of industries.
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A Place to Call Home
1/1/2024
Along the edges of urban Florida are rooftops where there was once open land — some of it sprawling suburbs and others dense clusters of apartments reminiscent of the tall ant hills that once dotted pastureland. In my hometown of Tampa, downtown canyons of high-rise condos and apartments have sprouted from former parking lots.
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Welcoming in a New Year
Florida Icon: Deby Cassill
12/11/2023
At age 3 or 4, I'm out in the garden with my dolls and there are insects everywhere. Later, the dolls went away and I started collecting butterflies and beetles, but the thing that really intrigued me were the ants. I didn't collect them, but I could sit there and see them meeting each other, having a brief interaction, and then move on. I was fascinated.
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One Man's Trash...
12/7/2023
Born and raised in Venezuela, Tony Selvaggio graduated from college and moved to Tampa in 2011 to work at a scrap metal business. Within a few years, he was ready to start his own venture. “I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit," Selvaggio says.
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The Impact of a Floridian
12/1/2023
One of the editions I treasure most each year is our annual Floridian of the Year issue, published each December. The process begins in mid-summer when members of our editorial team narrow the list of candidates they believe are worthy of the honor. It is a process that is both objective and subjective in its nature, but our team is methodical in its research as we work to reach a consensus decision.
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The Incredible, Invisible Woman
12/1/2023
I am sitting in a cavernous room amid more than 125 incredibly accomplished women, brought together by Greenberg Traurig for the day in Miami Beach. The woman to my right was the longtime agent for a Hall of Fame baseball player in an era when it was unheard of for a woman to be such a thing. To my left, another top attorney is texting her teenage daughter at college, who is sick and still needs the comfort of her mother's attention.
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11/27/2023
In his 15th year as CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Mark Wilson has vastly broadened the organization's influence into areas that might seem unconventional. Breaking the stereotype of a clubby establishment focused solely on the business community, the Florida Chamber has set ambitious goals — such as cutting Florida's childhood poverty rate in half, helping working families gain access to quality daycare and focusing on mental health — to strengthen the social fabric of the state amid its surging growth.
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Text Support
11/17/2023
Born in Colombia, Maria Barrera moved to South Florida with her mom when she was 10. Though it was a hard transition, she excelled in math and science and by high school she was tutoring. “I would spend six hours every day after school running around Weston, going to different houses, and working with second-graders to seniors. I loved that — it was my happy place.”
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Florida Icon: Hugh D. Hayes
11/7/2023
The boards of directors at Florida's public companies are among the nation's most male-dominated. But a network of women who built successful C-suite careers is working to bring new talent to the table.
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Exceptional Leadership
11/1/2023
For many years now, the cover story and main theme of our November issue has been dedicated to the topic of women in leadership. Throughout the year, we aim to provide some of the most robust coverage of all executives across the state, both male and female, in our monthly print issues, on our website (FloridaTrend.com), across our daily and weekly eNews alerts and via our weekly Business Beat newscast.
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Brightline's Big Leap
Florida Icon: Willy Chirino
10/11/2023
The small town where I grew up in western Cuba was surrounded by tobacco fields. When it rained, the smell of the earth mixed with the smell of the curing tobacco, and it was a beautiful smell. I can still remember it very clearly to this day, even though I have not experienced it since I left Cuba when I was 14.
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Making Connections
10/10/2023
Robert Morcos was 3 years old when his Jordanian family immigrated to America. He grew up in Aventura, north of Miami, as the oldest of five siblings raised by a single mom, and he says he was always acutely aware that they were not wealthy like his friends' families. “I was always very entrepreneurial.
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Continuing to Deliver on Florida's Workforce Needs
10/1/2023
As I meet with business executives from across the state, the number one topic that comes up in our conversations is the importance and need for Florida to continue to grow its workforce.
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Through the Grapevine
All Together Now
9/19/2023
You may know a community manager, a head of community or even a chief community officer. The job titles are popping up with more frequency at organizations of all sizes, from big brands like Peloton, Lululemon and Tesla to local small businesses and non-profits. They engage with customers, solve problems and learn from their feedback. They may recruit brand ambassadors, host events and share on social media, among other duties.
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Icon: Rita Lowman
9/11/2023
When I was 2, my parents divorced, and, (when I was) 5, they both remarried. So, for the first years of their marriages to my stepparents, I was living six months with one parent and six months with the other. When I was 9, I had the opportunity to go before a judge and he asked me what I wanted to happen. Since my parents only lived about five blocks apart, I said I wanted to live with my mom during the week and my dad on the weekends. The judge thought that was a great idea. For a judge to listen to me, a 9-year-old, that made a big impression on me. After that, I knew I would have the opportunity to have my voice heard.
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Strategic Economic Development is Florida's Future
9/1/2023
Florida's growth is impressive — from the Panhandle to South Florida and all areas in between. The population expansion our state has been experiencing is quite extraordinary, with nearly 1,000 new residents moving here each day. Along with the population boom, business sector growth has followed. When looking at recent U.S. Census data, of the nearly 6 million business applications filed nationally, almost 700,000 of them (nearly 12%) were in Florida.
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Sole Mates
9/1/2023
Trailblazing entrepreneur Rita Case is recognized for many things: As a teenager working at her parents' auto dealership, the first in the nation to carry Hondas, she sold the first of the now ubiquitous cars. Along with husband, Rick, the couple built one of the nation's largest and most successful automotive dealership empires. She's won many awards and national and international honors; and of course, there are her trademark hats — she's never seen without one.
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Icon: Phillip Frost
8/21/2023
Why did I major in French literature? I had never left the country, and the idea of learning a foreign language was appealing to me. And so, it was an opportunity to major in a subject that would at the same time permit me to take enough science courses so that if I had decided to go to medical school, I had that option.
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Ready for Takeoff
8/8/2023
Air travel and cargo transport are major contributors to carbon emissions. To address the challenge, innovators are starting small. Advanced electric-powered aviation technologies, such as drones, combined with geospatial mapping and artificial intelligence, can be used to modernize the industry. The technologies also can predict and track wildfires, monitor water quality and deliver supplies to remote areas, says Tampa entrepreneur and aerospace engineer Rocio Frej Vitalle.
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Florida Trend Video Pick

Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices
Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices

Central Floirda chocolate shops are left with a bitter taste as cocoa prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

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