Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Thursday's Daily Pulse

Florida Trend Exclusive
350 Biggest Companies in Florida

Everglades projects

Who's number 1? Find out in Florida Trend's annual listing of the biggest public and private companies in the state. Companies on the list must be headquartered in Florida. They are ranked by revenue.

» Main 350 Biggest Companies section
» Preview the top 50 records on the 125 Public Companies list
» Preview the top 50 records on the 225 Private Companies list

Winners for EY Entrepreneur of the Year® for Florida are announced

Congratulations to the 2017 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Florida award recipients. This group of leading entrepreneurs was selected by an independent judging panel made up of previous winners of the award, leading CEOs, private capital investors and other regional business leaders. Full story here, includes photos of winners.

See also:
» ReliaQuest's CEO Brian Murphy named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award Winner

Florida city tops list of best beach towns in America

The personal finance website Wallethub.com named Naples the nation’s best beach town to live in for 2017. Key West, Florida, was No. 2. Six other Florida cities made the top 20, including St. Augustine at No. 5 and Marco Island at No. 7. Full story here. Also read more at WINK News and FOX4.

Florida's school grades improve as educators get the hang of a new system

Florida has a growing number of A-rated schools and fewer schools rated “F,” according to school grade data released by the state Wednesday. The percentage of schools that earned an “A” or a “B” rose from 46 percent to 57 percent and the number of “F” schools dropped by more than half. See the summary from the Florida Department of Education, here. Also read more at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Tampa Bay Times.

Florida voters are unaware of the Constitutional Revision Commission

A Florida TaxWatch survey finds that Florida voters are unaware of the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC)and its activities. When registered voters were asked how they had seen, read or heard about the CRC, 77 percent said “nothing at all.” Another 12.9 percent said “a little.” More survey results, and story here.

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Florida Senate president returns to West Palm Beach law firm
Senate President Joe Negron is back at work in the private sector as of Wednesday, when he returned to the West Palm Beach branch of a law firm he previously worked for seven years ago.

› South Florida companies named to 'Best Workplaces for Millennials'
Every workplace wants to attract Millennials – and some South Florida employers have won national recognition while achieving the goal. For its efforts, Ultimate Software emerged atop the 2017 list of “Best Workplaces for Millennials”.

Florida's Movers & Influencers
See some of Florida's top executive moves, board appointments, civic accomplishments, and more at Florida Trend's Movers & Influencers. Each profile appears in three places: in a weekly eNewsletter, online at FloridaTrend.com and in a monthly print issue of Florida Trend. Read more here.

› YouTube TV expanding to Orlando market, nine others
YouTube TV, Google’s effort to compete with cable-television companies and online-streaming platforms, will soon expand into Orlando.

› Brightline and FPL announce clean energy partnership
Brightline, the express train service that will run between West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, has announced its partnership with Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) to provide clean biodiesel to fuel the trains.

Go to page 2 for more stories ...

› Virtual reality big in 1st group of OrlandoiX speakers
An Emmy Award-nominated speaker, HTC Vive creative director and mobile game producer highlight the first group of speakers that will be at OrlandoiX. The third-year tech conference takes place Aug. 17-20 at Full Sail University.

› Longboat Key wants to lure Tom Harmer to lead town
Longboat Key leaders are looking for a “big fish” administrator who already understands the area’s local governments to replace outgoing Town Manager Dave Bullock when he retires in January. At the top of their list is Sarasota County Administrator Tom Harmer, so the commission last week asked Bullock to try to reel him in.

› Israeli firm extracts water from air in Florida
Enter Water-Gen, an Israeli company whose technology captures humidity to extract drinking water from the air. Miami Gardens said it was launching a pilot program with the company to address its water problems — the first U.S. city to do so.

› Boynton food bank faces challenges with federal cuts
According to Feeding South Florida, a food bank serving 25 percent of the state's food insecure population, with a large distribution center in Boynton Beach, proposed federal budget cuts will significantly impact the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.