April 26, 2024
Feature
A Labor of Love
Growing up in farm country along the Florida-Georgia state line, Martha McGill always wanted to work with children. It was a calling, and she was also a bit of a workaholic. Her first job was as a pediatric nurse at a hospital in Valdosta, Georgia. “I worked 7 (days) on, 7 (days) off, and on my week off I got a job at a different medical center caring for children,” she says.
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Published on 4/25/2024
The Night Nurse
Lisa Nummi's pediatrician encouraged her to go into nursing. “So I went to nursing school and immediately fell in love. I was hooked,” she says. At Tampa General Hospital she kept ratcheting up the intensity, working in pediatrics, then pediatric intensive care, then the pediatric emergency room. Eventually she became a flight nurse paramedic, treating injured patients in a helicopter whirring through the sky.
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Published on 4/24/2024
Running the Railroad
By the time she was 12, Kelly Cullen knew what she wanted to do: “I wanted to help people.” Since she was 8, she had been helping her beloved Aunt Claire, a nurse, take care of Cullen's grandmother who was paralyzed by a stroke.
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Published on 4/23/2024
The Most Trusted
Recently, Wendi Goodson-Celerin was going through her late mother's things when she came across something that Wendi had scribbled in little-girl handwriting way back in elementary school: I want to be a nurse. I want to help people.
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Published on 4/23/2024
Condo Education
With many condominiums staring down costly repair bills and needing professional oversight, Florida International University's College of Business is offering a training certificate program for board members and owners.
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Published on 4/22/2024
Critical Mass
Florida gives rise to its share of class actions and mass tort claims. That's expected given its size as the third largest state by population and a history of pro-plaintiff laws and court rulings — a tendency GOP legislators and governors have had success in recent years reversing.
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Published on 4/19/2024
The Son of Immigrants
Growing up in Miami, David Zambrana was the child of Cuban immigrants. “Working hard and making a difference was at the root of what we heard at the dinner table,” he recalls. “My mom used to say, ‘Don't walk into a room and walk out unless you leave it better than you found it.' You know — ‘It's a gift to be in this country. Don't be a burden on anyone. You're going to go to school because you're going to do better than I did,' was basically the mantra of how my sister and I were raised.”
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Published on 4/19/2024
Educating the Fed
Gregory Haile, 46, is the former president of Broward College. He was recently reappointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta for a three-year term and is deputy chair of its board of directors. He spoke to Florida Trend recently about his role on the Fed board and his journey from growing up in Queens in New York City to achieving national prominence as a Fed board member and as a leader in higher education. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, is married with two children, is a graduate of Arizona State University and has a law degree from Columbia University.
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Published on 4/17/2024
Frame of Reference
Orlando Museum of Art Executive Director and CEO Cathryn Mattson recently stood before a handful of journalists and museum staffers in a low-key launch of the museum's centennial.
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Published on 4/17/2024
From Bedside to C-Suite
Audrey Gregory knows how to treat an alligator bite. Stephanie Conners learned fast that being a nurse takes guts. Martha McGill held two pediatric nursing jobs at the same time. And Lisa Nummi knows all the ways a hospital is different at night than it is during the day.
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Published on 4/17/2024
Burger Suing King
If you don't know Delray Beach attorney Anthony Russo by name, you perhaps know his firm's work. He sued Wendy's, McDonald's, Arby's and Taco Bell for alleged consumer fraud for ads that portray products in quality and portions superior to what consumers actually get in stores. He sued Amazon for suspending rapid delivery in the early days of the pandemic, which he argued was a breach of contract with its Prime members. He sued candy maker Hershey over alleged fraud in its Reese's packaging. (Wrappers showed the likes of jack o'-lanterns but the actual candy lacked detail.)
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Published on 4/16/2024
The Air Traffic Controller
Audrey Gregory married her high school boyfriend, who was in the military. She needed a career where she could be mobile and work anywhere. Her first nursing job was in a small hospital near Fort Stewart, Georgia, where her husband was stationed.
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Published on 4/16/2024
Building Boom
In 2021, Alabama construction firm Robins & Morton opened an office in Tampa, its third in Florida, to serve the growing demand for hospital construction here. The firm had seen requests for proposals triple from 2019 to 2020. The company's health care revenue from Florida grew 30% in a four-year span.
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Published on 4/16/2024
Streamlining Reorganizations
Fort Lauderdale forensic accountant and CPA Soneet Kapila usually makes the news for untangling the financial mess left behind in busted Ponzi schemes and other frauds. This year, as president of the Virginia-based American Bankruptcy Institute, he's been busy asking Congress to make it easier for failing small businesses to salvage their operations.
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Published on 4/15/2024
Passing the Torch
There's been a changing of the guard at the Florida Bankers Association, which lobbies Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., on behalf of the banking industry. Longtime leader Alex Sanchez has retired after 30 years with the organization, 26 as CEO. His successor, Kathy Kraninger, was director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Trump administration and is plotting a new course for the organization.
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Published on 4/11/2024
Florida Icon: Thomas Wilkins
My mother was a single parent, but a very grown-up woman, and there were certain things she demanded of me: good behavior, clean clothes to wear to school, obey my teachers and be a good citizen in the neighborhood. She created disciplines and an inner personal structure that were an important part of my beginning.
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Published on 4/11/2024
Regional Input
Housing affordability and rising insurance rates are two issues that will likely continue to affect Florida's economy in the coming year, predict two members of the Jacksonville board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
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Published on 4/10/2024
Propelling Women in Tech
In the eight years since Raechel Canipe graduated from college, she's held eight jobs at four companies. A baby boomer might question that job-hopping — but for Canipe, like many Millennials, switching positions has opened doors to learning, career opportunities and giving back.
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Published on 4/10/2024
International Insight
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was one of the most destructive in history, wiping out about a quarter of the city's population and killing 70,000 people across Portugal. Centuries later, “it seems to still be a topic of discussion and a driver of the country's risk averse nature,” says Lynette Clinton, who traveled to Portugal in 2022 as part of University of Tampa's Executive MBA program.
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Published on 3/31/2024
Empowering Entrepreneurs
For Carlos Penaranda, the pandemic was a time to reflect on his life. His wife was pregnant, and they had just moved to South Florida. He had been a project engineer with a good salary, but the work left little time for family or to give back through a non-profit he had set up for his homeland, Ecuador.
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Published on 3/28/2024
Retooling Toward the Future
With a long history in the private sector — including stints at IBM and Cisco — Anil Menon has had a front row seat on the value of an MBA and executive education. But he's also learned about some of the weaknesses inherent in the system.
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Published on 3/27/2024
Opening Doors
To an outsider, it may have seemed like the wrong time for Raul Duarte to embark on an MBA. The pandemic forced the world into lockdown, his industry was imploding and he was planning to launch his own company, a full-time job in itself.
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Published on 3/26/2024
Overcoming Obstacles
There's no mistaking the redevelopment appeal of the 800,000-sq.-ft. Galleria at Fort Lauderdale. The lagging mall sits in a prime spot to capture the dollars of tourists and affluent homeowners nearby with its front on heavily traveled Sunrise Boulevard, between Federal Highway (U.S.1) and beach road A1A, just across the bridge from the famed city beach. It has water views, is just a short ride to downtown and is about a third the size of the city's central business district.
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Published on 3/25/2024
A Wild Journey
During his tenure with Zoo Miami, Matt James knew he wanted to be more than just the guy who worked with animals. Following stints at Marinel-and Dolphin Adventure in St. Augustine and ZooTampa, James felt like he wasn't doing enough.
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Published on 3/22/2024
Lessons in Leadership
Launched in the fall of 2023, the University of West Florida's executive leadership MBA program is being led by retired Navy Capt. Timothy “Lucky” Kinsella, a man whose leadership skills have been tested to the extreme.
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Published on 3/22/2024
