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Northern Trust Bank of Florida promoted James R. Grinney to be chief investment officer, with responsibility for the bank's 23 Florida offices which administer $15 billion in trust assets. Grinney, 51, had been chief investment officer for Northern Trust in Palm Beach County.
Consumer Products - Rexall Sundown Inc. promoted Christian A. Nast, 65, to be CEO of the Boca Raton vitamin maker. He also will continue as president. Dean DeSantis, 34, son of company founder and Chairman Carl DeSantis, 57, was promoted to be chief operating officer.
Healthcare - After a nine-month search, Dr. J. Richard Gaintner, 59, was selected as the first CEO of Shands, the new Gainesville-based integrated healthcare system that includes eight Shands hospitals, 35 home care offices, and components of the University of Florida Health System. He had been president of the CareGroup, a Boston-based healthcare system that includes six hospitals. Gaintner received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Physician Sales & Service, a Jacksonville medical supplies and pharmaceuticals distributor, named Kathleen Hatter Fehling, 38, to be executive vice president and chief operating officer of its wholly owned subsidiary, Diagnostic Imaging Inc. Fehling spent 13 years at Picker Health Care Products in Cleveland, most recently as vice president of marketing.
Jeffrey Goffman, 38, founder, chairman and CEO of West Palm Beach-based U.S. Diagnostic Inc., was placed on administrative leave by the company's board of directors at the same time it disclosed an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and NASDAQ. Laurans A. Mendelson, 58, was named chairman and Joseph A. Paul, 38, president and chief operating officer, was named interim CEO. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against U.S. Diagnostic, which owns diagnostic imaging centers, alleging that the company failed to disclose that Keith G. Greenberg, a co-founder of the company, pled guilty to fraud prior to starting U.S. Diagnostic.
Law - Tampa attorney Thomas A. Snow, 50, was elected to the new position of president and CEO of the Carlton Fields law firm, with responsibility for strategic planning and day-to-day management. He also will serve as managing shareholder of the firm's Tampa office. Snow joined Carlton Fields, which has 150 lawyers and six offices, in 1982.
Cesar L. Alvarez, 49, takes over as CEO and president of Miami's Greenberg Traurig law firm. He is the first Hispanic to run a major U.S. law firm.
Manufacturing - Tampa Bay Devil Rays managing general partner Vincent J. Naimoli, 59, is stepping down as chairman, president and CEO of financially troubled Harvard Industries Inc., a Tampa-based manufacturer of car and truck components. He will remain a consultant to the company. John W. Adams, 53, a Harvard Industries director, will serve as chairman and CEO until a new chief executive is recruited.
Services - Palm Harbor-based ABR Information Services, a fast-growing employee benefits administrator, tapped James P. O'Drobinak, 35, as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He had been Danka Industries' chief financial officer for North America.
Technology - Phoenix Information Systems Corp., a St. Petersburg company partly owned by investor George Soros, tapped Delbert F. Bloss as CEO. He replaces company founder Robert Gordon, 46, who remains as chairman. Bloss, 53, headed a consulting firm, and earlier in his career served as president of the airline systems division of Unisys Corp. Phoenix, which has operations in the U.S. and China, is the developer of a proprietary airline reservations system.
Transportation - David S. Gedney, 58, was named CEO and project director for Orlando-based Florida Overland eXpress (FOX), the $5.3 billion high-speed rail project that will link Miami, Orlando and Tampa. FOX is a limited partnership comprised of four engineering and transportation companies: Fluor Daniel, Odebrecht Contractors of Florida, GEC Alsthom and Bombardier. During Gedney's 19 years with the U.S. Department of Transportation, he directed planning, design and construction of Amtrak's $2.5 billion rail improvement project between Washington and Boston.
