Southeast Fla. Yearbook 2009

Mike Vogel | 4/1/2009

» Peggy Nordeen, president and co-founder of advertising, public relations and marketing agency Starmark International in Fort Lauderdale and a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County and A Child is Missing, moves up from vice chairwoman to chairwoman later this year of the Broward Alliance. Among others, her growing firm represents the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau. Nordeen and a committee she leads has raised $1.4 million from private sector sources to further support the Broward Alliance. “People are really stepping up to the plate,” she says. “Business wants to take control of its own destiny.”

West Palm Beach / Palm Beach County ?

Claudia Hillinger is overseeing the creation of a new Florida biotech branch of the Max Planck Society in Jupiter.

With a 9.1% unemployment rate, the fallout from the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and plummeting housing starts, Palm Beach County can be excused for looking to the future rather than living in the present. In February, Scripps Florida — the more than $500-million incentive wager placed by former Gov. Jeb Bush and Palm Beach County that touched off Florida’s biosciences sector — held its grand opening in Jupiter. Meanwhile, talk continues of creating an “inland port” where goods would be warehoused and dispatched. Those two, life sciences and logistics, should be two of the four prongs for development the county pursues in the future, according to a study commissioned by the Economic Council of Palm Beach County. Travel and tourism and “high-value services” such as IT and professions round out the four. But for the present, says council President and CEO Mike Jones, “2009 is going to be a difficult year.”

People to Watch

» Jupiter marks the third location in which Claudia Hillinger has established a branch of Germany’s Max Planck Society. The six-acre bioimaging institute will be built next to Scripps Florida at Florida Atlantic University’s campus with $94 million in state incentives and another $94 million in cash and property from Palm Beach County, FAU and Jupiter.

» Eric Strand took DesignerPlumbingOutlet.com in Palm Beach Gardens from $354,561 in revenue in 2004 to $12 million last year. But only four of its nine employees are in Florida, and all work from home, connecting virtually. Strand this year rolls out a new business, SocialJuice.net, using the expertise he gained in taking advantage of online social networks to boost his plumbing outlet’s online visibility and eliminate 90% of his paid advertising.

Tags: Southeast