December 3, 2023

Editor's column

Brightline's Big Leap

The train cars had just rolled off the assembly line when I previewed Brightline’s new Orlando operations. It was easy to imagine these cars streaming toward their destination at more... Read more »

Published on 11/1/2023

Through the Grapevine

Jason Steele and Lori Halbert have spent years engaged in civic life in Brevard County. Steele served in the Florida House in the 1980s; worked as a lobbyist and in... Read more »

Published on 10/1/2023

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. Read more »

Published on 9/1/2023

AI for All

In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling with my son Nick to southwest England, where he will spend the next several months at a British university. I am excited for... Read more »

Published on 8/1/2023

Past is Prologue

I never had the privilege of meeting FLORIDA TREND'S founder, Harris Mullen. He'd sold the magazine nine years before my first job at the Tampa Tribune brought me to Florida, but he was well known as an entrepreneurial legend. It also turns out he was man well ahead of his time. Read more »

Published on 7/1/2023

Innovation's Force Multiplier

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal grew up in a Navy family. For a time, she lived in Pensacola, but her father’s duties also took the family to... Read more »

Published on 6/1/2023

Lessons from Judy

This month, the University of South Florida is scheduled to open the new Judy Genshaft Honors College on its Tampa campus. It's an exquisite, modern building geared for collaboration and interaction. In many ways, its quite like the president emerita herself. Read more »

Published on 5/1/2023

Job One

The state constitution requires only one thing of the Florida Legislature, that it pass a balanced budget each year. If they wanted to, lawmakers could come to Tallahassee, pass a budget and go home, satisfied they'd done their duty. Read more »

Published on 4/1/2023

A Really Big Deal

Jorge and Julio Brea were just little boys when their family immigrated from the Dominican Republic to Tampa in the early 1990s. As teenagers growing up at the dawn of digital age, they loved both music and technology, and they figured out a way to bring the two together. Read more »

Published on 3/1/2023

World of Wonder

As a young man growing up in a small town in Arizona, Jeff Hoffman had a goal of visiting 50 countries. He reminded himself daily of that life's ambition by taping a note to his mirror. The now-Florida based entrepreneur, humanitarian and mentor did indeed make it out of that small town — in a very big way. Read more »

Published on 1/1/2023

Fight Night

The stage was set: Vivid red, white and blue images sparkled on tall screens behind two metal and glass podiums on the stage at the Duncan Theatre on Palm Beach State College's Lake Worth campus. A low hum of anticipation rose from the audience. Read more »

Published on 12/1/2022

Sightlines

In the days after Queen Elizabeth II died, one of my favorite anecdotes shared involved a biographer who asked why the queen wore such brightly colored hats and coats. “I have to be seen to be believed,” the queen replied. Read more »

Published on 11/30/2022

Hop to It

Drive south on I-75 from Temple Terrace, where the world’s largest orange grove used to be, toward Ruskin, where fields once yielded millions of pounds of tomatoes but now mostly... Read more »

Published on 10/3/2022

Back to Florida's Future

Like many children of the Cold War era, I have distinct memories of some of the Apollo missions. I grew up in Southern Oregon in the foothills of Siskiyou Mountains, a place so devoid of light pollution that on cloudless nights, it seemed we could step out our front door directly into a blue-black sea punctuated by the moon and stars. Read more »

Published on 9/1/2022

Common Cents

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa is the third-busiest of the nation's 90 bankruptcy courts. The Southern District of Florida in Miami is not far behind as the sixth-busiest. From their respective views in the courtroom, Chief Judge Laurel Myerson Isicoff and attorney Stephanie Lieb have seen it all: The financial mistakes that threaten a family's security; the human toll of predatory lending; and over-extended parents who use their children's Social Security numbers, setting them up for a life of financial challenges before they're old enough to earn a dime themselves. Read more »

Published on 8/1/2022

Miami on the move

No city has generated more buzz post-pandemic than Miami. A surging technology sector has blossomed amid the economic, cultural and geographic attributes that have defined the Magic City since Julia Tuttle pitched the idea of a new town amid an epic freeze, promising a warm haven from disaster. Read more »

Published on 7/1/2022

Florida Ever After

When you move to a state with a fairy tale castle at its center, a certain amount of magical thinking comes with the territory. Fresh out of journalism school in Arizona, I came to Florida because I wanted to be a storyteller, and no place had — and still has — better stories to be told... Read more »

Published on 6/1/2022

Farewell

I'm off to my next chapter and new adventures. Read more »

Published on 5/1/2022

Retrospective

For the past four years, I’ve overseen the production of the Florida Trend 500, our annual list of the state’s most influential executives. I’m nearing retirement after 25 years at... Read more »

Published on 4/1/2022

Price Tags

In 1998, not too long after I became executive editor at FLORIDA TREND, I wrote a column, “The Price of Panthers,” in which I used the Florida panther as a surrogate for the challenges Florida faces in balancing competing societal goods — growth and development vs. maintaining aspects of the state's traditional character. Read more »

Published on 3/23/2022

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