July 1, 2022
Editor's column
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...
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Published on 6/1/2022
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...
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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.
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Published on 3/23/2022
Partnership Potential
Florida may receive about $13 billion in federal funds to spend on highways and $2.6 billion to improve public transportation.
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Published on 1/14/2022
Florida's Trade MVP
For more than 40 years,Manny Mencia has enjoyed a singular perspective on Florida's economic evolution...
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Published on 10/27/2021
Disconnects
The disconnect between data — empirical facts — and perceptions plays out across a wide range of issues.
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Published on 9/28/2021
Visions
In Florida's business world, the real standouts are those who go about business with some sense of higher purpose.
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Published on 8/31/2021
Vices and Virtues
A recent news story out of Tennessee took me back to the early years of my journalism career...
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Published on 7/30/2021
Cliff Notes
Brittany Birken and her team at the Fed have just produced a paper — see the link below — using Florida as a case study in documenting how the benefits cliff in the childcare subsidy program acts as a barrier to economic self-sufficiency.
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Published on 6/29/2021
Labor Pains
U.S. birth rates peaked in 1990 and have fallen below the rate at which our society can replace those who age out of the workforce.
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Published on 5/26/2021
Bus-Doggle
St. Petersburg sits along Tampa Bay, on the eastern edge of the Pinellas County peninsula. St. Petersburg Beach is eight miles due west across the peninsula, on the Gulf.
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Published on 4/28/2021
An Overdose of Bureaucracy
Florida's medical system displays a disconnect between care and customer service.
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Published on 3/29/2021
Learning and Earning
Fifteen years ago to the month in this space, I wrote about an apprenticeship program that ...
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Published on 3/1/2021
Reshaping Teaching
A decade ago, more than 5,000 graduate and undergraduate students were enrolled at the University of South Florida's College of Education.
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Published on 1/27/2021
Post-Votem
The GOP's effective Florida ground game was evident in the 2020 election.
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Published on 12/30/2020
Settin' the Woods on Fire
It didn't generate big headlines, but an important organization has relocated its headquarters in Tallahassee.
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Published on 11/25/2020
Less Flori-Duh, Please
Over the past 20 years, two of the biggest changes in Florida have involved the state's educational institutions.
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Published on 10/28/2020
The Limits of Home-Work
In the face of a Big Event, it seems to be an occupational hazard ... for some journalists to leap from the initial experience of the event to overblown, simplistic conclusions.
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Published on 9/25/2020
COVID - Some Perspective
Sifting and sorting through the data and the mess ... it's possible to say a few things that will hold up as we move forward.
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Published on 8/26/2020
What Now?
The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis echoes off Florida's own sorry racial history.
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Published on 7/27/2020
Echoes of history
Two ships, two struggles to do the right thing.
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Published on 6/25/2020
Dam(n)
The saga of the Rodman Dam will enter its 50th year in a few months.
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Published on 5/27/2020
Out of the bubble
The strategy of trying to moderate the spread of the coronavirus continues as we await the development of a vaccine or effective therapy.
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Published on 4/27/2020
Incomplete
I've been a history buff for some time, believing that the more you understand about the way things were, the more you start to understand about the way things are.
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Published on 3/25/2020
