Business Observer

JANUARY 18 - JANUARY 24, 2013 | THREE DollARS

STARTUPTrack Your KidsThe new MamaBear application allows parents to know what their children are up to — and get alerts when they’re doing things they shouldn’t. PAGE 9

MARKETINGInnovate the PitchDave Kennon uses a potential pitfall to help clients better manage their portfolios and sell his services.PAGE 9

RETAILOpening ShopAt a time when many retailers are moving their presence from brick-and-mortar to the Web, John Brozek decided to do the opposite. Sales are up.PAGE 10

TECHNOLOGYSharing KnowledgeSome real estate websites provide information, but no interaction. One entrepreneur wants to marry the two.PAGE 10

HOMEBUILDINGLike Father, Like SonJohn Neal may be following in his father’s footsteps, but he’s found his own niche.PAGE 11

GOVERNMENTContracting ResultsTo provide better service for its residents, the city of Bonita Springs turned to the private sector.PAGE 16

On a Wire | Nik Wallenda brings new business life to his family’s legacy. PG.12

DON’T MISSPAGE 23 A former Adidas marketing exec shares her sales tales.

PA S C O • H I L L S B O R O U G H • P I N E L L A S • M A N AT E E • S A R A S O TA • C H A R L O T T E • L E E • C O L L I E R

inside

Hyatt Regency Tampa sells for $63 million. 18

Sarasota investor Jesse Biter closes downtown purchase. 19

Minto Communities buys Sabal Bay Community for $68 million. 20

TOP DEALS

John Koch CEO, PODS ENTERPRISES

After taking the helm of PODS in August, its new CEO

is ready to move into new segments to build market

share. PAGE 14

Movin’UP

on

C1Bank.com • (877) 266-2265 MEMBER FDIC

8535

6

Mark WeMple

John Koch CEO, PODS ENTERPRISES

2 BUSINESS OBSERVER | JANUARY 18 – JANUARY 24, 2013BusinessObserverFL.com

It is time. Do it.We talked about this on and off for

several years — changing the name of the Gulf Coast Business Review.

The internal resistance was strong. When I announced my intentions at a staff meeting, the silence was deafening, the stares steely and the unspoken comments … Probably unprintable.

Why throw away all of the equity already built up in Gulf Coast Busi-ness Review and Review.net? Why alienate or risk losing our customers — our loyal readers and advertisers?

It’s a risk, yes. But really, not that big of one. It’s not as if we were toy-ing with dumping the names “Coca-Cola” or “McDonald’s.” They know us by our name, but they buy us for our content and audience; neither of those will change. In a month, I argued, the name won’t make a difference.

Truth is, I’ve regretted the name Gulf Coast Business Review for more than 15 years. We’ve been publishing the paper for 16.

When we launched the paper in 1997, the original name was Gulf Coast Review — no “Business.” At the time, the dominant brand among local business papers was “Business Journal,” the moniker spread across America’s metro-politan markets by the American City Business Journals company in Charlotte, N.C.

We didn’t want to be a Business Journal. We wanted to be different. So we opted for what was then some-what of a competing brand name — Review. In South Florida, Ameri-can Lawyer published three papers, the Miami Daily Review, the Bro-ward Daily Review and Palm Beach Daily Review (They have since added “Business” to their names). And in Tampa, there was the Tampa Bay Review, owned by another publisher.

We went with Review. Soon after, readers suggested we

add the word “Business” to the title. They said people didn’t know “Gulf Coast Review” was a business paper.

Good suggestion.Then it hit: We

shouldn’t have called it the Business Review. “Review” says “look back.” We’ve always wanted the Business Review to look forward. What’s the next trend? Who’s going to be the next big success? Look ahead, that’s what we try to do.

In 2001, we acquired the Tampa Bay Review. Shortly after, we expanded the Gulf Coast Busi-ness Review to Lee and Collier coun-ties. We covered the coast.

But then we made another naming mistake. Without much research, we merged the Tampa Bay Review and Gulf Coast Business Review to create one brand. In Tampa Bay, however, the words “Gulf Coast” don’t register. In Lee and Collier counties, another publisher branded his publications with “Gulfshore.”

We stayed with Gulf Coast Busi-ness Review anyway and endured.

Until now.Our new name, as you see on the

page next to this, is Business Ob-server. The website also goes from Review.net to BusinessObserverFL.com.

There is a lot behind this.For one, we felt it was time to shake

things up; get out of the routine; make a new statement; refresh and rebrand our identity.

Business Observer works for us be-cause it brands us with our company — Sarasota-based Observer Media Group Inc. In addi-tion to the Business Observer, our com-pany pub-lishes seven community

weeklies, six of which go by the name “Ob-server” — Longboat, East County and Sara-sota in Greater Sara-sota; and Palm Coast, Plant City and Ormond Beach. (We also pub-lish the Pelican Press on Siesta Key.)

All too often Business Review reporters felt compelled to explain themselves to news

sources in Greater Sarasota that “you know … we’re part of the Observers.” No more.

The new name also eliminates any confusion with “Gulfshore” or people who think the “Gulf Coast” means the Gulf Coast of Alabama and Mississippi.

Along with the new name, it made sense to introduce a new, freshened design. That’s important in every business. Customers expect you to continue evolving and improving. Years ago, as a reporter, I profiled the CEO of a bullet-manufacturer. When he arrived at the company, sales were flat; the company wasn’t growing. Two years into his tenure, sales started increasing at double-digit rates. Asked his secret: Same bullets, new features. “You have to give them something new to keep them hooked,” he said. That’s why Proctor & Gamble always introduces “new Tide.”

You have to stay fresh and relevant.I’m betting you’ll like our new

design, the expert work and vision of Steve Antley, a Lakeland freelancer.

We believe it’s important to keep it clean, simple and easy to navigate. Our head-

line fonts have what we believe to be a more modern look and feel. Man-aging Editor Kat Hughes says they’re “more playful” than our previous, heavy fonts.

We think we’ve improved naviga-tion — helping you figure out what to read — with our story summaries on our new page 1 and with key words above the headlines and brief decks that summarize stories. On the real estate pages, you’ll see how we have color-highlighted the most impor-tant information.

We’ll continue to have compel-ling photography, a crucial element to your reading experience and enjoyment.

We also have added a weekly sum-mary of what’s popular and impor-tant on BusinessObserverFL.com, looping the print back to the Web.

The look of the website is chang-ing, too. It’s more than “new Tide”; it’s new and improved. But that’s still to come. As technology glitches go, we encountered a few that pushed back the launch of our new Busines-sObserverFL.com site. Although we’ve modified the homepage for now, in weeks to come you’ll see a much more dynamic and richer website, with features, daily news, business resources and opportuni-ties for content marketing.

Altogether, we’re paying a lot of attention to your “experience” with our print and digital offerings. Our mission hasn’t changed: to publish for our readers and advertisers the best, most relevant business publica-tion in Florida.

We say we’re Florida’s weekly paper for the C-suite. We’re guided every day by the simple mantra of publishing information “that the boss needs to know.”

We’ll be anxious to hear your feed-back. While the new name matters, in the end, as we say in the business, content is king.

It’s not the name that counts; it’s the content

reviewandcomment

By Matt walsh | editor and puBlisher

The way we were …

CORPORATE NAME CHANGES

Andersen Consulting..................................... AccentureBackRub ................................................................GoogleBrad’s Drink ........................................................PepsiCoCadabra.com ..................................................... AmazonComputing-Tabulating-Recording Co................... IBMDatsun ................................................................... NissanGovernment Employees Insurance Co. ........... GEICOLucky Goldstar ............................................................ LGSt. Louis Bread Co. ....................................Panera BreadSound of Music .................................................. Best Buy

Inaugural: January 1997 June 2001

to be the biggest, have the most, conquer

the next Big Deal or position Take Care for

the Big Payoff in an initial public offering.

She wears olive suits, brings an apple and

banana to work for lunch and apologizes for

imposing when she asks her administrative

assistant for help.

No, Take Care’s growth is remarkable for

how Wise got where she is. The mother of

three college-age daughters and married

to the same man for 20 years, Wise clung

until recently to the role of traditional

Mom — cooking, doing laundry, clean-

ing toilets, taking and picking up the kids

from school. At the same time she held the

family together, she found a way to satisfy

her own inner passion to grow profession-

ally. She worked as a home health nurse,

earned a master’s in business administration

with honors and, at the urg-

ing of her husband, decided

to become an independent

entrepreneur in the image of

her farmer father. Wise would

be the last to credit herself as

Wonder Woman. She would

be the first to say she couldn’t

have reached where she is

without the support of her

children, husband and a staff

that is intensely loyal.

“The best times were the

welcome home,” Wise, 47, says

of her Saturdays coming back

from a day of MBA classes

in Tampa. “They were always

wonderful.”

• •-•

Wise’s colleagues always

describe her as compassion-

ate, a trait, no doubt, she inherited. Her

mother was a nurse for severely retarded

children. That influenced Wise’s own deci-

sion to earn her registered nurse license

in Kalamazoo, Mich., 45 minutes from the

family farm. Wise completed the program

with honors.

Afterward, she decided to pursue her

bachelor’s degree in health sciences but was

ready to put that on hold after receiving a

job offer at Emory University in Atlanta.

Wise was excited about leaving the confines

of Kalamazoo and heading to the big city.

But on a Sunday in September 1975, the

excitement vanished. Her father and two

brothers were killed in a plane crash on the

return to Coldwater from a farm machinery

expo in Minneapolis. Wise still moved to

Atlanta shortly after the funerals, but she

stayed only six weeks. She couldn’t carry

the weight of the tragedy. She felt an urge

to be back in Kalamazoo.

It was a good move. Kalamazoo residents

rallied around the Smith family women

— Susanne, her mother and sister — with

a harvest bee. Friends and neighbors har-

vested the family’s crops and took them to

market. Wise brought closure by immersing

herself in her work at a Kalamazoo hospice.

She dealt with her father and brothers’

deaths through the deaths of others. In a

recent letter to a niece, Wise attributed the

plane crash and its aftermath to where she

ultimately landed — in home health care,

caring primarily for the aged. The scar of

the family tragedy remains. Says husband

Carl: “Come fall, you can tell it still affects

her.” Wise went back to school and worked as

a medical surgery nurse at a Kalamazoo hos-

pital. She tried nursing for dialysis patients,

spent a year in oncology and

then gravitated toward teach-

ing nursing at a community

college. She liked nursing, but

she didn’t like being in one

place doing one thing. “I’m

not a good 7-3 person,” Wise

says, referring to the standard

hospital shift for nurses. “I

thrive on flexibility.”

Wise’s restlessness worried

her. Something was missing.

She felt she didn’t have the

passion of her father.

Then she met Carl — as

he says, not at a bar. They

married in 1979 in Coldwater,

Mich. In 1982, they moved

to Sarasota. They had two

daughters, both under the age

of two, and not much more.

Carl, a commercial real estate

broker, figured it might take

them three years to get on a solid earning

track. About 18 months later, they had

their third daughter.

With three children under the age of

three, Wise began working as a home health

nurse to supplement the family income.

She’d stay home with the girls during the

day and work nights and early mornings.

When the girls grew to school age, Wise

would make sure her shifts would end in

time to get home, feed the girls breakfast

and take them to school. “I never wanted

anyone else to do that,” she says. She felt

the same after school. At night, she went

to work.

“I don’t know when she ever rested,”

Carl says. “Her hours were horrible.” But he

remembers his wife always having the girls

“cleaned, dressed, rested and fed” when he

arrived home from work at the end of a day.

“She would take care of me, too,” he says. “I

was spoiled.”

• •-•

Wise enrolled at Nova Southeastern

University in Tampa to earn an MBA. The

urge to seek bigger challenges was gnawing

at her as the girls approached double-digit

ages. “I loved nursing,” she says, “but I

knew I was limited. The logical move was

business.” She continued to work nights,

studying during down times and on Sunday

nights. Friday nights and Saturday mornings

she traveled to and from Tampa.

Wise took a break from home-care nursing

about this time. She became the local mar-

keting director for Doctors Home Health, a

division of Columbia-HCA. When she was

passed over for the administrator’s job, she

landed as the director of nursing at Metro

Nursing, a locally-based firm. Wise spent

two years at Metro, soaking in everything

about the business — the numbers, recruit-

ing nurses, the complexities of scheduling

dozens of part-time nurses to meet the needs

of dozens of patients. In two years as nursing

director at Metro, the company’s business

doubled each year.

Wise’s husband — the family risk taker

— urged her to start her own agency. She

had already been thinking a long time how

she would run a home-health business of

her own. When 1995 began, Wise was ready

to make the move.

• • •

The Wise’s accountant discouraged them.

Even though Wise had written a business

plan with a proforma showing profitability

in two years, the accountant predicted fail-

ure. They didn’t listen.

In mid-May, the Wises pooled what little

cash they had, leased an office and made a

deposit on utilities. They bought a few fold-

ing chairs, a cafeteria table, telephone and

desktop computer and opened for business.

Their three girls were 14, 12 and 10.

It was a big risk. Wise figured she wouldn’t

take a salary the first year. They would count

on Carl’s real estate sales to carry the family.

Says Carl: “We were really hung out.”

From day one, Take Care’s sales explod-

ed. Wise fueled the growth with a nifty move

— she billed her clients weekly to gener-

ate cash, but she paid her employees every

other week to gain a cushion and float time.

Still, the business was growing so fast, Wise

quickly realized she didn’t have the working

capital to keep it going. She needed cash.

That’s not an easy proposition — espe-

cially for a first-time woman business owner

whose company had no previous banking

relationship. Wise called an old family

friend in Coldwater — the president of the

bank where her father had been a direc-

tor and stockholder. She asked him for a

$50,000 loan.

The banker told Wise he would lend it,

provided her mother co-signed the note.

“How soon do you need it?” he asked her.

Said Wise: “Can you wire it?”

• •-•

Wise paid off the bank loan in less than

a year. She blew through her two-year pro-

Wise would

be the last to

credit herself

as Wonder

Woman. She

would be the

first to say she

couldn’t have

reached where

she is without

the support of

her family.

Page 30 JUNE15-29, 2001 GULF COAST BUSINESS REVIEW

Vol. 5, Number 10

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA’S NEWSPAPER FOR BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURS

JUNE 15-29, 2001

Photo by Alex Stafford

INSIDE

Women of Influence / 3-15

Top Women-Owned Companies / 14

Women of Note / 16-17

INSIDE

Women of Influence / 3-15

Top Women-Owned Companies / 14

Women of Note / 16-17

BY MATT WALSH

Editor

Susanne Smith Wise has had this scene etched in her mind

since she was a grade school girl. She remembers her

father, a grain and beef farmer in Coldwater, Mich., popu-

lation 10,000, sitting at the kitchen table, in the quiet of

3 a.m., writing his thoughts about his latest idea and next ventures.

Wise has never forgotten her father’s passion, the gusto that he

threw into every day, making the most of his time.

Bob Smith worked seven days a week. By choice, Wise says. He

tended the cattle; plowed and harvested the grain; fixed and sold

chain saws and painted in the winter; invested in the local bank,

served on its board. He loved what he did. He loved his indepen-

dence.Wise credits her father for her energy and her own passion, the

passion she pours into her company, Take Care of Sarasota Inc.

She loves her independence, too. In only six years, Wise has built

her company — a provider of home health care services — into

the third-largest woman-owned firm in Manatee and Sarasota

counties. For the year ending December 2000, Take Care’s four

businesses generated $11 million in revenues and had grown to 430

employees. Her company is the region’s largest locally-based home

health care provider.

The growth of Wise’s Take Care is remarkable not for its fast

pace, nor for its flashiness or high profile. In fact, Wise is the

antithesis of neon. Unlike many entrepreneurs, she is not driven

PRSRT-STD

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PERMIT # 543

MANASOTA, FL

See Take Care, Page 30

Take CareContinued from Page 1

Photo by Alex Stafford

Susanne Wise: “I loved nursing, but I knew I was limited. The logical move was business.” She

obtained her MBA from Nova Southeastern University.

Traditional

Mom Turns

Entrepreneur

Traditional

Mom Turns

Entrepreneur

Susanne Wise,

Founder, owner, CEO

Take Care of Sarasota Susanne Wise,

Founder, owner, CEO

Take Care of Sarasota

BY MICHAEL RITERContributing Writers high-end dining establishments go, this

one sits in an odd location — tucked in themiddle of a Tamiami Trail strip shoppingcenter, the South Square, just south ofSarasota Square Mall. There’s no covered portico for limousines to

drop off pampered guests. No valet to parkyour car. It’s all asphalt, man. But you knowwhat they say: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Indeed. Inside Patria, the latest entry intoSarasota’s copious fine-dining market, theambience says this new restaurant is the area’smost ambitious and enterprising new diningdestination to date. More so than Ruth’s ChrisSteakhouse. More than Michael’s on East.More than the Colony Dining Room or thenewly rebuilt Bijou Café. Patria, in fact, hasestablished itself as one of, if not the mostexpensive restaurant in Sarasota.Peruse the menu. If your palate is calling for

a “Seared Chicken Breast with Gruyere /Seckel stuffing and Minersha, Port-WildMushroom Reduction,” the least expensiveentrée on the menu, expect to pay about $29.That’s just for the breast. Steaks start at $35. IfPecan-Rubbed Rack of Lamb is offered, itcomes with a price tag of $39. Soups, salads,veggies and, of course, a fine bottle of wine,are all a la carte and will add significantly toyour final tab. Our modest dinner for two was$150, including tip. And we didn’t order a bot-tle of wine.

The menu is “very aggressive,” according to

one well-establishedLongboat Key restaurateur,meaning Patria’s offeringsare diverse, the ingredientsexpansive and expensive.When the owner of a lead-ing downtown Sarasotafine-dining establishmentsaw his new competitor’smenu, he remarked thatPatria’s prices “will makethe rest of us look great.”Aggressive is also an aptdescription of the attitudethat permeates Patria.Waiters serve wearingwhite gloves, and the décorcasts a feel of warmth andwealth. Diners are metwith richly colored, earthytones of warm brownleather and copper. But thetables come alive with artis-tic, brightly-colored china,weighty silverware and ele-gant glass and stemware bythe likes of Versace andRiedel. The talk around town is thatHungarian owner-entrepreneur Gyorgy“George” Matrai dropped $80,000 at Mary’s onMain in downtown Sarasota to outfit Patriawith the city’s finest china, stemware andlinens. In matter-of-fact style, Matrai, abelievable, likable international business-

BUSINESS REVIEW75 cents

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA’S NEWSPAPER FOR BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURS

April 19-May 2, 2002

FIVE-YEAR PUBLIC COMPANY RATINGSPity the shareholders. Story on Page 6.

Too Good To Be True?

International businessman and Patria owner Gyorgy Matrai: “My purpose with Patria is to create in

Sarasota a restaurant comparable to the best to be found in the world’s major cities.”

Hungarian entrepreneur Gyorgy ‘George’ Matraiwants Patria’s to serve world-class dining atworld-class prices. Is it, is he, for real?

Photos by Lusya Sullivan

A

The new Patria is one of, if not the most expensive restaurants in Sarasota.

See Patria on Page 9

PRSRT-STDU.S. POSTAGE PAIDPERMIT # 543MANASOTA, FL

July 16-July 22, 2004

75 cents

SPECIAL ISSUE:

40 UNDER 40

Young professionals

on the move / 4A

REVIEW & COMMENT

Why housing isn’t

affordable for many / 11B

BOB WILLIAMS

SEE PAGE 1B

Keeping the Coast

YOUNG

WINNERS START ON PAGE 4A

BY SEAN MC DONNELL

Staff Writer

There is no Florida without

youth, pure and simple.

The history of the region is

inexorably linked with the desire

for it. Spurred by rumors of water

that bestowed immortality and

eternal youth, Juan Ponce de

Leon became the first European

to explore the Gulf Coast in the

early 16th Century.

He hired a crew using his per-

sonal fortune and left behind

Puerto Rico, the province he

once governed. He was an entre-

preneur, and although his venture

never did result in the discovery

of a magic fountain, Ponce de

Leon is still remembered. He

founded St. Augustine and, in so

doing, took a roundabout path to

immortality.

At the time, he was about 10

years too old to qualify for our list.

Today, the Gulf Coast is bound

once again to the vitality of

youth, and not because retirees

from New Jersey are still looking

for Ponce de Leon’s fountain. The

young professional class is here,

and it is here to stay. It is the force

behind your government, courts,

schools, banks, and hospitals. Its

actions touch most aspects of your

life.Without the energy and skill of

the individuals profiled in this

“40 Under 40” issue, and those

like them, buildings would go un-

built, sick children would go

untreated, food would go

uncooked and songs would go

unsung.From the almost 100 nomina-

tions received, GCBR selected 40

young people from Sarasota and

Manatee counties who embody

the professional and personal

commitment that distinguishes

the area’s young and ambitious.

This year’s list is a dynamic and

versatile group.

Some, like Ponce de Leon,

came to the Gulf Coast from for-

eign lands seeking opportunities

in the promise of new surround-

ings. Six members of this year’s

class were born in other countries,

from Guyana to Japan. Another

was born in Puerto Rico.

There are also eight winners

who were born and raised on the

Gulf Coast, and several more who

moved here during childhood.

This compared to only three

native New Yorkers. Never before

have local products figured so

prominently in a “40 Under 40”

class.The tastes of our winners are as

diverse as their origins. If you

stole a peek at their nightstands,

you would be as likely to see Dr.

Seuss as the Dali Lama. One says

his hero is Ronald Reagan, and

another draws her inspiration

from Britney Spears. Another

winner bases his life on the model

of hockey player Wayne Gretzky

(surprise surprise, he’s Canadian).

They run the political gamut,

as well. One says he has always

opposed George Bush’s “shaky

premise” for war. Another says,

“The Iraqis are depending on us

and, contrary to what we are led

to believe by the media, they

want us to stay.”

But for all their differences, the

young professionals in this year’s

crop do have a few things in com-

mon.Every member of our list has a

degree from some institution of

higher learning. Thirteen hold

advanced degrees. Two have juris

doctorates. One has a medical

degree. Three have MBAs. They

have studied in Copenhagen,

Denmark and Turin, Italy, but

more than 35% were educated in

Florida. Three of our winners

studied right here in Sarasota.

They are all leaders in their

respective fields. They have

achieved the respect of their col-

leagues and personal acclaim.

One even had a holiday named

for him in the city of Arcadia. For

most, this is not the first time

their work has been recognized,

nor will it be the last.

Most enjoy travel. Europe

seems to be a popular destination

for this group. They also enjoy the

many outdoor sports and activi-

ties Florida’s amazing weather

makes accessible to them.

Unlike the Spanish conquista-

dor with an obsession to stay

young, immortality is not the

utmost desire on the minds of this

year’s winners.

Business Review

GULF COAST

COFFEE TALKGULF COASTBUSINESS BUZZ

The state’snew gamingcompact is snake-eyes for pari-mutuels.

MixedHand

STORY ON PAGE 16SEE PAGE 10Oliphant Financialsees growth in analyzing risks.

COmPANiES:BORROWgROWth

COmPANiES:

innovative Food Holdings expands to about 3,000 specialty foods.Page 14

GOURMETDIRECT

JUNE 4 – JUNE 10, 2010TWO DOLLARS

+ Rooney’s bank bet goes sourSometimes it pays to watch what company insiders do.In hindsight, the abrupt

resignation of Francis Rooney from the board of Naples-based Bank of Florida Corp. in the summer of 2009 was an ominous sign.Through his company, Rooney Holdings, the Naples-

based entrepreneur acquired nearly 7.3% of the outstanding stock of Bank of Florida for an estimated $11 million from the fall of 2007 until early 2008, filings show. Rooney still held those shares as of March 31, which are now worth about $200,000 since state regula-tors shut down the holding company’s three bank subsid-iaries on May 28.Rooney, who also acquired

Naples-based Kraft Construc-tion in August 2008, one of the largest construction com-panies on the Gulf Coast, is the largest single shareholder of Bank of Florida stock, filings show. (The bank-holding com-pany and another subsidiary, Bank of Florida Trust Co., were not part of the regulatory action on May 28.)Rooney couldn’t be reached,

but in an interview with the Business Review in September 2008, he said he was confident in the seasoned management of the bank and the recovery of Florida banking. Two years ago, Forbes ranked Rooney Holdings

as one of America’s largest privately held companies with $1.8 billion in annual revenues.+ Crist’s $31,700 ethical questionA group of Republican Party

of Florida leaders expect their campaign contributions back from now-independent U.S. Senate candidate and Gov. Charlie Crist. But Crist, after first saying See COFFEE TALK page 3

Mark Wemple

Super-SizedBattle

Companies • Trends • Entrepreneurs • CEOs The Weekly Newspaper for Gulf Coast Business Leaders

Walmart is adding superstores and aggressively seeking market share from Publix, the dominant

Florida grocery chain. it’s a competitive, tight-margin battle

that so far is producing one clear winner: consumers.STORY ON PAGE 8april 2002July 2004

June 2010


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“The road is cleared,” said Galt. “We are going back to the world.” He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged$$

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Vol. XVII, No. 3The Foundation for Economic Educationpresents

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Someone must love chocolates at Consumer Reports.

Since 2006, the wide-circulation magazine that reviews everything from toasters to washing machines has selected Norman Love Chocolates in Fort Myers for its list of “Best Buys” in chocolate reviews.

Most recently, in the February issue, Nor-man Love Chocolates earned the coveted “Best Buy” ranking from the authoritative magazine. That’s the sixth time that Norman Love has earned the top-rated designation.

Consumer Reports and its ancillary publications have a combined circula-tion of 8 million copies. The publisher is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering consumers.

CoffeeTalkJim Brosious, chairman of one of the

fastest-growing freight service and logis-tics firms in the region, kicked off 2013 in a serious anti-recession kind of mood.

To wit: Brosious’ business, Freight-Center Inc., is in the early stages of a company-transforming move, both in geography and in mission. On location, the 120-employee firm will move from a 9,000-square-foot office in Trinity, Pasco County, to a 16,000-square-foot facility in northern Pinellas County, in Palm Harbor. The move could be complete by March.

The move, though, merely precedes the company’s bigger shift: To add a sales department — with at least 70 people — which will aggressively target new clients. FreightCenter, says Brosious, only previously generated sales from market-ing and outside Internet searches.

That model worked, to the point where the firm had $32 million in sales last year, up 190% from $11 million in 2008. But Brosious and his son, FreightCenter CEO Matthew Brosious, always knew the soft sales approach had a ceiling. “As good as

our core model has been,” Jim Brosious tells Coffee Talk, “we thought we were at the top of the mountain.”

The next climb will be difficult, Brosious says, and costly. The company will spend at least $500,000 on the move and investment in new employees, from phones to software. Brosious, for that reason, confidently projects 2013 won’t be FreightCenter’s most profitable year. “We will set sales records,” he says, “but it will be a year of big investment in the company.”

FreightCenter, founded by the father-son Brosious team in 1998, is like an Expedia for the shipping and logistics industry. The company, using propri-etary Web tools and software, provides shipping rates and services for compa-nies and individuals. Users and clients include FedEx and UPS.

Past the pure cost of expansion, Bro-sious predicts 2013 will be marked by one other big challenge: The merger of sales methods. Says Brosious: “We are going to figure out how much we can integrate the two groups.”

Freight firm seeks to add some weight

SWEET TOOTH

The presidential election was more than two months ago, but the uncer-tainty for small business owners hasn’t receded.

That’s the word from the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s quarterly Small Business Index Survey. In fact, economic uncertainty and access to capital are the major obstacles that pre-vented small business growth for the third consecutive quarter, the survey reports.

“We must fight to make it easier for small business owners to obtain needed capital and financing,” says Florida Chamber Small Business Council Chair-

man John Medina in a release. “This will create economic stability and predict-ability, which will allow small business-es to grow and create jobs.”

The uncertainty manifests itself in several ways, according to the survey. For one, 83% of respondents weren’t able to get the financing they needed, up from 78% in the October survey. Another sign of uncertainty, the survey reports, stems from regulations, where 60% of respondents are worried or very worried that regulations, restrictions

Small business marred with hesitation

See CoFFee Talk page 7

Love at Consumer Reports

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino has taken aim at a sizable tourist market: Asia.

The hotel and casino features a 4,000-square-foot Asian-style gaming room and restaurant, where patrons can taste roast duck, fried dumplings or beef pho at the newly opened Jubao Palace’s 15-seat noodle bar.

And they can play Pai Gow Tiles, a game that one employee describes for Coffee Talk as “sort of like Asian domi-noes.” Visitors can also choose Asia poker, blackjack or baccarat.

The Jubao Palace marks Seminole Gaming’s first entry into the Asian gam-ing market at any of its seven Florida

casinos. The game tables and noodle bar are

open to all visitors, but they provide a special linguistic welcome to patrons from Asia, with a team of employees conversant in Asian languages. The Seminole Hard Rock has even set up two new website pages for Chinese and Vietnamese speakers who would rather read the menu and other information in their native languages.

Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa recently completed a $75 mil-lion expansion, making it the world’s sixth-largest casino, based on gaming positions, the total number of seats of-fered at tables and slot machines.

Seminole Hard Rock aims for asia


topstories from BusinessObserverFL.com

SARASOTA-MANATEECounty to top boss: Don’t leave

Manatee County commis-sioners like County Adminis-trator Ed Hunzeker’s work so much that they asked him to postpone his retirement.

Commissioners made their plea publicly to Hunzeker after he presented the county annual report recently. Hun-zeker, scheduled to retire this summer, has been their administrator since 2007.

“(Hunzeker) has accom-plished many money-saving measures in his time here, and he’s given us a peek of an ambitious agenda ahead,” Manatee County Commission Chairman Larry Bustle says.

Hunzeker didn’t comment on the commission’s request, though the state’s pension and retirement program could jeopardize some future pay and benefits if he stays.

LWR office vacancies fall below 10%

Office vacancies in Lake-wood Ranch, a master-planned community in east Manatee County, have dropped below

10% for the first time since 2007. The vacancy rate is 9.2%.

Lakewood Ranch Commer-cial Realty President Brian Kennelly says two Lakewood Ranch buildings are 100% leased for the first time since being built. One of those is the HomeBanc building on University Parkway, while the other is the Energy Court Building in the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park. Lake-wood Ranch Main Street’s office spaces are also 100% leased, with the exception of one unit currently being used.

Downtown Bradenton remains a lagging market in office vacancies, with a 36.2% rate. Manatee and Sarasota counties have 20.7% and 26.8% office vacancies, respectively.

TAMPA BAYPinellas home sales climb 35%

Single-family home sales in Pinellas County jumped 34.6% from November 2011 to November 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors.

At the same time, the aver-age sales price rose by more than 10%. Active listings of single-family homes have

decreased 30.75% over the year ending in November, contrib-uting to the increased prices. The percentage of distressed listings has also fallen.

Meanwhile, condo sales rose 37.79% over the same period. A 7.3-month supply of condo inventory is available, com-pared with a 3.2-month supply of single-family homes.

Upgrades slated for Wells Fargo building

After acquiring the 22-story Wells Fargo Center for $44.8 million Jan. 9, Feldman Equi-ties Inc. and Tower Realty Partners plan extensive up-grades to the building, includ-ing a new high-end fitness center.

The buyers plan to reno-vate the building’s common corridors and bathrooms, as well as the garage. The 387,477-square-foot building, located across from the Tampa Convention Center, already had undergone multimillion dollar renovations before the sale. Those upgrades modern-ized the building systems and telecommunications infra-structure as well as the com-mon areas.

Anchored by Wells Fargo &

Co., Phelps Dunbar and UBS, the Wells Fargo Center cur-rently is 77% leased, according to Feldman. The joint venture plans an aggressive leasing program at the high-rise.

Feldman will head the leas-ing efforts while Tower Realty Partners will handle manage-ment responsibilities.

CHARLOTTE-LEE-COLLIERHotel occupancy rises

Revenues at hotels in Lee County rose 6.6% in Novem-ber compared with the same month one year ago.

Revenue per available room, a function of average occu-pancies and daily rates, rose to $55.97 in November from $52.53 in November 2011, according to Smith Travel Research. In 2010, revenue per available room totaled $46.03.

The increase in revenues was due mostly to a 6.3% jump in occupancies in November to 53.3%, suggesting that the rebound in tourism continues at a steady pace.

But in an indication that competition remains fierce among hoteliers, the average daily room rate rose just 0.2% in November to $105.05 com-pared with November 2011.

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CoffeeTalkfrom page 5

and taxes will negatively impact their ability to do business.

More uncertainty: Less than one-third of employers, 29%, plan to hire in the next six months. That’s down slightly from 31% in October. The survey also reports that the failure of the fiscal cliff deal to extend 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will cause 21% of small businesses to halt hiring plans. Another 44% are unsure of hiring plans in the wake of the fiscal cliff deal.

Some other findings of the survey, conducted electronically in December and comprised of 679 responses, are more optimistic. Those include:

• Nearly half the respondents, 49%,

expect the economy to improve over the next six months. More than half, 60%, expect the economy to improve over the next three years;

• The percentage of small business owners who believe they are worse off today than six months ago has dropped, from 35% in October to 26% in the most recent survey. On the flip side, the percentage of respondents who believe their business is better off than six months ago is up, from 28% in October to 32% in December;

• More than half the respondents, 53%, expect sales to increase over the next three months, while 66% expect sales to increase over the next year.

Who says agriculture is boring?It turns out some investors may be

quite pleased with Alico’s performance last year, a fact that Investor’s Business Daily noted in a recent listing of the 100 companies that led the stock market in 2012.

Alico (symbol: ALCO; recent price: $39) shares rose 89% in 2012, benefit-ing from interest in commodities and rebounding land values.

In the newspaper listing, Alico ranked

52nd of 100 top-performing stocks priced higher than $12 at the beginning of the year.

Based in Fort Myers, Alico owns about 130,400 acres in Collier, Glades, Hendry, Lee and Polk counties. Its agriculture businesses include citrus, sugarcane and cattle. It also receives royalties from rock mining and oil production. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, net income totaled $18.5 million on revenues of $127.2 million.

alico stock a top performer

USf professor named ‘most prolific’ A business professor at the University

of South Florida in St. Petersburg hasn’t let his teaching load stand in the way of scholarly publication.

Hemant Merchant, who specializes in international business strategy, has been ranked the 10th most prolific interna-tional management scholar in the world, according to USF. The ranking is based on reports in the top three international business journals from 2001 to 2009.

Another study published in Manage-ment International Review ranks Mer-chant the fourth most prolific interna-tional management scholar in the United States.

“I was extremely surprised,’’ says Merchant in a statement, to learn that his publishing productivity outpaced that of

most of his peers. “It shows what you can achieve with persistence.”

Merchant studies the performance drivers of firms competing in emerg-ing markets, as well as service-sector firms. In particular, he focuses on value creation through international joint ventures. “What my studies in general try to do is understand the drivers of stock prices associated with the announce-ment of joint ventures,” he says in the statement.

Merchant “is an important part of our growing focus on globalization, includ-ing global business,’’ says Norine Noon-an, vice chancellor for academic affairs at USF St. Petersburg.

Merchant has been awarded nearly $200,000 in grants, according to USF.

The U.S. shopping center industry can’t ditch the recession tag.

The latest gloom comes in a new re-port from Reis Inc., a New York City-based real estate research firm. The report, to be sure, shows a quarterly drop in the vacancy rate at malls and strip centers. But that decrease isn’t enough to get the industry excited about 2013.

On the shopping mall side, the average vacancy rate in the fourth quarter fell to 8.6%, down from 8.7% in the 2012 third quarter. That’s five consecutive quarters of a decrease. The average vacancy rate at strip cen-ters, meanwhile, dropped to 10.7% in the fourth quarter, from 10.8% in the previous quarter.

The report, however, is loaded with potential problems. Demand for new tenants, says Reis, remains incredibly weak. The national unemployment rate is still around 8%, and a gross domestic product increase of 2% in 2012, the report states, is a clear dis-appointment.

RETAIL

perfect your pitchWhen entrepreneurs talk about per-

fecting their pitch, they’re not talking baseball.

Venture X, the new co-working space in Naples, will inaugurate the first “pitch night” Feb. 7. Entrepreneurs will be able to pitch their ventures to investors and other business owners at this special event.

Eight entrepreneurs will get five minutes to make their pitch and receive

another five minutes of feedback and questions from the audience.

Usually, these kinds of events are closed to all but “accredited” investors, those with at least $1 million to invest. But this event is different: It’s open to the public.

Admission will cost $10 and you can register at http://vxpitchnight.eventbrite.com

Mall industry’s hopes show dents


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Business investment

What the data shoWTaxable sales in the business investment category

include store and office equipment, hotel and res-taurant supplies, paper and packaging materials, medical and optical supplies, computers and ma-chinery. The latest data is for October.

What it meansEvery area except Fort Myers reported higher

taxable sales in the business investment category than the state as a whole (up 9.9%) on an annual percentage-change basis. The Punta Gorda and Sarasota areas were particularly strong, with Punta Gorda showing the highest growth in the state by that measure.

ForecastThe outcome of the presidential election and the

subsequent political wrangling over the country’s fiscal problems likely will be reflected in November and December data. Anecdotally, business own-ers report increased cautiousness despite a wide-spread rebound in business activity. In particular, homebuilding and tourism are bright spots in the economies of the Gulf Coast.

Percentage growth in business

investment statewide in

November 2012 compared with November 2011

Port St. Lucie/Fort Pierce’s growth in November

business investment over November 2011, the lowest in the

state

Number of regions (out of 22)

that exceeded the state’s annual percentage gain

in November over the same month

in 2011

economicsnapshot

9.9

9

.1%

BTN

Nov. 2011 Dec. ’11 Jan. ’12 Feb. ’12 Mar. ’12 Apr. ’12 May ’12 June ’12 July ’12 Aug. ’12 Sept. ’12 Oct. ’12

1

2

3

4

$5 billion (Florida statewide)

Naples

Cape Coral-Fort Myers

Punta Gorda

Sarasota-Bradenton

Tampa-St. Petersburg

OCTOBER BUSINESS INVESTMENTAREA $ INVESTMENT % ANNUAL CHANGE

Source: Florida Legislature Office of Economic & Demographic Research

$572.5 10.9%

$139 13.1%

$114.7 7.8%

$66.2 11.1%

$20.1 17.9%

($ in millions)


Protecting Your Cubs

Bubble Wrap

infocus | startup

infocus | marketing

Suppose your 15-year-old son de-cided to skip school and spend the day exploring a casino and saloon.

Wouldn’t you want to know?Or suppose three classmates were bul-

lying your 12-year-old daughter through a social media website. Would you want to know?

Those are the kinds of scenarios that spurred the creation of MamaBear, a mobile phone app by the Tampa compa-ny GeoWaggle LLC. The app is designed to allay parents’ concerns relating to the safety and well-being of their children.

Using GPS, the app can track kids’ lo-cation or gauge whether they’re driving too fast. It triggers alerts if, for instance, a child has unexpectedly left a school playground. It also monitors kids’ use of Facebook and other social media, noti-fying parents if certain words are used, indicating a potential safety issue or par-enting concern.

The company was founded by entre-preneur Steve MacDonald, chairman and CEO of myMatrixx, a pharmacy ben-efit management firm, with co-founders Stuart Kime and Tom Cardy. Their Mam-aBear child-tracking app is still in beta mode, but MacDonald and company President Robyn Spoto are drumming up interest through media tours and a marketing campaign that includes visits to schools.

The executives aim to line up 100,000 customers for the app before going live and charging an estimated $5 to $10 monthly per customer. Their plan has been to garner local support first, and they did, attracting 10,000 app down-loads in the Tampa Bay area. The app is available for Apple and Android phones.

After a presentation to national me-dia at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the en-trepreneurs are shifting their marketing campaign to Los Angeles.

“We’re trying to get enough momen-tum in local markets so we get picked up nationally,” says MacDonald, who has invested $1 million of his own funds in the MamaBear app to date. “We think

that 100,000 [paying customers] creates a stable platform.” That number times $10 per month from subscribers would bring in $12 million per year.

In developing his game plan, MacDon-ald studied the trajectory of the website Pinterest. “Pinterest took off because people started sharing this great new tool. We’re trying to follow the same strategy that Pinterest did. This thing

needs to be a utility. It needs to be some-thing that enhances [subscribers’] lives and gives them a sense of security.”

MamaBear has drawn media atten-tion, with CNBC calling it “one of the world’s most promising new compa-nies.” The idea developed after MacDon-ald and a tech executive began exploring trends in the mobile phone field, and de-cided that location-based technologies offered untapped opportunities.

The initial app helped restaurants and stores target nearby customers with loyalty programs and promotions, says MacDonald. But in a chance conversa-tion with the tech executive, a woman commented that she wished the same technology were available to keep track of her sons and monitor their Facebook sessions. She would use it all the time, she said.

MacDonald didn’t brush off the com-ment when the tech officer told him about it. Instead, he listened. “This is a real opportunity,” he thought. “So we hired another development team. We used the basis of technology that we had already developed.” From start to finish, it took about eight months to launch the first app version on Apple.

It resonated with parents. But although newspapers and websites wrote about MamaBear, and teachers expressed in-terest as thousands of users downloaded the beta app, MacDonald believes he needs even stronger national attention to make the new company fly. “One of my goals is to get on the ‘Today’ show or ‘Good Morning America.’ If we get to that, it’s pretty easy to get to $1 million.”

— Denise Kalette

Dave Kennon made one mistake when he and his wife, Dalanee, decided to move from Pittsburgh

to Sarasota in 2009. The lifestyle was doubtlessly an up-

grade. So too, obviously, was the weath-er. And, with three young children, be-ing near a large extended family was a tangible plus.

Kennon’s miscalculation: The fast success he found in financial planning in Pittsburgh didn’t materialize at his new firm, Gulf Coast Insurance Advi-sors, which has offices in Sarasota and Bonita Springs. Kennon, who taught English in Japan after college, built a thriving money-management business in less than five years in western Penn-sylvania. By the time he turned 30, Ken-non was a member of the Million Dollar Roundtable, an elite group of financial professionals. His firm, Kenmar Finan-cial Advisors, had 1,000 clients.

“I was living the life,” says Kennon. “I made more money than anyone else I knew.”

But in Sarasota, Kennon, now 36, found the market tough to break into. With proceeds from the sale of his business, which totaled $400,000, Kennon spent $150,000 on marketing and lead genera-tion in his first two years in Sarasota. He took out print newspaper ads. He made speeches at local clubs and groups. He set up investment seminar dinners. But nothing clicked. “Ninety percent of the people only wanted the free steak,” quips Kennon.

Then, in 2011, Kennon honed in on what he calls the life insurance bubble — a widely unrealized quirk of the life

insurance business. The discovery: That historically low interest rates could have a negative impact on someone’s life in-surance policy.

That’s because many policies writ-ten 20 and 30 years ago, says Kennon, were based on payout calculations that factored in interest rates of 8% to 10%. But with interest rates now significantly lower, the values of those policies could fall drastically.

Several local insurance agents are aware of the potential problem, though some brokers say it can be avoided if a policy is written correctly. “A lot of it de-pends on how a policy is structured and funded,” says Ric Coffey, a State Farm agent in Sarasota who has been in insur-ance for nearly 30 years.

Kennon nonetheless has turned the purported bubble into the lead genera-tion lifeblood of Gulf Coast Insurance

Advisors, which had revenues in the mid-six figures in 2012. The model, says Kennon, is to draw people into the office on the life insurance bubble issue, then work to convert them to a full money-management client.

“I found an issue, and I’m pounding it,” says Kennon, a Business Observer 40 under 40 recipient last year. “It has revo-lutionized my practice.”

Pounding, however, isn’t cheap. Ken-non says he’s spent another $150,000 over the last year to get the word out about the looming bubble. That includes TV, radio and Internet ads. The TV spots cost $6,000 a month.

Kennon’s long-term goal is to take his insurance bubble-lead generation sys-tem national. He recently formed a part-nership with a firm in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and has talked with a financial services professional in San Diego. The strategy there, says Kennon, is to go where baby boomers live because that’s the demo-graphic that could see the most damage from the issues.

Lead generation, of course, is only one facet of the business. The other side is to turn the leads into clients. Kennon says he currently has about 50 clients/fami-lies with a net worth of at least $500,000. His goal is to have 150 high net worth clients within a few years.

The biggest challenge, says Kennon, is educating potential clients that this insurance bubble is a legit problem-in-waiting. “A universal life insurance policy has many parts,” Kennon says. “You can’t just buy it and never look at it again.”

— Mark Gordon

MARK WEMPLE

Robyn Spoto, president of MamaBear, and Steve MacDonalD, founder, market an app that notifies parents if their child is tagged in an online photo.

LoRi SAx

Dave Kennon runs Sarasota-based Gulf Coast insurance Advisors, which also has an office in Bonita Springs.

A Tampa company’s MamaBear app is garnering fans and media attention.

innovative pitches to generate customer leads in the financial planning business are rare. Dave Kennon hopes he latched onto a golden ticket.


Sanjay Kuttemperoor wants to tap into the wisdom of the crowds.

The real estate developer wants to get the public and real estate profes-sionals to share real estate insights with a site he created called WikiRealty. It will work much like other “wiki” sites, which depend on people to contribute their knowledge.

The idea is to get enough people to con-tribute information about home listings and sales that it could be as valuable as a multiple-listing service, the closed in-formation systems Realtors have created. “I’m trying to create a central repository for information,” says Kuttemperoor, 44.

Kuttemperoor says it’s hard to find specific and useful information about homes from Realtors because many of them have general information about neighborhoods. Websites such as Zillow and Trulia are listing sites that don’t have much public interaction.

Initially, WikiRealty is focused on resi-dential real estate and is targeting Naples for its pilot program. But Kuttemperoor says he plans to add commercial real es-tate later.

Kuttemperoor, trained as an attorney, knows all about real estate. He and his family have been in the real estate busi-ness for years, including the develop-ment of Treviso Bay, a luxury residential community in Naples that was the sub-ject of foreclosure.

With his family restructuring the de-velopment business and construction virtually at a standstill during the bust, Kuttemperoor decided to create WikiRe-alty as another business. Surprisingly, the domain name was relatively inex-pensive, though Kuttemperoor declines

to cite the price he paid for it.Kuttemperoor started planning Wiki-

Realty two years ago, but he had no luck finding programmers who could help him with his vision. “They all said you can’t do that,” he says.

After searching diligently, Kuttempero-or found an engineer in Wisconsin who could engage software programmers in India and Russia. It’s a hugely complex affair, giving homebuyers, home sellers and anyone in the business the ability to share information about any home or neighborhood. So far, he’s spent $300,000 on the venture, which he says would have cost a lot more with U.S. staff.

Think of WikiRealty as a sort of TripAd-visor for real estate, where useful and rel-evant comments about a neighborhood rise to the top. Users (they have to be reg-istered) are limited to 250-word entries, which keep them concise. “You can really get granular with your searches,” Kut-temperoor says.

For example, if you search for a home in a specific neighborhood, WikiRealty might have comments posted from lo-cal residents about noise issues or a nearby school. Or an attorney who has handled closings there may have dealt with unpaid fees that can derail a deal. Such issues are difficult to discover on a single website, and Kuttemperoor says he hopes WikiRealty can do that. “The only data I’ll be buying is listings,” says Kut-temperoor, noting that he’ll correlate the listings with neighborhood tips.

Kuttemperoor is reluctant to share details about the revenue model or the sales and traffic volume he expects. He says advertising could be one significant revenue source, for example.

To get the word out about the pilot program, Kuttemperoor started a social-media campaign that drew hundreds of Facebook friends and Twitter followers in just a few days. Because of WikiRealty’s

unique content, Kuttemperoor says the site should pop to the top of search en-gines such as Google that place a high value on original content.

—Jean Gruss

NaNcy DeNike

Sanjay Kuttemperoor says WikiRealty could be the go-to website for people interested in discussing real estate.

a Naples entrepreneur created WikiRealty, a site he hopes will draw crowds of people interested in talking about real estate.

Wisdom of the Crowds

Keeping Timeinfocus | retail

infocus | technology

The showcase at John Brozek’s shop in downtown St. Petersburg glit-ters with rare watches. On any

given day, a collector may find a vintage Patek Philippe, a Breitling, Cartier or Tag Heuer. Or, he can choose Brozek’s favor-ite, the Rolex.

Extraordinary wristwatches have long fascinated Brozek. Although many peo-ple now check the time on cell phones rather than wristwatches, Brozek’s one-man company keeps on ticking as it ser-vices and sells luxury watches and clocks to customers around the globe.

The founder and president of Quali-tyTyme Rare & Fine Timepieces, Brozek moved his company to the Northern Trust Bank Building in St. Petersburg in December 2011, after operating online more than a dozen years. The move de-fies the trend of stores abandoning brick-and-mortar locations — and the over-head that goes with them — to go online.

The business got its start in 1999, when Brozek marketed a self-published book on Rolexes, which has sold more than 50,000 copies to date. In 2004, he start-ed QualityTyme.net, which took off as it drew watch aficionados. Brozek built a clientele around vintage timepieces, updating his book, buying and selling watches, and developing a coterie of watchmakers with expertise in repairing upscale brands. He added accessories and cast about for yet another product. He found it in his own expertise, and be-gan teaching pawn shop managers how to identify counterfeits.

He found his strongest niche when he discovered that many companies don’t service vintage watches, creating a frustrating dilemma for collectors. “They have nowhere to go,” Brozek says. “So that’s where we started specializing in servicing and restoring old vintage watches.” Using his contacts, he con-

tracts the work out to specialists who are able to service timepieces that can be worth $70,000 or more.

But Brozek says his business reached a new turning point when he leased 800 square feet in St. Pete at a low $10 per square foot for the first two years of his five-year lease. “I came over and I was

blown away,” he says. The atrium, Class-A finishes, and location wowed him.

“The brick-and-mortar has afforded me a lot of things,” says Brozek. “It’s given me more credibility. My website sales have actually gone up.” Online, he felt separated from his customers, but now they browse his shelves while he explains the history of various models.

If there is a lesson that has guided Brozek’s entrepreneurial path, it is to fol-low the age-old precept of doing what you love. Born in Oklahoma, his early life could scarcely have been farther removed from the sparkling world of Swiss watches. While those in Brozek’s shop average $5,000 to $10,000, the Rolex Daytona he wore on a recent afternoon would retail for $35,000 even without the diamond bezel, he says. He lights up as he recalls the time he got to discuss the Daytona series with the late Paul New-man, after whom a rare Daytona version is named.

Yet it took more than love for Brozek’s business to make it through the reces-sion, which Brozek says swiftly took 40% of his portfolio value. He coped by selling old inventory at a loss and investing in new items with stronger demand.

Some colleagues refused to mark down expensive merchandise, take the hit and move on. They lost more money trying to recoup their investment. It won’t come back, he says. “Know where you’re put-ting your money, and realize that at any time this market can shift.”

— Denise Kalette

MaRk WeMPLe

john BrozeK has been appraising watches for two decades. He gives lectures on how to spot counterfeits.

While many brick-and-mortar stores are closing in search of online sales, John Brozek took his Web store to a shop in St. Pete. So far, sales are up.


Mark WeMple

lakewood ranch-based John Neal Homes, run by John neal, builds homes in the Sarasota-Manatee market. The firm had about $30 million in 2012 sales volume.

infocus | homebuilding

Pat Neal is well known in the region for his prolific home-building company, one that’s

comeback from five recessions over four decades and now generates more than $120 million in annual sales.

But Neal might soon become known for another accomplishment: His son, John Neal, is a budding homebuilding star. The younger Neal’s company, Lakewood Ranch-based John Neal Homes, sold 42 cus-tom-made homes in 2012 for roughly $30 million in total revenues, with an average sales price of $725,000. That’s almost double the $18 million in sales volume from 2011.

John Neal, 38, focuses on the lux-

ury market, with prices starting at $650,000. He won’t sell houses under that price to avoid competing against Neal Communities, the company Pat Neal has run since 1970. Besides, the upscale market is where the action is.

“I think we are trend-setting,” Neal says. “There is a market for the high-end buyer. We are in a rising market.”

Indeed, homebuilders up and down the Gulf Coast are diving back into luxury. Firms like Long-boat Key-based Modus Custom Residences and Naples-based Lon-don Bay Homes, for example, report renewed interest from customers in homes priced at more than $700,000. (See box, right.)

Neal, meanwhile, projects John Neal Homes will increase its output by 25% in 2013 and likely surpass 50 total sales. The company builds homes in several east Manatee County communities and will do custom-build projects in Sarasota and Bradenton. The firm also re-cently entered into a partnership to build homes in the Bahamas.

A totally separate company from Neal Communities, John Neal Homes recently doubled the size of its Lakewood Ranch Main Street of-fice space. Neal plans to hire six em-ployees this year, which would bring the total payroll to 20.

Another key facet of the recent suc-cess at John Neal Homes: It holds no debt.

To Neal, who has worked for and studied under Pat Neal, unofficially

and officially since he was a teenag-er, that’s a big deal. “There are really four rules of real estate,” Neal says. “Location, location, location, and make sure your builder is financially stable.”

Neal has remained stable through some shrewd and sharp land ac-quisition decisions — much like Pat Neal has done numerous times. For instance, John Neal bought 23 lots in Country Club East in Lakewood Ranch in December 2011 for $2.12 million. Few lots remain in the com-munity, which pumps up the value of Neal’s purchase.

Neal studied economics at Hamp-den-Sydney College in Virginia. But he left in 1997 after his junior year to join the work force. He jokes that since he’d never be a college pro-fessor, he wanted to enter the real world. He worked in the IT depart-ment of a mortgage firm in Virginia before he moved back to Manatee County, where he took a job with Neal Communities.

John Neal looks forward to the chance to build his own name in homebuilding, though he cherishes the ability to work with and learn from Pat Neal. The father and son talk nearly every day, and they con-stantly talk business.

John Neal, moreover, strives to follow the Neal Communities prin-ciples, ethics and goal-driven model. Says Neal: “There are worse compa-nies to be compared to than Neal Communities.”

— Mark Gordon

Neal 2.0The luxury homebuilding market, in comeback mode in 2012, could be on the verge of a full-blown rebound in 2013. John Neal has a prime spot to capitalize on the surge.

Several Gulf Coast homebuilders are finding success, once again, in the high-end market.

“After four or five years of tough times I think we are going into a good time for builders,” says Mark Wilson, president of Naples-based London Bay Homes, which builds luxury homes in several Gulf Coast commu-nities. “I think we are in for a nice run in 2013, 2014 and 2015.”

Wilson says the market for homes priced at $3 million and up is even showing signs of a resurgence, at least in Naples. Wilson believes the uptick is driven by the combination of low inventory in certain price ranges and low interest rates. Other homebuilders cite the same reasons for the rebound.

London Bay, moreover, is one of several homebuilders, big and small, that will move quickly in 2013 to meet the increased demand. Lakewood Ranch-based John Neal Homes, for instance, has doubled its office space and plans to add six employees.

Other firms, more custom-based, are adding projects. For example, Longboat Key-based Modus Custom Residences is currently building two luxury homes. One is a $4.49 million house on Casey Key Road, a promi-nent waterfront location in south Sarasota. The 4,400-square-foot home includes plans for a three-story panoramic view of the Gulf of Mexi-co. Modus also plans to build another home with panoramic Gulf views on Siesta Key, a $7.5 million project.

LUxURY Lift

At A GLANceYear Home sales revenues 2010 10 $4.5million2011 36 $18million2012 42 $30million**projectedyear-endfigures

Source: John Neal Homes

10

20

$30 million

2010 2011 2012

$30 million

“”there are really four rules of real estate. Location, location, location, and make sure your builder is financially stable. John Neal | John Neal Homes


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Sunny Side: Wallenda’s first non-tightrope gig was in the kitchen at the First Watch on Main Street in downtown Sarasota. In fact, in a five-year stint Wallenda did everything at that First Watch. He cooked, bussed tables, served food and, for a time, supervised shifts. He even nearly moved to West Virginia to help open some new locations.

Keep going: The Niagara Falls walk, 1,800 feet of wire suspended 200 feet high, was in one sense the easy part for Wallenda. That’s because even to get there it took two years of meetings, hear-ings and conversations to change the laws in both Canada and the U.S. Wallenda says he learned that winning people over is a delicate combination of having facts and actively listening to concerns.

Wallenda says he also discovered that the best way to win the battle is to over-prepare. “Think like a naysayer will think and have the answers before he asks the questions,” he says. “Find a solution to the problem before it becomes a problem.”

detail-oriented: The daily to-dos of run-ning the business, says Wallenda, can be compli-cated. For example, Wallenda has to get workers’ compensation insurance policies for himself and his crew in every state in which he works. That can be a bureaucratic nightmare. “There is more busi-

ness in what we do than anyone cam dream of,” Wallenda says. “It’s not just the physical stuff.”

local Star: In the past year, Wallenda has been prominently featured everywhere from the “Today Show” to USA Today. He’s been the subject of feature stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the Science Channel aired a reality show on his feats and his family last year. A book he wrote about his life, “Balance: A Story of Faith, Family and Life on the Line,” is scheduled for release in June. “I love performing,” Wallenda says. “I want to carry on this legacy.”

Home cooKing: Wallenda regularly shows love for Sarasota. When journalists worldwide ask him where his favorite place to travel is, he always plugs the circus-infused town. “I love this city,” he says. “Anything I can do to help the city, I will.”

Big planS: Permits are already secured for Wallenda’s next challenge: A walk across the Grand Canyon, scheduled for sometime this summer. The motivation to try new and different tasks, ones that are seemingly impossible, continues to define his career path. “I won’t stop,” he says. “It’s more about building a legacy than carrying on a business, but we have been blessed in the business.”

For a guy not yet 34, Nik Wallenda has a bucket full of alternate identities.

He might be most well known for being a seventh-generation member of the Flying

Wallendas, a famous family of circus performers. The Sarasota-based husband and father of three young children is also an aerialist, an acrobat, a high-wire artist and a self-described daredevil. Other monikers for Wallenda include: reality TV star, six-time Guin-ness World Record holder and motivational speaker.

But Wallenda can now add one more moniker: high-flying entrepreneur. That’s because the business of being Nik Wallenda has become a full-time enterprise

since June 15, when he became the first person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

His mission, he says, isn’t just to find new and bolder feats. He also wants to promote a can-do brand of determination, persistence and fortitude — and sell some hats and books in the process. He clearly was born with a certain talent, but he emphasizes that he will outwork anyone, no matter the task. That goes from researching contracts to walking tightropes.

“If you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability,” Wallenda says. “I believe in working hard. I work my butt off.”

Here are some other examples of Wallenda’s work ethic and recently learned business lessons:

Nik Wallenda is bringing his daredevil show to Sarasota. He’s scheduled to perform in three weeks of shows at Circus Sarasota, from Jan. 25 to Feb. 15. The shows are under the Circus Sarasota Big Top. Visit www.circussarasota.org for more information.

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STRATegieS By Denise Kalette | Tampa Bay EdiTor

TakingCharge

Mark WeMple

John Koch, the new president & CeO of pODS enterprises, has a background in systems engineering, and once worked on the Star Wars defense project.

PODS are sprouting in driveways across

the country. New CEO John Koch tackles

the logistics of growth, and may take the company public.

exeCUTive SUmmARYissue. Leadership in a new industry industry. Mobile storage and moving Key. Budget carefully, listen to employees, focus on core services.

But even as he endured job interviews with as many as seven PODS leaders at a time, Koch undertook exhaustive research. Later, he drew insight from his background as a division president for security company Tyco International’s ADT services. A systems engineer by training, he had risen in the cellular and security industries as he helped chart their growth.

Koch’s approach to the top position at PODS could be a textbook case of how to take on the presidency of a company when switching industries. First, he found similarities with his previous positions and built on them. Then he visited employees in their far-flung locations and listened to their concerns and suggestions. He evaluated how PODS’ resources could be used more efficiently, and studied competitors to discern where the company might wrest more market share. Finally, he

established close phone ties with PODS’ private equity owner, Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank, which enabled him to get swift answers and approval to execute new plans. Arcapita bought PODS in 2008 for $451 million.

Both the security industry and the moving and storage industry are highly fragmented, with many competitors, Koch realized. And in both cases, customers are often spurred to purchase the service because of an event occurring in their personal lives. In the security field, the trigger might be a burglary that leads to a decision to invest in protection, while a student’s departure for college might trigger a decision by her parents to downsize and request a moving container.

“In both types of business models, you need to understand what the triggers are” that drive demand, says Koch. And a CEO needs to make sure the company’s brand is uppermost in the

consumer’s mind when he or she begins researching which service to buy. That means a strong Web presence, with sophisticated search engine marketing and optimization.

In a report issued after it acquired PODS, Arcapita noted that the company operates across industry sectors with combined annual revenue of $40 billion, but had captured less than 1% of the total market. Part of Koch’s task is to grow the company in new markets without incurring excessive costs. That means deciding where to invest the company’s resources.

“Part of what I’m working with the management team on, is what are the right areas to be focused on?” Koch says. “It’s prioritizing. How do we make sure that the resources are allocated appropriately? One of the things we’re careful about is making sure we’re not spreading ourselves too thin.” That means paying attention to the core services of containers and moving, and sticking to a plan for growth and improved market share.

To achieve these goals, he does not plan to drop markets. Currently, PODS has 145,000

containers across the markets served by the company and its franchisees, mainly in North A m e r i c a , a l t h o u g h s o m e international ser vices are available. The brand is growing faster than the industry, says Koch. When it comes to determining priorities, the leadership team is zeroing in on where to make allocations: Whether to invest in more physical containers or more Web-based customer service agents to assist the growing number of clients.

This year’s priority won’t be trucks. “What we’re trying to do is improve routing, improve usage of our trucks, and try to maintain to some degree,” says Koch. “We won’t have a lot of truck purchases this particular year, but we’ll be purchasing more containers.”

Typically, PODS places a metal or wooden container on a customer’s property for a few days or weeks while the customer fills it with furniture or other goods, and the container is then stored in a facility until the customer needs it, or it can be transported across town or across the country and unloaded in a new location.

And the company is eager to win new customers, a goal Koch

John Koch did not spend years working his way up through the ranks of the containerized moving and storage indus-try. When he was named president and CEO of Clearwater-based PODS Enterprises, the industry leader, in August, he had no experience at all in the field.


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valued earlier in his career. On the floor propped against his bookcase lies a framed dark silhouette that he brought with him. “That’s just a basic pirate flag,” he says, obtained during his days with a small cellular company. “We were always looking to take market share from smaller companies. That’s always a reminder that we’re trying to steal market share.”

Costly regulationAs he leads the company into the

new year, Koch faces a particularly difficult challenge. Potential federal regulation could cost PODS, an acronym for “portable on-demand storage,” millions of dollars each year.

Trucking van lines are lobbying Congress to apply regulations that govern the van lines to the portable moving and storage industry as well, says Rob Vespa, president of the Mobile Self-Storage Association, and chief operating officer of Tampa-based Mango Moving LLC.

If PODS and other portable storage firms become regulated, they would likely have to publish pricing tariffs, and some states may require inventories, additional insurance and workmen’s compensation packages, says Vespa. The do-it-yourself movers who favor containers could find a changed market if such rules are applied. Van lines, which compete for moving dollars, are leading the charge to have the rules imposed, adds Vespa. “They were fighting pretty hard right through December.”

Asked how he would advise Koch, Vespa replies: “I’d have my own labor in-house. If I was the CEO — king for a day — I would really put a hurt on the van lines and offer full-service moving as well as mobile storage.” However, he adds that he has worked for van lines and understands that they “feel that

the playing field is not level.”There is plenty of moving business

for both traditional van lines and the newer mobile container firms, Vespa adds. “I think there is an opportunity for co-branding and partnerships.”

PODS already is regulated through various trucking and storage rules, says Koch. “It’s something we do pay attention to, because you never know when a competitor may want to steer regulations to benefit them, and potentially disadvantage us.” Nationally, PODS has less than 1% market share of all moving and storage business. Within the portable moving and storage, field, however, “we have the leading market share,” he says.

going publiC?Although working with a private

equity firm was one of the attractions for Koch in accepting the CEO position, he says that taking PODS public is “definitely” under consideration. “We’re trying to position the company for an event in the next couple of years, and that could either be an IPO or, who knows, it might be a sale to another strategic buyer —another private equity firm.”

The company and its backers haven’t set a date for a potential sale or IPO, but it’s likely to occur within five years, and perhaps as soon as three years, says Koch, who has an ownership stake in the company. “I have an opportunity to be an owner in the new company whether on a public basis or a private basis,” he adds.

For the present, he likes the private company model, because it offers a less cumbersome path to decision-making than the layers of permissions required before actions can be approved at many public companies.

Although a public offering or private sale may be a few years away, PODS is taking steps now that are designed to continue its healthy pace of revenue growth, which Koch projects to be 8% to 11%. The firm doesn’t disclose revenues. “We expect solid growth, in our long-distance revenue as well as our local storage revenue,” he says. One path to growth is a focus on commercial customers.

Since the company was established in 1998, some two-thirds of its revenue has come from residential moves and storage. Now, PODS wants to ramp up the commercial side by offering services to companies that are renovating, or growing or shrinking. Associations that store memorabilia such as T-shirts, hats, buttons or pamphlets, also can make use of the containers, says Koch.

Although commercial business now accounts for less than 10% of annual revenue, he hopes that will change. “We’d love to see it 30% within the next three-four years.”

Over the same period, the CEO will focus on other topics: company associates and franchisees; evaluating and improving the customer experience from the first viewed ad to the container removed from a property; determining whether

current solutions are the right ones — if containers are the right size and design; and examining distribution channels, from website orders to sales centers and partnership agreements with people who refer business to PODS.

As he outlines core goals and connects with employees in the days ahead, Koch will draw inspiration from enterprise leaders who preceded him. On his shelves are books by Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric. What he learned from Welch is: “Be honest. Confront the brutal facts. Jack Welch always did that,” he says. “Attract the best talent and give them the opportunity to flourish,” he adds.

Koch also learned from former Tyco CEO Ed Breen. “He did a magnificent job, coming in after [earlier Tyco CEO] Dennis Kozlowski,” he says. Breen took a company headed for bankruptcy and salvaged its parts, says Koch.

But PODS is healthy and growing, and first in its field. After five months, Koch is still pleased with his decision to take on the company presidency. An executive search firm contacted him last spring and asked him to consider the CEO role, he recalls. “Lo and behold, it was exactly what I was looking for.”

gRowiNg foRce

we were always looking to take market share. John Koch | CEO, PODS“”

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GOVERNMENT By Jean Gruss | Editor/LEE-CoLLiEr

Right

So when Downs sought areas around the state to expand his company, one of the cit-ies that made the cut was Bonita Springs, a growing city in south Lee County. When he requested a meeting to discuss his plans, City Manager Carl Schwing was there along with his top assistants at the first meeting.

“I have been a resident and business own-er in Leon County for 34 years and I could never have set up a meeting that included the city manager and critical officials from government like I did in Bonita Springs, where nobody knew me,” Downs says. “Carl let it be known that Bonita Springs was ‘gov-ernment right.’”

And here’s something that may surprise Downs: the city of Bonita Springs has 14 supervisory employees out of a total staff of about 50 people. That’s because the city outsources almost all of its functions, even planning and permitting. Fire districts pro-vide fire protection, the independent Bonita Springs Utilities provides water and the city contracts with the Lee County Sheriff’s Of-fice for law enforcement.

By contrast, when Schwing was work-ing for the city of Cape Coral in 2005, it had 2,000 employees. As the director of com-munity development for that city, Schwing oversaw 210 employees. Granted, Cape Coral has a population of 157,000 and Bo-nita Springs has 45,000 people, but the dif-ference is still striking.

The result of the privatization of city ser-vices, says Schwing, is a more responsive staff because they’re accountable by con-tract. If they don’t perform, the city man-ager simply terminates the contract.

Young citY, different pathResidents voted to incorporate the city of

Bonita Springs in 1999. That’s when leaders decided to outsource most of the city ser-vices, in part to keep the city from bloated bureaucracy.

“We were going to be a government-light city,” says Schwing.

In 2008, for example, the city contracted with privately held Colorado-based engi-neering firm CH2M Hill to provide a range of community development services, from planning, zoning, building permits and inspection services. Those services were previously performed under contract with Lee County.

Bonita Springs Mayor Ben Nelson Jr. was skeptical of the arrangement at first be-cause he wasn’t sure a private firm could do a better job with issues such as zoning applications and building permits. “Priva-tization can go bad, too,” says Nelson, an entrepreneur and owner of Nelson Marine Construction.

But Nelson says he’s been impressed by the work that CH2M Hill has done over the last four years. “They’ve really adopted our philosophy, which is to be customer-friend-ly and business-friendly,” he says.

Still, Nelson says privatization of city services isn’t the financial savings some might think. For the most recent fiscal year, CH2M Hill charged the city $1.34 million for community development services.

“I think it’s probably a wash,” says Nelson. “If you want to provide a quality product efficiently and properly, you’ve got to pay them. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my business in 35 years.”

That’s especially critical now that the economic recovery is under way. Building permits are rising, businesses are expand-ing, and it’s important to have a staff that’s well versed in local ordinances and state law. “You need the same people in place,” says Schwing.

For example, under its contract with the city, CH2M Hill employees in the commu-nity development department must not let

How do you run a city with 14 supervisors? Just ask Carl Schwing, the city manager of Bonita Springs.

Brian TieTz

ExEcUTiVE SUMMARYMunicipality. Bonita Springs city Manager. Carl Schwing Key. You can outsource city services.

Phillip Downs is the owner of Grow-ing Room, a developer and operator of child-development centers in Tal-lahassee.

GovernmentCarl SChwing, city manager of Bonita Springs, says cities can outsource most functions to private companies.


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260 Parkinson’s patients participate in meetingBy Field Notes, Herald-Tribune / Monday, October 15, 2012

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customers wait more than 15 min-utes, and they must return emails and phone calls within four hours. The contract even gives Schwing the authority to fire the person manag-ing the community development de-partment and pick a successor.

Another benefit is the city can consult with experts at CH2M Hill, a large national firm. “The thing you get is the expertise that they have in their entire company,” says Chris-tine Ross, president and CEO of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce.

“They brought people to look at the downtown development area and they make a real point of inte-grating their staff members into the communities,” says Ross.

Keep politics outTurning over a government de-

partment such as community ser-vices to a private firm also helps remove some of the political inter-ference that is typical in government services.

For example, Arleen Hunter, the director of development services, has been assigned to be the city’s busi-

ness advocate. “Her job is to clear the way,” says Schwing.

“Talk to Arleen,” Nelson says when a business comes to him needing as-sistance with a city issue. “It keeps the politics out of it. That’s a real good template.”

Nelson says privatization of city services doesn’t mean the city is “giving anything away,” he says. He explains it this way: “It’s like going to the store and getting great service.”

In 2010, the city joined the Bonita Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Bonita Springs Fire District and Bo-nita Springs Utilities to sign a docu-ment pledging the timely issuance of building permits, development plans and other land-use permits.

It’s the kind of effort that could prevent Downs and other entrepre-neurs from picking Bonita Springs for their next expansion. Downs says he had one experience in Tallahassee when a single neighbor complained about a new Growing Room school and a review committee ordered the company to add a wall and more landscaping. “That one citizen cost us $20,000,” Downs says. “We haven’t run into that in Bonita Springs.”

The bUsiNess-fRieNdlY checklisTIn its contract with the city of Bo-

nita Springs to provide community development services, engineering firm CH2M Hill has agreed to meet these benchmarks, among others:

• Wait times not to exceed 15 minutes;

• Phone calls and emails returned within four business hours;

• New residential-building permit applications reviewed within four business days;

• All use permits to be issued within four business days;

• Zoning questions to be answered within four business days;

• Zoning application comments completed within 21 calendar days;

• Commercial-building permit applications reviewed within five to 10 business days, depending on the size;

• Comments on major develop-ment-order applications due within 20 business days.

January 24OutlOOk cOnference: The Southwest Florida CCIM District will hold its 13th Annual Real Estate Outlook Conference from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Harborside Event Center, 1375 Monroe St., Fort Myers. For more information visit swflccim.com or call 239-281-1290.

January 26entrepreneur law schOOl: Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll will be a speaker at the Small Business Development Center’s 14th Annual Entrepreneur’s Law School. The event will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Florida Gulf Coast University, Cohen Center Ballroom, 10501 FGCU Blvd. S., Fort Myers. Cost is $99 and includes breakfast and lunch. For more information visit sbdc-lawschool.com.

January 28pancakes and pOlitics: Sen. Bill Galvano and Reps. Jim Boyd, Darryl Rouson and Greg Steube will speak at the Manatee Chamber of Commerce’s legislative breakfast. The meeting will run from 7:15 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Bradenton Country Club, 4646 Ninth Ave. W. Bradenton. Cost is $25 for members and $35 for others. For more information contact Lisa at 941-748-4842, Ext. 123, or email [email protected].

January 31cOllier ag: Bob Newsome, agri-

business manager for Barron Collier Partnership, will speak at a Lead-ership Collier Foundation Alumni Association Leadership meeting. The meeting will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Professional Development Center, 615 Third Ave. S., Naples. Cost is $15. For more information visit napleschamber.org.

February 5fraud seminar: Mark Whitacre, the FBI whistleblower against Archer Daniels Midland, will be a speaker at an Institute of Internal Auditors Southwest Florida meeting. The event will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Holiday Inn, 9931 Interstate Commerce Drive, Fort Myers. Cost is $140 for members and $165 for oth-ers. For more information visit theiia.org/swfla or contact Randy McHenry at 239-770-6352 or [email protected].

February 12Business Of BaseBall: Jeff Mielke of the Lee County Sports Authority will moderate a panel with officials from the Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Fort Myers Miracle and the Lee County Hotel Associa-tion. The Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Busi-ness and The Chamber of Southwest Florida will host the breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at the Planta-tion Golf & Country Club, 10500 Dar-tington Drive, Fort Myers. Cost is $30 or $45 on the day of the event. For more information visit swflima.org.

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commercial real estate | tampa BaY |

Hyatt Regency Tampa sells for $63 million

BUYER: 211 North Tampa LLC (principal: David Buddemeyer), North Palm BeachSELLER: VEF IV Funding LLCPROPERTY: 211 N. Tampa St., TampaPRICE: $63 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $37 million, July 2000LAW FIRM ON DEED: Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC, Chicago

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: North Palm Beach-based Driftwood

Hospitality Management LLC purchased the 521-room Hyatt Regency Tampa for $63 million.

The price equated to $120,921 per room.

The hotel, which features 30,000 square feet of meeting space, had an average occupancy of 63% heading into the sale. The property also includes the Avanzare restaurant and lounge, a heated outdoor pool, rooftop whirlpool, gift shop and fitness center.

Driftwood Hospitality plans to spend $13 million on improvements to the property to meet new brand standards as a Hilton hotel. The hotel will be renamed as Hotel Tampa – A Hilton Affiliated Property. Mike Diaz, COO at Driftwood Hospitality Management, says the hotel is also being improved to more effectively compete in the downtown Tampa market. The new owner plans to reconfigure the hotel’s first floor, update the lobby and restaurant and develop a Starbucks storefront.

The first-floor lobby work is scheduled for completion by the second quarter. Guest rooms and meeting spaces will be refreshed in late 2013.

Diaz says Driftwood Hospitality was attracted to the property because of its pricing, prime downtown location and the ability to convert the property to a Hilton brand.

Driftwood Hospitality Management owns a total of 19 hotels with 4,636 rooms of which two hotels are located in Florida.

O’Donnell Strategic Industrial REIT buys distribution building

BUYER: OD Flowers Tampa LLC (O’Donnell Strategic Industrial REIT Inc.), Newport Beach, Calif.SELLER: Flowbake Tampa East LLCPROPERTY: 1930 Tampa E. Blvd., TampaPRICE: $1.68 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $300,000, November 2011LAW FIRM ON DEED: Macfarlane Ferguson & McMullen, Clearwater

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: O’Donnell Strategic Industrial REIT

Inc. purchased a 12,160-square-foot industrial building on Tampa East Bou-levard for $1.68 million.

The price equated to $138 per square foot.

The building is leased to Flowers

Baking Co. of Bradenton LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Flowers Foods Inc., as a regional distribution facility.

Christopher Cameron, chief financial officer of The O’Donnell Group, says the building fit into the company’s invest-ment strategy to acquire high-quality, well-located industrial real estate nationwide. It was especially attracted by the prospect of Flowers Foods as a tenant, he says.

Flowers Foods, which produces and markets packaged bakery foods, has 15 years remaining on its lease.

The Tampa warehouse purchase is O’Donnell Strategic Industrial REIT’s first acquisition.

Feldman Equities, Tower Realty buys Wells Fargo Center

BUYER: FRDGS I LLC (Special Situations Investing Group II LLC), Washington, D.C.SELLER: Tampa Equities REIT I

PROPERTY: 100 S. Ashley Drive, Tampa

PRICE: $44.8 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $42.73 million, January 2001LAW FIRM ON DEED: USAA Real Estate Co., San Antonio

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: A joint venture of Feldman Equities

Inc. and Tower Realty Partners pur-chased the 22-story, 387,477-square-foot Wells Fargo Center for $44.8 million.


The building, which is currently 77% leased, is anchored by Wells Fargo & Co., Phelps Dunbar and UBS. Wells Fargo Center also includes a nine-sto-ry, 505-space parking garage.

Built in 1985, the office building has been institutionally owned and operated since it opened and has gone through several renovations modern-izing the building systems, telecom-munications and infrastructure and renovating the common areas.

The joint-venture buyer is planning extensive upgrades to the building’s amenities, including a high-end fit-ness center and renovating the garage, bathrooms and common corridors.

“Although Wells Fargo Center is one of the top buildings in downtown Tampa, we intend to make it even more attractive to prospective ten-ants by upgrading the leasing amenity package,” Larry Feldman, president of Feldman Equities, says in a news release. “In addition, we intend to use our low-cost basis in order to aggres-sively pursue tenants and rapidly lease up the building.”

Eastdil Secured represented the seller. HFF represented the buyer and helped the joint venture secure $17.3 million in equity from an international investment management firm.

Feldman Equities and Tower Realty Partners own and have improved the occupancy of Fountain Square II and City Center in downtown St. Petersburg.

W.P. Carey affiliate buys three self-storage facilities

BUYER: Tampa Storage 17 (FL) LLC (CPA:17 Limited Partnership), New York CitySELLER: SDG Palm Harbor Holdings LLCPROPERTY: 31100 U.S. 19 North, Palm HarborPRICE: $11.18 million

SELLER: Safeguard Carrollwood LPPROPERTY: 3708 W. Bearss Ave., TampaPRICE: $7.47 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $1.45 million, June 1998

SELLER: Safeguard Capital Fund LPPROPERTY: 2501 22nd Ave. N., St. PetersburgPRICE: $6.34 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $3.95 million, April 1999 LAW FIRM ON DEED: King & Spalding LLP, Atlanta

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: CPA:17 -Global, a real estate

investment trust affiliate of New York City-based W.P. Carey Inc., purchased three self-storage facilities in the Tampa Bay area for $25 million.

The price equated to $111 per square foot or $11,111 per unit.

Located in Palm Harbor, St. Peters-burg and Tampa, the properties were all previously owned by Safeguard Self Storage of Melville, N.Y. They feature a total of 225,569 net rentable square feet broken into 2,250 units.

Each property in the Safeguard Self Storage Portfolio is highly visible with street frontage and includes both climate-controlled and non-climate-controlled storage units. Amenities include gated electronic access, video surveillance and managers’ offices.

Extra Space Storage Inc. will man-age the properties.

“We believe that these are very well-positioned and attractive assets,” W. P. Carey Executive Director Liz Raun Schlesinger says in a news release. “The quality of the assets in combina-tion with the capabilities of the Extra Space management team and our own experience in the self-storage sector makes us confident that this will be a good and stable investment for our investors.”

Michael Mele of Marcus & Mil-lichap’s National Self-Storage Group represented the seller.

“With a current [capitalization] rate just north of 6%, this portfolio brings together three strong performers in an equally strong market,” Mele says in a news release. “Tampa’s self-storage oc-cupancy rates spiked 200 basis points in the second half of this year, and with growth in the metro projected to accelerate to 1.4% each year and the jobless rate tightening below 9%, the new investor should see reliable rev-enue for the foreseeable future.”

W. P. Carey is a publicly traded REIT that provides long-term sale-leaseback and build-to-suit financing for com-panies and manages an investment portfolio valued at $13.3 billion.

The purchase entity Tampa Storage 17 (FL) LLC mortgaged the property to Wells Fargo Bank NA for $15 million.

Etc…• MetWest International, MetLife’s

32-acre, Tampa mixed-use develop-ment, garnered two Best of the Best Awards from the Tampa Bay Chapter of the National Association of Indus-trial and Office Properties (NAIOP), the Commercial Real Estate Develop-ment Association.

The development was named Best Mixed-Use Project and Taylor & Mathis earned Best Developer hon-ors for a second time for its role in the project’s development. Taylor & Mathis handles office leasing, market-ing and management responsibilities for MetLife.

The most recent awards represent the fifth and sixth Best of the Best NAIOP Awards for MetWest Inter-national since the first phase of the development opened in 2009.

BY SEAN ROTh | REAL ESTATE EDITOR

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commercial real estate | sarasota–manatee |

Boyle family buys building, lot for U.S. Tent facility expansion

BUYER: BCT Enterprises Inc., SarasotaSELLER: 1905 72nd LLCPROPERTY: 1901, 1903, 1905 and 1906 72nd Drive E., SarasotaPRICE: $1.25 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $1.44 million and $456,000, June 2007LAW FIRM ON DEED: Vogler Ashton PLLC, Bradenton

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: The Boyle family, owners of U.S. Tent

Rental Inc., purchased a 20,858-square-foot warehouse/distribution building and 1.68 acres of vacant industrial land in Centre Park Industrial Park for $1.25 million.

The price equated to $60 per square foot of the building.

The building is currently leased to two companies, one of which has already vacated the space. The second tenant, QCMS Inc. (Quality Contract Manufac-turing Service), is expected to continue to lease the space for the near future. The Boyle family plans to lease the remainder of the building to U.S. Tent to allow it to expand.

The tent-, event-, party-rental and wedding supplies company currently occupies a 20,000-square-foot building at 2006 72nd Drive E. and two condo-minium units, housing 4,000 square feet of total space, behind the building. The new building will likely take the place of the condominium units, which the Boyles are considering renting.

“We bought [the condo units] for the same reason we bought this building, but we filled them up pretty quick,” says CEO Brian Boyle. “We need storage space for our equipment. We plan to start moving over there next week.”

The transaction was a short sale ap-proved by Cadence Bank, which also mortgaged the property to the Boyle family for $1 million.

Carl Wise of Preferred Commercial Inc. handled the transaction.

Sarasota investor Biter buys two Main Street buildings

BUYER: Downtown Project LLC (principal: Jesse Biter), Sarasota SELLER: Suzanne KrillPROPERTY: 1560 Main St., SarasotaPRICE: $2.08 million

BUYER: LanHole LLC (principal: Jesse Biter), SarasotaSELLER: 1564 Main Street LLCPROPERTY: 1564 Main St., SarasotaPRICE: $2 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $483,400, March 2004LAW FIRM ON DEED: Berlin-Patten PLLC, Sarasota

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Sarasota businessman Jesse Biter

purchased two buildings covering a to-tal of 17,854 square feet on Main Street for $4.08 million.


The buildings feature 200 feet and eight storefronts along Main Street. Tenants include The Bullet Hole, Pho Cali, the Drunken Poet and Pangea Lounge.

Biter plans to meet with city planners to discuss possible development op-tions on the site. For now, he wants to keep the two buildings’ current tenants in place.

Biter is also looking to acquire other properties downtown and in the Rosemary District. The entrepreneur said downtown needs residential units working professionals can afford. He is also looking for development land.

“We are looking at a few [parcels] that fit my vision for what Sarasota should be,” Biter says. “There will be some purchases in 2013.”

The Main Street buildings mark the third major downtown property invest-ment in the last two years for Biter, an

entrepreneur who sold his $16 million auto sales software firm in 2010.

In December 2011, Biter entered into an agreement with the city of Sarasota to buy the 11,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of the Palm Avenue parking garage for $1.6 million.

Biter was also involved in plans to move the HuB, a for-profit business incubator, to its new headquarters at the site of the former Century Bank on Fruitville Road and Goodrich Avenue. He purchased that building in May 2011 for $2.8 million.

Steve Horn and Ian Black of Ian Black Real Estate and Lee DeLeito Jr. of Michael Saunders & Co. handled the transactions.

— reporting by Roger Drouin, correspondent

Winter Park retail developer buys land for Plaza Venezia

BUYER: Laurel Pinebrook LLC (principal: Michael Collard), Winter ParkSELLER: Princeton Laurel Land Co. LLCPROPERTY: 2438 Laurel Road E., VenicePRICE: $1.9 millionLAW FIRM ON DEED: Clark & Albaugh LLP, Winter Park

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Winter Park-based retail developer

Michael Collard Properties purchased 30.9 acres on Laurel Road for $1.9 mil-lion.

The price equated to $61,588 per acre.

The new owner has proposed devel-oping a 68,400-square-foot shopping center on the site called Plaza Venezia. Marketing materials for the center say that extending Pinebrook Road this year north into Honore Avenue will put the new retail center on a major north-south thoroughfare connecting Venice and Sarasota.

The center will be anchored by a 45,600-square-foot Publix grocery store.

The developer did not reply to calls for comment prior to deadline.

Michael Collard Properties develops retail properties built around grocery and department stores and pharma-cies.

The purchase entity received a $10.94 million mortgage on the property from Wells Fargo Bank NA.

Etc…• The Saint Stephen’s Episcopal

School in Bradenton has raised $4.3 million of the $4.5 million needed to build the school a new athletic com-plex. The development will include a lighted, 800-seat football/lacrosse/soc-cer stadium with an eight-lane regula-tion track, and baseball and softball fields with dugouts, batting cages, press boxes, restrooms and a concession stand. Groundbreaking for the athletic complex is scheduled for March and the new facility should be completed in time for the 2013-2014 school year.

• Fort Myers-based J.L. Wallace Inc. has completed the first of two phases of construction on the Bradenton National Guard Armory for the Florida Depart-ment of Military Affairs. The first phase consisted of an interior build-out of an existing steel frame building. The proj-ect called for spray-foam roof and wall insulation, ADA accessibility features, offices, conference rooms, restrooms, a drill hall with special flooring and hard coated walls, weapons vault and brand new mechanical, electrical and plumb-ing systems. Energy-efficient tankless gas water heaters, windows, light fix-tures and plumbing fixtures were also installed to lower future utility costs.

The second phase, expected to be completed in February, calls for the construction of building additions on the existing armory and maintenance building, along with site improvements.

Renker Eich Parks Architects of St. Petersburg designed the project.

• Jag Grewal and Michele Fuller of Ian Black Real Estate and Howard Sadwin of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty handled the sale of the Fairway Crossing Apartments at 3890 Green-way Drive, Sarasota.

• Dr. Jonathan Greco and Joseph Greco leased 5,100 square feet of medi-cal office space at 1990 Main St., Sara-sota. Massey & Lancaster of the com-mercial division of Michael Saunders & Co. handled the transaction.

By SEAN ROTh | REAL ESTATE EDIToR

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Carl Lindell Jr., founder of LIN-DELL CAPITAL, LLC, has an-nounced the expansion of its loan portfolio to include a local entre-preneur with 51 rental homes and another with a fully leased medical center in Brandon.

Lindell said “The demand for a lender with over 40 years of lo-cal business experience continues to increase and presents us with unique lending opportunities.” “With our longtime presence in the Tampa Bay area, Lindell Capital has become a natural addition to the Lindell Family group of com-panies, which include Lindell In-vestments and Lindell Properties.”

Dennis Slater, Executive Vice President and CFO for Lindell, said “We expect continued economic growth in the Southwest Florida area. There is increasing opportu-nity to restart local area projects, creating an affordable end use, in both the commercial and residen-tial markets.”

“These two new loan requests were presented to us by local busi-ness entrepreneurs, with a sound business plan and a history of suc-cess, but were unable to secure traditional credit facilities. We ap-proved and funded the loans within thirty days.”

Slater added, “Our ability to close loans is attracting many local business owners, their CPAs and Advisors, with solid acquisition and business plans for review.”

Lindell ended his announce-ment with the simple statement, “If the request makes good business sense, we’ll consider the loan.”

Lindell Capital Increases Lending

PortfolioWith loans on Rental Homes and Brandon

Medical Center

LINDELL CAPITALEmail requests to:

[email protected]

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commercial real estate | CHARLOTTE-LEE-COLLIER |

Miami real estate investors buy Beacon Executive Suites

BUYER: New Beacon Village LLC, Miami Beach

SELLER: Beacon Villas LCPROPERTY: 8359 Beacon Blvd., Fort MyersPRICE: $1 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $975,000, June 1999LAW FIRM ON DEED: Madden Law Firm LLC, Fort Myers

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Miami real estate investors Luis and

Virginia Dominquez purchased the 53,301-square-foot Beacon Executive

Suites for $1 million.The price equated to $19 per square

foot.The property features 118 executive

suites, two conference rooms, a fitness center and a deli. It also has a com-munity room that seats 100. Originally built in 1982, the previous owners invested $3 million on renovations and improvements.

The new owners plan to refurbish it and keep it as executive suites, accord-ing to Allan Fox, property manager and rental agent.

“It’s in excellent condition right now,” Fox says. “They will just be making changes to the landscaping, enhancing the insides and painting and carpeting it.”

The office building was 60% occu-pied at the time of the sale.

Minto Communities closes, renames Sabal Bay project

BUYER: Minto Sabal Bay LLC, Coconut CreekSELLER: CDC Land Investments Inc.PROPERTY: between Dollar Bay and U.S. 41 East, NaplesPRICE: $68 millionLAW FIRM ON DEED: Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, West Palm Beach

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Minto Communities has closed on

its 2,416-acre planned Sabal Bay Com-munity in south Naples for $68 mil-lion.

The price equated to $28,146 per acre.

The seller, Collier Enterprises, has owned the property for decades and completed the comprehensive permit-ting and planning process for the more than 1,600-unit residential develop-ment prior to the sale.

The new owner/developer has start-ed clearing the property. Site devel-opment of the first phase is expected to take a full year. The entire project is expected to take a decade to com-plete.

“We intend to have a welcome/pre-view center open in fall of 2013 and first models open to the public in early 2014,” William Bullock, vice president of West Central Florida for Minto Com-munities - Florida, says in an email to the Business Observer. “The communi-ty will be based on casual elegance, old Florida charm and most importantly, the incredible on site ecology.”

More than half, 1,300 acres, of the property is being left as a preserve. The development will feature miles of exercise and hiking paths along with kayaking opportunities connected to a resort-style pool and social/fitness complex.

Minto Communities is renaming the community The Isles of Collier Pre-serve.

Minto Sabal Bay LLC mortgaged the property to the Collier Development Corp. affiliate CDC Land Investments Inc. for $58 million.

Neal Communities buys land for Collier’s Buttonwood Cove

BUYER: Neal Communities on the Braden River LLC, BradentonSELLER: Buttonwood Partners LLCPROPERTY: 3500, 3550, 3636 and 3710 Tree Farm Road, 1446, 1477 and 1480 Davila St., NaplesPRICE: $3.9 millionPREVIOUS PRICE: $3.5 million, May 2010LAW FIRM ON DEED: Kevin A. Denti PA, Naples

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Homebuilder Neal Communities Inc.

purchased the 54.2-acre Buttonwood Cove property in north Naples for $3.9 million. The price equated to $71,956 per acre, and the land will equate to 112 home sites.

Following completion of its needed approvals, Neal Communities expects to start developing the land in July or August with the goal of having new homes there by January 2014. The builder is still evaluating any ameni-ties it will build in the community, but has decided it will sell its “Celebration” home model there.

It has been 31 years since Manatee County-based Neal Communities built homes in Lee or Collier counties, ac-cording to founder and CEO Pat Neal. Its return now was a decision, he says, driven by the heavy demand in the region.

“Collier County has the strongest [housing] market in the state right now,” he says. “The area with the most new family activity right now is north-eastern Naples, and I would say that Buttonwood Cove is the epicenter of that.”

Buttonwood Cove is the third com-munity purchased in a planned expan-sion by Neal Communities into Collier and Lee counties through its South Florida Division. Neal says the compa-ny has another three properties under contract and hopes to have a total of eight properties in hand by the end of the year. The homebuilder expects to open its first communities and start building homes in the southern coun-ties later this year.

Etc…• The West Florida Division of Taylor

Morrison has started construction of model homes for the third phase of Sandoval, the final 100 acres of the 524-acre gated community in Cape Coral. The homebuilder will be selling twin villas, detached villas, single-family homes and estate homes. Four deco-rated model homes will be completed in early 2013. Pre-construction prices start in the upper $100,000s.

• StudioPlus LLC leased 2,640 square feet of office space at 12730 New Brittany Blvd., Fort Myers from Commonwealth Property Associates. Bill Mankin of Colliers International Southwest Florida represented the landlord.

• Solid Surface Tops of Southwest Florida Inc. leased a 12,000-square-foot building on 1.03 acres at 1861 Bench-mark Ave., Fort Myers from Central Park Office Complex LLC. Bob John-ston, Jerry Messonnier and Derek Born-horst of Lee & Associates’ Naples-Fort Myers office handled the transaction.

• Mattress World of Southwest Florida LLC leased a 7,750-square-foot industrial condominium at 14660 Jetport Loop, Suite 4, Fort Myers from International Commerce Partners LLC. Bob Johnston, Jerry Messonnier and Derek Bornhorst of Lee & Associ-ates’ Naples-Fort Myers office handled the transaction.

By SEAN ROTh | REAL ESTATE EDIToR

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corporatereport |

Sarasota’s Evolucia Inc. introduces new roadway lighting

Sarasota-based Evolucia Inc. has launched its next generation of LED replacement roadway lights. The new Evolucia G2 Aimed Optics LED Cobra Head Roadway Luminaires are de-signed to be brighter and more energy efficient than traditional lighting technologies.

The new Evolucia G2 line of LED Cobra Head fixtures is available in 100 watt, 150 watt, 200 watt and 400 watt HID replacement configurations with energy savings ranging from 57% to 66% depending on the input wattages.

Premier Biomedical files patent for possible nerve tumor treatment

St. Petersburg-based Premier Bio-medical Inc. has applied for a provi-sional patent application for a therapy to treat the neurological condition Neurofibromatosis.

The currently untreatable, painful and often fatal disease is character-ized by the growth of tumors around nerves. Neurofibromatosis type 1 af-fects one in 3,500 individuals world-wide.

Premier Biomedical’s Chairman of

the Scientific Advisory Board Mitchell Felder, M.D., a board-certified at-tending neurologist, theorizes that by processing the blood feeding the nerve tumors to remove the inflam-matory signal proteins and other cancer-related molecular compounds it is possible to stop the progression of the disease.

“At present, this is a hopeless dis-ease, and to date, there has not been even a possibility of treatment,” William Hartman, Premier Biomedi-cal’s CEO, says in a press release. “By applying for a provisional patent ap-plication, we are making the first step in our attempt to beat Neurofibroma-tosis.”

The application follows the com-pany’s treatment philosophy called the Felder Doctrine, which calls for attacking a disease by removing the physiological and biochemical changes made by the disease. The firm has previously killed a cancer tumor in a test tube by removing the cancer-related signaling molecules.

Comprehensive Care Corp. offering pharmacy performance bond

Tampa-based Comprehensive Care Corp. announced it will back its new “at-risk” Pharmacy Cost-Savings Pro-gram with guaranteed performance bonds.

The performance bonds will provide

By sean roth | research editor

St. Petersburg-based skin care company Celtic Complexion has announced a sponsorship agree-ment with professional rodeo barrel racer Tana Poppino.

Jennifer Devlin, a master esthetician, formed Celtic Complexion after working with several major skin care compa-nies.

Poppino, who lives in Big Cab-in, Okla., is a full-time contestant on the professional rodeo circuit. She has earned three trips to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (2006, 2007 and 2010) and has won numerous championships

at rodeos throughout the U.S. and Canada.

“I am very particular about sponsorships, and I only agree to endorse products and companies that I personally like and use,” Poppino says in a press release. “I used several of Jennifer’s prod-ucts before agreeing to represent the company and absolutely loved them. I also love the fact that a woman owns this compa-ny and she makes the products here in America. I know women in the rodeo, ranching and west-ern lifestyle world will like those aspects of the company.”

See CorPoratE rEPort page 22

Celtic Complexion skin care sponsoring professional rodeo barrel racer Poppino

A Better View of Business BusinessObserverFL.com

PASCO

HILLSBOROUGH

PINELLAS

MANATEE

SARASOTA

CHARLOTTE

LEE

COLLIER

FEBRUARY 1Special Issue:

Manufacturing Featuring the products made on the Gulf Coast & the companies that create them

Advertising Reservation Deadline: January 24Our lineup of 2013 special issues offers an entire year of opportunities to advertise and reach Florida’s Gulf Coast business leaders. To receive more information or our editorial calendar, contact Diane Schaefer at 941.362.4848.

% oF oUR REAdERs hAvE inqUiREd ABoUt A pRodUct, BUsinEss oR sERvicE thAt thEY’vE sEEn in thE BUsinEss oBsERvER

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CompCare the ability to guarantee its clients pharmacy cost savings.

Developed over the past year and a half, CompCare is introducing an enhanced pharmacy program that does not require any changes to the client’s current pharmacy plan design or formula. Through arrangements with a network of selected pharmacy benefits managers, CompCare has constructed a pharmacy system that it says substantially reduces phar-macy costs to HMO’s and self-insured people.

“We believe that this innovative pharmacy cost-savings program will revolutionize this sector of the health care industry,” Ramon Martinez, Se-nior Consultant to CompCare man-agement, says in a news release. “We are especially pleased to announce that we are now willing to back each of our pharmacy benefits management service contracts with a performance bond, which will provide the client with both an assurance of our per-formance at substantially lower costs from previous years’ pharmacy spends and budget predictability.”

AVI-SPL adds four offices in Canada, United Kingdom

Tampa-based AVI-SPL has con-tinued its international expansion with the opening of four new offices outside the United States, including

in London, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto.

AVI-SPL launched its European operations with headquarters in the United Kingdom. James Shanks will lead those operations as manag-ing director. AVI-SPL has also added operations in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto through the acquisition of selected assets from audio, video and information technology firm Duo-com. Zoreena Abas will lead AVI-SPL’s eastern Canada offices. With this ad-dition, AVI-SPL now operates in five Canadian cities, including Calgary and Vancouver.

“AVI-SPL is committed to being a truly global provider,” AVI-SPL CEO John Zettel says in a press release. “The U.K. office will operate indepen-dently but will benefit from access to AVI-SPL’s global resources. With AVI-SPL’s financial stability, strong vendor relationships, and rich capabilities in managed services, we’re confident about the future of our business in Europe.”

AVI-SPL has nearly 40 offices across the United States, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom and Dubai.

Tigrent Learning changes name becomes Rich Dad Education

Cape Coral-based Tigrent Learn-ing has changed its name to Rich Dad Education.

“Our rebranding as Rich Dad Educa-tion reflects our renewed commitment to financial education and the overall mission of the Rich Dad community,” CEO Anthony Humpage says in a press release.

Prior to this change, the Rich Dad Education name had been primarily

used by the company to designate its free preview workshops and the basic trainings it offers in real estate and financial markets investing.

For an interim period, students and members of the general public who access the company’s old websites or attempt to contact the company using the older email addresses will be automatically redirected to its new websites and emails.

Internally, the change will not alter the company’s corporate structure or governing terms, policies and proce-dures.

Marco Beach Ocean Resort wins digital marketing award

The Marco Beach Ocean Resort an-nounced it won a Silver Award in the Digital Marketing Division of the 2012 Adrian Awards competition from the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Asso-ciation International (HSMAI). Based in McLean, Va., HSMAI is a global organization of sales, marketing and revenue management professionals representing all segments of hospital-ity, travel and tourism.

The annual Adrian Awards rec-ognize notable work in advertising,

public relations and digital marketing in the travel industry.

Tampa’s Veralytic reaches deal with Financial Planning Association

The Financial Planning Association (FPA) has reached an agreement with Tampa-based Veralytic to license the company’s life insurance pricing and performance research at discounted prices to FPA members.

The Veralytic research covers sev-eral measures of life insurance policy suitability in a graphical overview, summarized by a simple star rating system that measures against five cat-egories of policy performance.

“Life insurance is an integral com-ponent of financial planning, yet it is often the last, largest and most ne-glected asset in their financial plans,” Barry Flagg, Veralytic’s founder, inventor and president, says in a news release. “Veralytic helps planners reduce costs and risk, improve con-sistency and document due diligence processes against possible lawsuits and regulatory requirements. We are excited to bring Veralytic research to FPA members so they can now man-age life insurance as an asset like any other.”

Denver-based FPA is the largest membership organization for person-al financial planning experts in the United States.

corporatereport | continued

CORPORATE REPORT from page 21

A Better View of Business BusinessObserverFL.com

PASCO

HILLSBOROUGH

PINELLAS

MANATEE

SARASOTA

CHARLOTTE

LEE

COLLIER

FEBRUARY 8Special Issue:

Insurance Featuring the leading trends affecting business

Advertising Reservation Deadline: January 31Our lineup of 2013 special issues offers an entire year of opportunities to advertise and reach Florida’s Gulf Coast business leaders. To receive more information or our editorial calendar, contact Diane Schaefer at 941.362.4848.

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When German sporting goods giant Adidas sought to reinvigorate

its U.S. brand in 1993, Soosie La-zenby was one of the first mar-keting executives it hired.

A Clearwater native, Lazenby was working at IMG Academy, the Bradenton-based sports behemoth. She traveled the country, from Chicago to Char-lotte, putting on tennis tourna-ments. Adidas, though, was the sports business opportunity of a lifetime.

Lazenby spent six years with Adidas. Sales at the company soared during that time, from $150 million in 1993 to $1.7 bil-lion in 1999. The company gave all the executives special cham-pagne bottles to commemorate the day it surpassed $1 billion.

Her next goal is to build a large-scale event branding and invita-tion design studio. She plans to get there through Urbancoast, a Belleair Bluffs-based business she founded in 2008. The three-employee company, with less than $1 million in annual rev-enues, has posted at least 20% sales growth every year since it opened.

“Our business just all of a sud-den exploded,” says Lazenby. “(But) I went into this with a long-term vision. I don’t want to be just a Tampa Bay business. I want to create a place where people can get everything for events.”

Lazenby took a big step in that direction in 2012, when she acquired St. Petersburg-based Not From a Box to help boost e-commerce for her business. The 10-year-old business, says Lazenby, is a custom invitation design studio with a significant online presence.

Lazenby, 46, hopes acquisi-tions like that, combined with her unique career background, will turn Urbancoast into a printed materials branding conglomerate. Here’s a glance at some of Lazenby’s career highlights:

SportS paSSion: Lazenby played tennis competitively growing up, including a stint at IMG’s famed Bollettieri Tennis Academy. She attended Tulane University, and initially want-ed to pursue a career in sports broadcasting. Not fond of writ-ing, however, she instead went after a job with IMG in event planning.

JuSt do it: IMG assigned Lazenby to plan her first tennis tournament, in Charlotte, when she was 25. She showed up in the city for a three-month stint with nothing — no contacts, no car, no furniture. She quickly discovered the benefits of the barter system, which is how she found a couch and many other necessities. Says Lazenby: “They threw me into the fire and said figure it out.”

Many hatS: Lazenby’s last job at Adidas, director of brand asset marketing, was to coordi-

Soosie Lazenby has lived several business lives, including growing Adidas into a billion-dollar business.

out of the office | EXECUTIVE SESSION | By Mark Gordon | Deputy Managing eDitor

MARK WEMPLESooSie Lazenby owns urbancoast, a Belleair Bluffs-based event branding and invitation design studio.

nate worldwide branding between the firm’s top clients and promotional stars, from the New York Yankees to Kobe Bry-ant. It was one part event planning, one part strategy, and one part making sure the Adidas brand was protected. “It was so much fun to be part of the growth,” La-zenby says. “It was amazing. It was one of the best experiences I ever had.”

Friendly FaceS: Lazenby, through her work at Adidas and IMG, befriended many prominent professional athletes. The list includes basketball star Charles Barkley, Nomar Garciaparra in baseball and tennis player Anna Kournikova. Tracy McGrady, then a budding NBA star, once helped her unpack after a move. Former NBA player and coach Kurt Rambis, when he played for the Charlotte Hornets, in-vited Lazenby to his family’s home for dinner.

Stretch the dollarS: Lazenby’s Adidas success drew the attention of of-ficials with the Massachusetts Sports Partnership, a public-private group that recruits sporting events to the state. She recalls the partnership’s budget was so thin when she arrived in the late 1990s that three employees shared one eth-

ernet cord for Internet access. “I had to figure out how to generate some money, otherwise I wouldn’t get a paycheck or make payroll,” says Lazenby. “And that was scary.”

play ball: Lazenby used her grow-ing connections in the sports world to help raise money and draw interest to her group. The work paid off. Events she helped bring to the state include the Major League All-Star game in 1999 at Fenway Park and several World Cup soccer events and Davis Cup tennis tournaments.

learn a lot: The sports partnership post, says Lazenby, taught her how to mul-titask and juggle, get a lot done with limit-ed resources and take risks. Says Lazenby: “I would never have had the confidence to run my own business if I didn’t run the sports commission.”

roMney callS: Just like the partner-ship noticed Lazenby’s work with Adidas, then Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney noticed her work with the sports orga-nization. Romney appointed Lazenby to head the state’s Physical Fitness & Sports Committee, a group that worked with more than 12,000 children. Lazenby says

Romney worked hard and was sincere. “Mitt was always very authentic,” says Lazenby. “He was genuinely engaged and interested.”

a new Field: Lazenby says the toughest challenge for her with both roles in Massachusetts was working within the world of politics. In sports, she says, it was easier to set up a strategy and have players execute in a team-oriented way. Government, though, was like moving herds. People didn’t want to listen to other opinions. “I didn’t know how to deal with politicians,” she says. “I didn’t come from that background.”

Moving on: Lazenby moved back to Florida in 2008 with her husband. That’s when she launched Urbancoast, a move out of her comfort zone. “I didn’t know anything about retail,” Lazenby says. The early days there is when she discovered the “smart thing people do in business is to know their weaknesses and hire ac-cordingly.” Looking back, she holds no re-grets over her sports career — save for one. “I had accomplished everything I wanted to do in sports marketing,” says Lazenby. “Everything except being named to 40 under 40 in the SportsBusiness Journal.”

lifeSporting


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Prepay Rates: CCIM Members: $40Non-Members: $50

For more information, please contact Mike Doyle, CCIM (239) 333.4361

Sponsored By:Achieva Credit UnionThe Birch CompanyBusey BankBusiness Observer (formerly Gulfcoast Business Review)

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College Parkway Executive Center

CRE ConsultantsEncore BankFirst Citizens BankFlorida Gulfcoast Chapter Of The Appraisal Institute

The Hagen Law FirmHSA Engineers & ScientistsLaw Offices of Kevin F. Jursinski & Associates

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