The Regional Flight Plan

Springtime begins in Tallahassee and the blue cloudless skies this weekend provided an awesome opportunity to view the North Florida region from 3000 ft. Never one to turn down the chance to fly, I climbed into the Piper Warrior with my trusted friend, a seasoned flight instructor and spent Sunday afternoon airborne over our growing region.

Flying over downtown allowed me to get a birds-eye perspective on transportation corridors, residential development, business and industry sectors, educational facilities and neigboring communities. At this altitude you can also envision what we need to shape our region tomorrow - a good flight plan for our future, an efficient ground crew, trained navigators to guide us, and knowledge of taking off and landing safely at our desired destination.

The Tallahassee/Big Bend Region remains a land of natural beauty, from the ground and in the air. How our public officials and citizens plan, check and use the proper equipment and the direction we fly in will make our flight for future growth one that will as memorable and breathtaking as the one I experienced this afternoon. We are cleared for take off!

Communication + Teamwork = Great Taste

If you ever have the opportunity to dine at one of Ted Turner's restaurants, Ted's Montana Grill, be sure to request the best seat in the house - at the bar on the end in front of the grill and food prep area. My wife and I have found that not only do you get seated much quicker, you get to meet some of most friendly and talented staff in the restaurant business.

Dining while seated at the bar in Ted's Tallahassee location also afforded us the occassion to witness how constant communication and teamwork combined to turn out a great product, in this case great food. Working furiously in a small cramped area with the heat cranking from the grill, steamer, ovens and fryer, this talented team continuously multi-tasked through a variety of orders, each of which was handled in an quick orderly process. To those seated at tables, they just realized it did not take long to get good food served fresh and fast.

What we saw and enjoyed with our meal was an organized team that communicated in normal tones with all of their co-workers and that team members jumped in and helped one another without being asked and without gripping or complaining. We got to be eyewitnesses to working examples of good communication and true teamwork.

A quality product produced in short order through the right recipe of communication and teamwork...add the special touch of fresh strawberry shortcake and you've created satisfied customers.

Listening to the Party Line

Presidential politics in Florida is always making news - sometimes for months after Presidential elections and most recently before we even get to Primary Election Day with delegates being cast aside. Living in Tallahassee we are used to politics ruling the day, hey we are now having movies about the Presidential elections shot here...not even Arnold can claim that.

Within the last five days I have had the opportunity to have lunch meetings with senior campaign team members for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. I have to say it was not surprising to hear the party line and perspective spoken from both sides. What I did find most interesting to hear was the manner in which these representatives from both parties shared their opinions about the elimination of their opponents from various factors; which would ultimately lead to their candidate receiving the party nomination. Candidly I was not swayed by hearing the party line or opponent elimination opinions from either camp.

As for this Florida voter I have my personal presidential candidate of choice, but my undecided vote is on Amendment 1 - the Florida Property Tax Amendment. Lots of money has been spent by those for and against Amendment 1 and I sense many Florida voters also remain undecided. Party lines don't seem matter when comes to property tax. Will the very slight lowering of property tax drastically affect the provision of civic services, I really don't know. One thing I do know for sure, I will vote...who knows in Florida it might get me a role in a movie.

The New Tune of Digital Harmony

Usually around this time of year the sound heard all over Florida is either that of storm winds blowing or stadiums filled with football fans. Thankfully our "climate challenged" season has been mostly fair weather thus far and in every part of the state football season is well underway.

If you listen closely what you can hear is a new sound in the sunshine state, no not the legislature convening another session, but rather the sweet sounds of progress in the form of innovation and digital harmony. For me the sound became crystal clear at a recent summit, "Imagining an Innovative Economy" organized and facilitated by the Florida Chamber Foundation and held in Orlando, but that sound really got started with the launch of the Digital Harmony project in Tallahassee a few weeks earlier.

Digital Harmony is an innovation initiative in Tallahassee where every sixth grader at Nims Middle School has received a Dell laptop loaded with school related software for the student's use during the entire year, at school and in their homes. The project was lead by Tallahassee City Commissioner, Andrew Gillum, who enlisted the help of the Tallahassee Technology Alliance and Comcast to make this a reality for the Nims sixth graders. Comcast donated and installed cable modems in each student's home and is providing Internet access at no charge, while leaders from the Tallahassee Technology Alliance helped load and install software on all the laptops. What makes this special is that Nims Middle School, located in Tallahassee' s southern sector, received an F rating last year, but under the new principal, Kay Collins, the schools has vowed to become an A rated school by year-end. The transformation of this school and this section of the community has to begin with innovative and positive life changing projects like Digital Harmony.

While attending the Florida Chamber Foundation's Summit on an Innovative Economy, several of the speakers echoed the need for projects like Digital Harmony. The meeting was a gathering of the who's who of innovation with leaders from IT, life sciences, state government, business and higher education. Florida's former Lt. Governor, Toni Jennings, set the tone and the challenge for Florida to work as a successful enterprise when it comes to collaborative innovation. Jennings said that fostering economic development of jobs is important, but we must make the early investment in human capital - our students and prepare them for jobs.

The advent of corporate digital harmony was evident at the meeting with the CEOs of Torrey Pines Institute, Scripps Florida, Burnham Institute and SRI all sharing the same stage and calling for the need of a strong workforce with skilled and educated talent from the state. What was interesting to note was that several speakers said Florida's brain drain and talent drop off begins in our state's middle schools.

To hear the united voices of our state's top leadership in innovation, education and business imploring the audience to invest in the best education and engagement of our students, not at their college graduation, but rather in middle school, made me begin to hear the tune of Digital Harmony with much more clarity. What really sounds good and would be innovative would be for all sectors of Florida's economy to each play their part, becoming a fine tuned instrument for Florida's future symphony of Digital Harmony - in the classrooms and as a world-class economic enterprise. A united effort for an innovative economy in Florida maybe tuning up right now, but it sounds like a masterpiece in the making.

Saturated on Saturday

The Chamber’s Community Conference is quite the draw, including Congressman Allen Boyd, public officials from all over the Big Bend region, water buffalo, and entertainment right out of the Magic Kingdom. If the day’s agenda didn’t saturate you, the humidity and afternoon raindrops at the Kim and Mayda Williams’ Annual Water Buffalo Party at pool certainly would have.

Congressman Boyd shared his thoughts on numerous items on national and region happenings from the “blue dog” perspective. Alan Matheson, Executive Director of Envision Utah, spoke on the background and history of how their regional visioning helped their region evolve and become a national model for charting responsible and smart growth. As the general session moved to breakouts, the choices of which session to attend were tough as all looked to be loaded with insightful topics and presenters. Sessions included Knight Creative Community Initiative, Workforce Readiness, Going Green, and a Regional Overview. The Regional panel was informative and encouraging – it’s not often that you can hear representatives from Audubon of Florida and the Florida Builders Association agreeing on the future path of progress for our region. Max Martinez from Gadsden County’s health department gave an impassioned talk on regional healthcare, along with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare’s Bill Giudice who shared valuable insight on the healthcare facilities throughout the region.

The lunch program featured Dr. James Ammons, President, FAMU and his talk was energetic, engaging and refreshing. The new attitude and approach along with the offer to be an integral part of the community was exciting to hear. Dr. Ammons gave a realistic and honest assessment of what lies ahead for FAMU, both the good and challenging tasks to be dealt with. The entire room quickly captured his vision for FAMU’s greatest days being ahead and all of us becoming a part of the Rattler fan club.

Hit the pool…the Annual Water Buffalo Party is one of those special social events where conference attendee’s are as about as relaxed as you can get, bathing suits and a bar, thanks to Target Copy and Marpan Supply. This is Tallahassee’s social scene like you won’t see anywhere else. A quick afternoon thundershower was timely to send everyone in to rest before the reception and evening banquet.

It is always a pleasure to go to one of the community’s best dinner events and be in comfortable casual clothing. A packed reception in exhibition area provided a good opportunity for everyone to meet and greet. Tables full of guests, good food and lively conversations kept the room buzzing. From politics to teenagers, Kimberly Moore from Workforce Plus and Becky Liner with the James Madison Institute shared some good times and laughs. The crowd was entertained by the A Cappella group, Return 2 Zero, with old time favorites that had Dee Crumpler and Chucha Barber singing out loud.

If that wasn’t enough then you could follow Shelia Costigan, Jay Bostwick and numerous others down to Champ’s for the Chair-Elect’s after-dinner party, hosted by Ron Sachs. There was definitely some dancing going on, oh yeah; there were probably a few Tally Martini’s being downed by the group. This definitely was saturation Saturday – lots to take in mentally, visually and physically.