Tampa Independent Business Alliance makes top 10 economic 2004 news stories - American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

December 13, 2004
Ten who made a splash in 2004
Tampa IBA made the list!

By ROBERT TRIGAUX, Times Business Columnist

Never let it be said that 2004 was a dull business year. From a very deserving list of more than 100 concerned, creative and chaotic candidates, here are 10 individuals who managed to make an especially loud splash - in some cases, a bellyflop - on the business scene in the past year.

These are passionate people who fundamentally changed the Florida economy, who discovered Davids really can take on Goliaths, and who simply seemed to enjoy taking calculated risks.

1. IVAN: Okay, so Ivan was a hurricane, not a person. Let's not quibble over the source of hot air. Fact is, Ivan and his pals - Charley, Frances and Jeanne - delivered a history-making economic wallop to a broad swath of Florida in 2004. The repercussions just keep on coming. Insurance rates are rising - again. Citizens Property Insurance, the state's wobbly insurer of last resort, will soon soar past State Farm to become Florida's biggest provider of property coverage. Florida economic developers are fretting the four storms gave the state a black eye in the nation's business community. And then there are the tourists. At last week's quarterly meeting of Visit Florida, the state's public-private tourism marketing agency, survey results suggested 20 percent of tourists would be less likely to come in the next 12 months because of the storms. Remember, in about six months the busy 2005 hurricane season begins. Forecasters predict 11 named storms, with six reaching hurricane status.

2. NAT REED: Nat who? The biggest single economic development event in Florida since sliced bread - or at least since the arrival of Walt Disney near Orlando - is the deal struck with California biotech heavyweight Scripps Research Institute to build a major research facility in this state. This was a recruitment job personally handled by Gov. Jeb Bush, and buoyed with more than half a billion dollars of federal, state and county incentives to leapfrog Florida's biotech industry ahead by at least a decade.

Everything was on track until Nathaniel Pryor Reed, 71, a Republican who worked for Presidents Nixon and Ford and an unbending environmentalist for 40 years, objected. The co-founder of the growth management organization 1000 Friends of Florida decided the likely Scripps' campus site - the former Mecca Farms orange grove in western Palm Beach County - is too intrusive. Scripps and the state might face years of litigation, at least long enough to persuade Scripps to seriously consider alternative sites. "I want time. I want time for the people of Palm Beach County to wake up and fully realize what's at stake," Reed told the Palm Beach Post last month.

3. LOUISE PETERSON: She got involved four years ago with a community help group called Acorn after a young man knocked on her door and asked if she would help improve her south St. Petersburg neighborhood. First came speed bumps, then better lighting and code enforcement to stop dumping on vacant lots. But nobody thought something really big, Florida's first minimum wage - $6.15 an hour, $1 more than the federal minimum - could spring forth from such modest roots. Volunteers from various groups spread across Florida to get enough signatures to land on the November ballot.

Other activists, including Acorn's 30-year-old Tamecka Pierce in Orlando, helped press the issue in Tallahassee and in televised debate. How did it all begin? Peterson, 55, recalls how she and Acorn staffers Brian Kettenring and Josh Myles tossed around ideas. What could they do to really make a difference for working families? How about a higher minimum wage in Florida? "An extra dollar does not sound like much, but it can make all the difference if you make minimum wage," Peterson says. The higher wage kicks in next May, barring legal delays from some of Florida's unhappy business community.

4. KENT BUESCHER: Never tell Buescher the odds, even when he's trying to revive a dated Florida theme park built on water-ski shows and southern belles sitting among flower gardens. Cypress Gardens opened in 1936 in Winter Haven as Florida's first theme park. It faded and closed in April 2003 with plans to build condos there. Buescher, 49, a Georgia theme park owner, bought it and spent more than $45-million to resuscitate it as Cypress Gardens Adventure Park. It was a roundabout rescue that involved the Friends of Cypress Gardens lobbying group, the state, Polk County and even the Trust for Public Land. Now it's up to Buescher to make it work. Obviously, he sees potential or he would not have mortgaged his Wild Adventures park in Valdosta, Ga., to pay for it.

5. MARYANN FERENC: Kmart buying Sears? Nextel and Sprint merging? Business just keeps getting bigger. But Ferenc, 45, co-owner of the well-known Mise En Place restaurant, and her dedicated core of fellow small business owners in Tampa are fighting back. This year saw the rise of the Tampa Bay Independent Business Alliance (www.tibatampa.org) TIBA's pitch? Small independent businesses add personality to a community and prevent cities from becoming cloned with big-box, look-alike chain stores. If Tampa looked just like Columbus, Ohio, or Des Moines, why live here? A young TIBA is working hard to energize its members and educate the public that local businesses are a key part of keeping a genuine sense of place in any community. As for Wal-Mart: Resistance (we hope) is not futile.

6. ELIOT SPITZER: Sure, he's New York's grandstanding attorney general. Sure, he just announced plans to run for governor. But where would we be without Spitzer's legal blitzkrieg against so many ingrained and sleazy business practices in this country? Spitzer's investigations and lawsuits in 2004 against the securities industry, the mutual fund industry and now the insurance brokerage industry have revealed such cozy practices as kickbacks, payoffs and profit-assured stock trading opportunities only offered to rich clients. At the least, Spitzer should be thanked for making the federal regulators look like industry lapdogs. And without Spitzer, 45, laying the groundwork, Florida's attorney general last month probably never would have subpoenaed 11 insurance companies as part of a state investigation into possible bid-rigging and kickback arrangements between insurers and brokers.

7. MIKE MORRIS: Nobody can resist the story of a local inventor who made good, then helped return the favor. Armed with a master's degree in marine science from the University of South Florida, Morris fiddled for years on miniature spectrometers in his Dunedin kitchen. Now he heads Ocean Optics, a firm whose underwater products are based in part on Morris' spectrometer work. Morris got his business start with money from St. Petersburg's Downtown Partnership. In return, Morris gave the business group 1,000 shares of his new company worth all of $300. This year, Morris, 53, sold his company to a London firm for $50-million. The vastly enriched Downtown Partnership took its newfound wealth and created a fund to be used for promising local inventions - especially those in marine biology. Now that's how paybacks should work.

8. MALCOLM GLAZER: What is it with Glazer and giant sports franchises? The owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team whose value has soared under Glazer, tried a few years ago to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. When that did not happen, he sought bigger fish. This year, he and sons Joel and Avram (along with his other kids) are after the world's richest sports franchise: Britain's Manchester United soccer team. While the fans don't like the takeover attempt, Glazer, 76, has quickly become the second biggest investor in "Man U" with a 28.1 percent stake.

9. WENDY CECCHERELLI: This Seattle transplant became Tampa's director of arts and cultural affairs early this year, but don't be misled by that white-wine title. Ceccherelli, 49, is a business-focused manager in the city's economic development department, hired by Mayor Pam Iorio to bring Tampa's "city of the arts" idea alive. Remember the bigger picture. Reviving and reinventing Tampa into a city whose downtown is full of people living, working and enjoying a lively urban scene is a key goal that would benefit the entire Tampa Bay area. Now it's starting to gather some momentum.

10. MICHAEL EISNER: No 2004 list could possibly exclude the absurd soap opera starring the CEO of Walt Disney Co. Eisner might have preferred going beltless on the wildest theme park ride to running Disney this year. It started with Comcast Corp.'s unsolicited $54-billion bid for the company. It continued in March when investors gave a thumbs down to Eisner, costing him his title of chairman. Don't forget corporate director Roy Disney's campaign to oust Eisner. The latest dust-up? Eisner and other Disney directors were sued over the ludicrous $140-million severance package paid to Michael Ovitz, who left Disney after 14 months as the company's second in command. Eisner, 62, says he plans to call it quits as CEO in 2006. Now that's a wild ride no theme park could possibly duplicate.

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