FEATURE
‘I Lead With My Heart’ Business and Political Icon Dick Batchelor Pursues Activism with Compassion, Humor
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BY TERRY GODBEY
Profile Photography by Julie Fletcher
nyone who has spent more than 15 minutes with Orlando business consultant and former state legislator Dick Batchelor will not be surprised to learn he was a class clown. “I tell young people, ‘Thank God I finished Evans High School pre-FCAT or I’d still be in shop class making birdhouses.’”
After graduation, he joined the Marines and served in the Vietnam War before becoming a powerful figure in business and political circles as well as a champion for children and families. In his 20s, his fondest wish was to appear as a comedian on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. “I love humor. My desire to be in comedy was concurrent with my political ambitions to be in the Legislature,” Batchelor said. “I figured one was intentional comedy, and the other was accidental comedy. I didn’t get on Johnny Carson’s show, but I did do some things politically that people might have thought were funny unintentionally,” he said with a chuckle.
Public Service
He was only 26 when he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1974 after
campaigning for U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles, who later became governor, and Florida Gov. Reubin Askew. Batchelor, a lifelong Democrat, served eight years in the state House, five of them in leadership roles, and received more than 50 awards for his elective service. Those years sparked his enduring fascination with politics. These days Batchelor’s work is centered around business development. As president of Dick Batchelor Management Group, the consulting firm he founded in 1986, he works with large companies to help them find new business and secure contracts. To a lesser extent, he manages issues involving governmental relations and public affairs, an expertise he calls “an arrow in my quiver.” Batchelor succeeds because of what he calls the “earned credibility” he acquired during decades of community involvement and staying in contact with people. He started networking before networking was cool — in college, filling index cards with contact information about everyone he met to add to his desktop Rolodex. That Rolodex has been replaced by a cell phone and social media, but he said his business development model remains simple. “I approach potential clients of my clients. I always know somebody at any given
FRESHMAN LEGISLATOR DICK BATCHELOR PALS AROUND WITH SESAME STREET'S BIG BIRD IN 1976 AFTER HELPING GET A BILL PASSED TO PROVIDE FUNDS FOR A NEW WMFE-TV STATION.
18 JULY/AUGUST 2021 | i4Biz.com
My desire to be in comedy was concurrent with my political ambitions to be in the Legislature. I figured one was intentional comedy, and the other was accidental comedy. — Dick Batchelor