What I’ve Learned
Simone Marstiller 60, Tallahassee Gunster, of Counsel in the law firm’s Government Affairs, Healthcare and Appellate Practice 25-year career in Florida Government As told to Rosanne Dunkelberger
HER ORIGIN STORY:
It’s one of those stories you could not have dreamed up. My father, who was from Ohio, worked for Firestone from the time he was 19 to when he retired at about 57ish. As part of that experience for him, he lived and worked for the better part of 20 years in Liberia where Firestone, I want to say since 1900, has produced rubber. My mother, who was from Guyana, South America, had been living in London, studying nursing. And as the story goes now — obviously I wasn’t there to witness this firsthand — she went to Liberia to marry a Liberian guy that she had met. For a variety of reasons … that didn’t work out, my mother decided she needed to get a job to save some money to get herself out of Liberia and wherever it was that she wanted to go. She took a job in a furniture store in downtown Monrovia. And my father came in one day to buy furniture. And that’s how two people, not from there, from completely different backgrounds, from completely different places in the world, met in Liberia. My dad was retired by the time I was born and we lived there until 1973. I was nine-ish and my father decided he wanted to move to St. Petersburg to be permanently based there where his favorite sister, Ida, had retired. We landed at JFK airport on July 4, 1973 and flew into Tampa International Airport. I’ve been really a Florida girl, a St. Petersburg girl, a Tampa Bay area girl ever since. I’ve lived in Tallahassee since 1999 but my heart always will be in the Tampa Bay area.
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INFLUENCE Fall 2024