Business Observer / May 19, 2017

M AY 19 - M AY 25 , 2017 | TH R E E D O LL A R S

FLOR IDA’S NE WSPAPER FOR T HE C - SUI T E

Real estate | Opportunistic firm isn’t a slave to static growth goals. PG. 24 PASCO • H ILL SBOROUG H • PIN ELL AS • P OLK • M A N ATEE • SA R ASOTA • C H A R LOT TE • LEE • COLLIER

Fashion Forward

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

With ‘sales are your oxygen’ as her guide, a dressmaker builds a profitable business in a volatile industry. PAGE 18

Inside...

What does it take to be the best entrepreneur you can be? Nine leaders, from startup founders to $40 million business owners, offer some inspiring answers.

THE BUILDERS: At least five years in business............ 8 THE REPEATERS: Have started at least three companies.............................. 12 THE BEGINNERS: Fewer than five years in business...................................16 HOW TO: Leave work at work.............. 20 HOW TO: Get the most value for your business.................................. 20 HOW TO: Run a business that’s in constant transformation...................... 21 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE: An entrepreneur leads the way for college graduates........... 22

REAL ESTATE Millennials push regional commercial real estate growth. 24 Area master-planned communities lead nation in sales. 24 Prominent 31-acre site with waterfront views hits market. 25

Camilyn Beth Leavitt | CAMILYN BETH

6 Florida looks to ferment place in national beer war.

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DON’T MISS

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BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

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Vol. XXI, No. 18

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MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

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CoffeeTalk

3

CoffeeTalk sponsored by Kerkering Barberio

State senator gets shout out The chatter in Tallahassee now has begun to turn from the combative 2017 Legislative session to the 2018 race for governor.

But several power players from the region, outside of bills and political maneuvers, scored some big wins in the recently ended session: a mention on the positive side of prominent political blogger Peter Schorsch’s session wrap up winners and losers column.

Schorsch, on Floridapolitics.com, cites Florida Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes; State Rep. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers; and State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg in the win column, among other officials and lobbyists.

State Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, the 2018-20 President-designate, also got a big shout out. “(Galvano) has shown leadership, even when the current president (Joe Negron) seemed timid,” writes Schorsch in the May 8 post. “Who walked former Sen. Frank Artiles to Sen. Audrey Gibson’s office to make sure he apologized? Galvano. Who helped broker Artiles’ eventual resignation, sparing the Senate more embarrassment? Galvano. And the Bradenton Republican held firm on the Senate’s position that counties, where voters approved slot machines by referendum, should be allowed to

ARE YOU A FOREIGN NATIONAL LOOKING TO SELL REAL ESTATE PROPERTY IN THE U.S.?

GALVANO have slots, even if that meant giving up the hope of a gambling bill for another year.”

Before you do, be sure to know about FIRPTA.

Keep up with the signs A $70 million sign company with offices from Mexico to Wisconsin opened a new office in Tampa, what it hopes will be its gateway to the Southeast.

Green Bay-based Jones Sign chose Tampa because of the city’s fast growth and proximity to population centers in the north and south, says Jones Sign Executive Vice President Todd Patrickus. A specialty fabrication contractor of signs on everything from shopping malls to sports stadiums, the company plans to target hospitality, retail, large venue and regional chains for business from the Tampa office.

“We are looking to grow nationally with offices in key areas,” Patrickus tells Coffee Talk. “Texas is next.”

The Tampa office will also compete for business on the west coast of Florida. The company has four employees locally so far, and plans to hire up to five more people. The office, led

The Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, commonly referred to as FIRPTA, requires that 15% of the sales price be deducted from the

by Jimmy McDonald, with 29 years of sign industry experience, will handle in-house house sales, estimating, project management, design and installation operations. It will also look to be a design-build partner with regional construction and design firms. “We want to be a full-service sign company in Tampa,” says Patrickus.

Projects in Florida Jones Sign has worked on include Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins; Daytona Speedway; and the International Plaza in Tampa. Jones Sign was founded in 1910 in a storefront in downtown Green Bay. With the addition of the Tampa office, Jones now has 10 locations in North America. Five of those locations include manufacturing facilities.

sales proceeds due to a foreign seller of U.S. real estate. This amount is held by the Internal Revenue Service until the seller files a U.S. income tax return to report the sale. In many cases, the seller is able to recover all or a substantial portion of the amount withheld.

The International Tax professionals at Kerkering Barberio can assist by: • Applying for reduced withholding • Explaining how withholding can be avoided • Obtaining U.S. tax identification numbers • Preparing income tax returns to request refund of withholding

Let’s talk over a cup of coffee.

Each situation is different, and we value getting to know you and

See COFFEE TALK page 5

your tax needs. Contact Renea Glendinning, Phoebe Trumpler or your Kerkering Barberio Advisor at (941) 365-4617 to discuss.

ENDEAVOR FOR GROWTH that includes internet, utilities, conference rooms and a full kitchen.

“I recognized the need from my real estate brokerage clients who were asking me for that kind of space,” Rosinus says in the statement. “The monthly membership gives entrepreneurs and highgrowth businesses flexibility without constraints of long-term real estate commitments.”

Endeavor currently has more than 50 member companies, and Rosinus plans to add 11 additional offices in existing space next month. The second phase of the project, scheduled to be completed in September, includes building an additional 16 offices, expanding the shared cowork space and creating a 50-seat auditorium. Up next? Possibly more Endeavors. Says Rosinus: “I do have my sights set on additional locations,” Rosinus hints.

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The co-working and collaborative office space surge shows no sign of abating, at least not in one section of Fort Myers.

Endeavor Innovative Workspaces, a hybrid of co-work space and a traditional private leased office space facility, is a prime example.

Endeavor’s building, off Lee Road near Alico Road and Interstate 75, opened May 4, 2016, and recently announced plans to expand by 4,000 square feet, according to a statement. The expansion is to meet the current need, plus fill possible spots from a waiting list for more potential clients, says Endeavor CEO Bjorn Rosinus.

Endeavor’s model is to sell monthly memberships for the right to use its offices and shared space where entrepreneurs and professionals can plug their laptops and collaborate with each other. Memberships start at $169 a month, and

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4 topstories from BusinessObserverFL.com

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

CHARLOTTE-LEE-COLLIER

County to get 4,000 homes At least 32 residential developments have been approved in the Naples area in the past year, according to an analysis from Collier County Planning Commission Chairman Mark Strain.

The projects will bring an additional 4,182 new lots for sale. Strain’s presentation was part of the Naples Area Board of Realtors 2017 Economic Summit, “The New Future: A View from the Top.” The event, attended by more than 400 people, was held April 26 at the Hilton Naples, according to a statement.

Strain also says 76 new commercial developments were approved in Collier County in 2016, and 13 senior living facilities are in the planning stages.

quote of theweek I can accomplish anything if I’m willing to make the sacrifices.

Joy Randels | New Market Partners SEE PAGE 14

Builder constructs new brand JL Wallace Construction has rebranded as Gladstone Builders, according to a statement.

Fort Myers-based Gladstone, owned by Ted Gadoury, has provided construction

what do you think?

services in Southwest Florida for more than 15 years. The company has recently undertaken an extensive rebranding effort, the release adds, to “more effectively reflect the company’s commitment to relationship-driven work.”

The company also has a new logo and message: “Gladstone Builders: People with a passion for delivering the highest quality in commercial construction.”

SARASOTA-MANATEE

Insurance firm names CEO Longtime insurance executive Laurie Zdanis has been named president and CEO of Michigan Commercial Insurance Mutual, a Sarasotabased workers’ compensation insurance carrier.

The firm, founded in 1980 in Lansing, Mich., as a selfinsured fund for the construction industry, opened an office in Sarasota in 2004.

It moved its headquarters to Sarasota a short time later, says a company spokesperson. The company currently provides coverage in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Georgia

and Florida.

Zdanis joined MCIM in 2013 and had been the firm’s COO and vice president of underwriting.

Tourism grows for sixth straight year Total visitors to the Bradenton area rose 2.7% in 2016 over 2015, according to a new report.

There were 3,098,200 total area visitors in 2016 — the sixth consecutive year of increasing tourism numbers for the area. The total economic impact of tourism in Manatee County was $1.18 billion, up 7.3% from 2015, according to a statement on the report from the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The report also noted new top feeder markets are emerging out of the Midwest, including Indianapolis and Cleveland.

TAMPA BAY

Governor picks executives for board Sarasota resident Joel Schleicher, founder and executive chairman of Tampabased Focal Point Data Risk, a

What’s an entrepreneur’s biggest obstacle: access to capital or regulations?

Vote at BusinessObserverFL.com

cyber security firm, was one of two area executives appointed to the governing board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Rebecca Smith, president and CEO for Tampa-based A.D. Morgan Corp., was also appointed to the board of the organization, known as Swiftmud. Gov. Rick Scott appointed both Schleicher, 65, and Smith, 57, according to a statement. The appointments are subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.

Bank chooses next chairman Dennis Ruppel was elected chairman of St. Petersburgbased Freedom Bank.

Ruppel succeeds Neil Savage, according to a statement.

Savage will continue to serve on the board and remain chairman at Fourth Street Banking Co., a financial holding company and Freedom Bank’s parent.

An attorney with Johnson, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel & Burns, Ruppel joined the board in 2010 and most recently served as vice chairman. Freedom Bank was founded in 2005.

Last week’s question:

Will Trump’s health care plan be better for your business than Obamacare?

47% Yes 53% No

To accelerate success in a highly competitive market, our commercial experts draw upon their mastery of financial, market and investment analysis, active community involvement and the long-standing local dominance of Michael Saunders & Company to turn opportunities into results.

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MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

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CoffeeTalk

COMMERCIAL

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FROM PAGE 3

5

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MEDICAL OFFICE 8 CAP INVESTMENT 1720 MANATEE AVENUE E., BRADENTON, FL 34208

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MARK HUEY

Keep on keeping on Mark Huey, the executive in charge of the Sarasota organization responsible for recruiting and retaining businesses, has often told people “someday we are going to get our Hertz.”

The president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County, Huey is referring to the car rental giant, which moved its corporate headquarters from New Jersey to Lee County in 2013. The then Fortune 300 company’s relocation, to Estero, was considered a major economic development coup for the region and the state — and it came with 700 promised jobs. The move included more than

$15 million in state and Lee County incentives, in addition to a commitment from Hertz to invest nearly $70 million in a new facility.

Huey and other economic development organization officials in the region lament that now, with Enterprise Florida’s budget slashed, landing a Hertz goes from a long shot to an impossible dream. Enterprise Florida, the agency that woos businesses to the state, is primed to get no more than $16 million in the 2017-2018 state

15,000 SF WAREHOUSE IN ENGLEWOOD 567 PAUL MORRIS DRIVE

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SANDHILL GARDEN PARK OF COMMERCE CONDO 24710 SANDHILL BLVD. UNITS 803 & 804, PUNTA GORDA, FL. Two commercial

See COFFEE TALK page 6

condo units, 1,000 SF each with a mix of office and warehouse space. Both units currently joined, with two 10’x12’ OHD. Convenient access to I-75 and US-41 via Kings Highway.

Est. 1996

FOR SALE $190,000 Call Ron Struthers, CCIM 941.769.3316 Call Natalie Rodriguez 941.888.4522

PROMENADES PROFESSIONAL CONDO

3300 TAMIAMI TRAIL UNIT 2, PORT CHARLOTTE, FL

3,960 SF medical office condo available, part of the Promenades Mall in Port Charlotte. Fronts US-41/ Tamiami Trail, between Olean and Harbor Blvd., with proximity to other medical centers and area hospitals.

FOR SALE $316,800 Call Ron Struthers, CCIM 941.769.3316 Call Natalie Rodriguez 941.888.4522

TWO UNIT COMMERCIAL BUILDING 3095 TAMIAMI TRAIL, PORT CHARLOTTE, FL

Commercial building with 50’ frontage on US-41 and AADT 57,000. Available for an end-user, or an investor.

Tenants on month to month leases. Each unit is 1,400 SF.

FOR SALE $250,000 Call Ron Struthers, CCIM 941.769.3316 Call Natalie Rodriguez 941.888.4522

CHARLOTTE TRADE CENTER COMMERCIAL CONDO 1225 TAMIAMI TRAIL

UNIT A9, PORT CHARLOTTE, FL. 1,600

SF commercial condo available near US-41 and Veterans Blvd/El Jobean Rd. intersection. Features a tiled open first floor, garage/workroom with OHD with rear access, and a carpeted second floor office space with storage.

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FOR SALE $120,000 Call Ron Struthers, CCIM 941.769.3316 Call Natalie Rodriguez 941.888.4522

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

CoffeeTalk budget, a significant drop from past years.

And just as important as the decrease in funds, adds Huey, is site location officials nationwide know Florida is pretty HILLSTROM much out of the equation now for bigtime corporate relocations.

“This is the reality we live in now,” Huey says. “We just need to recognize that we won’t look at those projects where the state won’t partner with us.”

To Huey, that’s the kind of company that will add hundreds of jobs and cement Sarasota on the national scene with a big win. (Hertz, of course, might not be the best comparison with the benefit of hindsight, given the company’s recent accounting issues and slide in revenues and share price. Despite the issues, the company remains one of Lee County’s largest employers.)

Bradenton Area Economic Development Corp. President and CEO Sharon Hillstrom says her agency’s strategy has long been to put together a lot of singles, not necessarily swing

FROM PAGE 5

for a big homerun. So the Enterprise Florida budget shortfall, while a general concern for the message it sends nationally, isn’t going to derail the Bradenton EDC’s mission by a large extent.

“Every single project and every single company we work with is important,” Hillstrom tells Coffee Talk.

“You have to be realistic about the assets you have and what’s realistic for you to attract.”

Both Huey and Hillstrom agree on two points: county and regional economic development organizations are going to become more important than ever, and the work these groups do to help businesses already here will be critical. “We will have to do a better job closing on the opportunities we do have,” Huey says.

Hillstrom says the Bradenton EDC, among other projects, plans to continue emphasizing its efforts to connect business leaders with education and civic officials, with a goal toward building a better workforce. “If we don’t have a skilled workforce, and an education system aligned with the business community,” asks Hillstrom, “then what the heck are we recruiting businesses for?”

Correction Due to incorrect information from a press statement, the wrong USF campus was identified in a May 12 story about students in a strategic man-

agement class connected to The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. The correct school is the USF St. Petersburg Kate Tiedemann College of Business.

datasnapshot

212

1

breweries statewide

53

brewery per capita

breweries in Tampa

Beer here Forget maple syrup.

Vermont is now a go-to state for craft beers, with eight breweries per 100,000 people, according to a new report from Datafiniti, an Austin, Texas, research firm. With 50 breweries overall, Vermont has a strong craft brewing tradition, the report states. That stems partially from changes in state laws in the late 1980s that allowed for more small breweries, brewpubs and microbreweries.

Other states that lead the way in breweries per capita — Montana, Colorado, Maine and Oregon — share a rugged outdoors brand with Vermont. North Dakota, with 10, and Mississippi, with 11 breweries close out the breweries per capita list. For pure breweries in total, California leads all states, with 687. Colorado is a distant second, at 348 breweries.

Florida did well in the survey

— but it’s not about to trade in sunshine and oranges for hops and barley. The state ranked No. 9 nationwide on total breweries, with 212, according to the report.

That’s seven breweries ahead of North Carolina and five behind Texas. On breweries per capita, Florida dropped to No. 41, tied with four other states at one per 100,000 people.

Within Florida, Tampa Bay is a craft beer leader: With 53 breweries, the Tampa-St. PetersburgClearwater region ranked No. 17 on the top 20 list of metropolitan statistical areas with the most breweries, tied with Riverside, Calif. Tampa is also the lone city in Florida, and the Southeast, on the list. Seattle, with 174 breweries, ranked No. 1 on that list. Chicago, Denver, Portland and New York City rounded out the top five.

Congratulations Dan Ochstein

&

Earl Rahn

for being named 2017 Entrepreneurs of the Year

Dan Ochstein, CEO and Earl Rahn, President – NewSouth Window

The entire team at NewSouth Window joins the Business Observer in recognizing the leadership of these two entrepreneurs. We are proud to be part of such a great organization.

NewSouth Window manufactures energy efficient, replacement windows, installs them for our customers and guarantees them for life.

TAMPA 4901 Oak Fair Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33610

SARASOTA 5249 South Tamiami Trail Sarasota, FL 34231

ORLANDO 820 East Atlamonte Drive Atlamonte Springs, FL 32701

WEST PALM 2526 Okeechobee Blvd.

West Palm Beach, FL 33409

813-626-6000

407-261-2277

941-925-4000 Made In Florida, For Florida Homes, By Florida Workers™

www.NewSouthWindow.com

561-712-9000

241601

6

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

BusinessObserverFL.com

7

Turn Ahead W

hen John Dobbs traded a steady paycheck for a shot at entrepreneurial glory, signs of his risk came at him every day.

Dobbs’ company, Fort Myers-based Apothicare 360, is a specialty pharmacist business attempting to disrupt a traditional model of how people order and receive medications. There are internal worries, competitive threats and an entrepreneur’s middle-of-thenight anxiety: Will there be enough sales to make payroll?

Or, as Dobbs says, “Everything we did I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s no turning back now.’”

Dobbs epitomizes the business owners and company founders featured in this issue — the Business Observer’s annual look at the region’s top entrepreneurs.

Unlike in past years, this issue doesn’t include awards based on revenue growth.

Not that a rise in sales isn’t a valuable and critical metric in judging an entrepreneur’s success. Annual sales at Tampa-based NewSouth Window Solutions, founded by Dan Ochstein and Earl Rahn (featured on Page 10), are up 224.2% since 2013, for example, from $12.8 million to $41.5 million last year. Dobbs, in another example of rocket growth, has gone from startup

to nearly $10 million in annual sales in less than four years.

But beyond the data, stories in this issue reveal the heart and soul that goes into being an entrepreneur. One story is about Rosanne Clementi, a 63-year-old environmental consultant who, when she couldn’t find the product she wanted, invented it. Clementi embraces the risk-taking nature of her career shift. “You choose if you want to sit behind a desk for someone else or sit behind the desk that you own,” Clementi says. Read more about Clementi on Page 16.

The entrepreneur stories are broken into three sections: Beginners, who have been operating a business five years or less; builders, who have been operating a business for more than five years; and repeaters, who have run, or are running, at least thee companies.

More insight, and inspiration, comes from three how-to stories and a college graduation commencement speech from a leading area entrepreneur. The how-to stories include glances at the parts of being an entrepreneur that sometimes get cast off in the daily grind — things like a proper exit strategy and how to detach from work.

On the speech, Brian Murphy, who has helped lead Tampa-based IT cybersecurity firm ReliaQuest from startup to 200 employees in a decade, told Florida State grads that effort is a key success factor. “To beat me, you have to outwork me,” says Murphy. “I

can control that. Just work hard.”

A final note on entrepreneurs comes from an admitted non-entrepreneur, Hubertus Muehlhaeuser, the CEO of Welbilt. The Pasco County-based food equipment manufacturer, with 18 facilities worldwide and 5,500 employees, is on a mission under Muehlhaeuser to eliminate bureaucracy and hurdles that sometimes slow down the $1.45 billion company (Page 20).

What does Muehlhaeuser often tell his leadership team? Think like an entrepreneur. “I’m trying to bring the sprit of being an entrepreneur into a publicly traded company,” says Muehlhaeuser. “Those are the companies that are most successful.”

— Mark Gordon

INDEX Entreprenuers Steve and Joe Seidensticker....... 8 Jake Spanberger....................... 9 Dan Ochstein and Earl Rahn ...... 10 Steve Herrig............................. 12 Oskari Kariste........................... 13 Joy Randels ............................. 14 Rosanne Clementi..................... 16 Dr. John Dobbs......................... 17 Camilyn Beth Leavitt.................. 18

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BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

ENTREPRENEURS: BUILDERS

BY GRIER FERGUSON | STAFF WRITER

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

MARK WEMPLE

STEVE SEIDENSTICKER and his son JOE SEIDENSTICKER, along with other family members, run one of the largest restaurant and catering companies in Sarasota.

FAMILY AFFAIR

The need to stay one step ahead of competitors in hospitality is urgent.

One family does it by constantly shaking things up.

S

teve and Joe Seiden st icker a re big cheeses on the Sarasota restaurant scene.

The father-and-son team is behind area favorites such as Libby’s Café & Bar, Louies Modern, Muse at The Ringling and their newest restaurant concept, Oak & Stone, in east Manatee County. More Oak & Stone locations are in the works, including spots in St. Petersburg and Orlando.

The Seidenstickers run Tableseide Restaurant Group, along with two of Steve Seidensticker’s other children, Lisa Seidensticker and Patrick Seidensticker. Joe is the CEO of the group, Steve is the president, Lisa is the chief operating officer and Patrick is the chief financial officer. The only nonfamily member involved in the group’s leadership is partner Jeff Greco.

The younger generation of Seidenstickers grew up in the business: prior to opening Libby’s in 2008, Steve Seidensticker worked at and later ran the Gasparilla Inn, a conglomerate of five restaurants, two hotels, a spa, a marina and a beach club in Boca Grande. Tableseide Restaurant Group was founded in 2008 to oversee all the family’s hospitality holdings.

TIPPING POINT: Joe Seidensticker says when the family opened Louies Modern in 2012 after successfully operating Libby’s since 2008, they started to feel some momentum.

“We were like, ‘OK, we can expand.’” They also created a consulting and catering arm of the business. Today that entity offers consulting services for the new Westin restaurant at the Vue Sarasota Bay development.

NEW CONCEPTS: The Oak & Stone locations in St. Petersburg and Orlando are under construction now. The Seidenstickers hope to have the locations, pizza and beer joints with a digital twist on the brews, open and running by the end of 2017 or early 2018.

They’d also like to open several additional corporate locations in Florida and then start franchising outside the state.

EATING TIME: During the busier season months in Sarasota, which are generally October to March, Tableseide Restaurant Group employs about 500 people. Out of season, it employs 450 to 475 people. That makes it one the larger hospitality firms in town. “Overall as a company, we want to not be seasonal,” Steve Seidensticker says.

STAY FRESH: “The business is competitive,” Joe Seidensticker says. “You can’t rest on your laurels. You have to stay up with what’s happening.” That can mean menu redesigns, changes to the aesthetics of restaurants, uniform updates and other adjustments. “Once a year, we refresh the brands,” he says.

FLASH FORWARD: “Ou r goal is to build brands that are ahead of the market,” Joe Seidensticker says. At Oak & Stone, the group introduced a self-serve brew wall feature, a unique offering for the area.

SPREAD THE WORD: Marketing is hugely important to the Seidenstickers’ business model, particularly to generate positive buzz in the community. They’ve moved some of their print media spending into social media and online advertising to lure more customers.

INSPIRED FEAST: Joe Seidensticker says he’s always looking at cookbooks for inspiration, as well as food blogs and New York Times food reviews. Steve Seidensticker says members of the group’s leadership team travel extensively to cities such as San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin, Texas, to see what’s cooking there. “We’re always

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneurs: Steve Seidensticker and Joe Seidensticker Company: Tableseide Restaurant Group, Sarasota Year founded: 2013 (Ownership of Libby’s dates back to 2008.)

Employees: 500 Revenues: $16 million in 2016, up 14.3% from $14 million in 2015.

asking people to pick up menus wherever they are,” he says.

GOOD CALL: Steve and Joe Seidensticker agree — one of the best decisions they’ve made is to purchase the properties where they have restaurants.

That’s been a seven-figure plus investment. “Real estate is a valuable asset,” Steve Seidensticker says. “It gives you equity in the business.

NOT-SO-GOOD CALL: “We’ve passed on decisions,” Joe Seidensticker says of some business opportunities they decided to turn down. But, he says, you never know at the time if they will be good opportunities. Something Steve Seidensticker regrets? “Not having more kids to run restaurants.”

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

ENTREPRENEURS: BUILDERS

BusinessObserverFL.com

BY ALICIA CECCARELLI | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

JIMJETT.COM

JAKE SPANBERGER says Fort Myers-based IT firm Entech aims to be an extension of the businesses the company serve.

LONG TERM

A Fort Myers IT support firm has found consistent success after two decades in business. It has more to offer.

J

ake Spanberger’s familyrun IT firm, Entech, provides comprehensive service and support, with the goal of being an extension of the businesses the company serves.

“The biggest compliment we can get from our clients is if we get invited to their holiday parties,” says Spanberger, president of the Fort Myers-based company.

“That means they see us as one of them.”

TRUST FIRST: Entech’s business model requires staff to gain an intimate understanding of a client’s business. “We’re not in it for the one-off sale,” says Spanberger. “We’re in it for the long-term relationship.”

With that, Entech can help devise a plan utilizing IT to help clients grow. “We can’t do that unless we have a full partnership with our clients,” he says.

CLEAN BREAKS: Spanberger says it was challenging to service residential and commercial clients — as the business once did. “When a business is down, there could be hundreds of people affected by that,” he says. “There is a true emergency.” Imagine communicating that to individual customers.

So, he (gently) broke it off with residential. “We are people pleasers,” he says, “but at the same time, we have to have priorities.”

BE CLEAR: Spanberger acknowledges the responsibility is on Entech to be explicit in the terms of the agreements with customers. That helps build long-term trust. “More often, when something goes wrong, and the business we’re supporting looks at us and assumes that we included something that we didn’t, then it’s on us that we didn’t clarify it to them.”

Get home to your family or whatever you need to brain dump and decompress. You need that.

Jake Spanberger | Entech

INSIDE INSPIRATION: Entech’s local and national clients spark a dose of motivation, such as Scott Fischer Enterprises, a Harley-Davidson dealership.

Spanberger admires that company for its employee-invested culture. “And they are able to scale, and be nimble enough to make changes as they are required,” says Spanberger.

“They are one of many I think of when making big decisions.”

FEAR FACTOR: Spanberger’s biggest entrepreneurial fear “is we screw a good thing up.”

He’s afraid that well-meaning changes at Entech could backfire on his commitment to clients and the business community.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Entech works diligently to improve group buy-in. “Each of our employees individually affects our company goals,” Spanberger says. “We want them to know, ‘I specifically have this specific metric that I can control.’” On Spanberger’s personal development, he constantly works on his decisiveness, where he admits overanalyzing sometimes gets the best of him. “It’s ensuring we are flexible but making the right decision,” he says.

AT T R AC T I NG TA L E N T: “Once you get to a point of contentment from an orga-

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Jake Spanberger Company: Entech, Fort Myers Year founded: 1997 Employees: 37 Revenue: $5.2 million in 2016; up 18% from $4.41 million in 2015.

nizational perspective,” he says, “you can be much more choosey.” Hiring based on need has got Entech in trouble in the past, says Spanberger. “We’ve learned to hire based on culture matches,” he says. The company’s interview process requires potential hires to meet with various people within the company.

RECOMMENDED READING: “Death by Meeting,” by Patrick Lencioni. “We follow that one pretty closely,” says Spanberger, “with a daily huddle.”

FLEXIBILITY: Spanberger tries not to overschedule his day, leaving opportunities to be open and f lexible for his staff. “In our industry,” he says, “it’s very easy to always have a problem to deal with from a technical standpoint.” Spanberger wants everyone, including himself, to leave work at the office. Says Spanberger: “Get home to your family or whatever you need to brain dump and decompress. You need that.”

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10

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

ENTREPRENEURS: BUILDERS

BY MARK GORDON | MANAGING EDITOR

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

ACT TWO

MARK WEMPLE

DANIEL OCHSTEIN and EARL RAHN founded Tampa-based NewSouth Window Solutions in 2010.

Two forward-thinking manufacturing partners weren’t content with guiding one business to nearly $500 million in annual sales. Now they are at it again.

D

a n iel Ochstei n a nd Ea rl Ra hn played a game of geography in 2010, seeking a place to launch a new window manufacturing and installation business.

They had five states to choose from, per the terms of a noncompete contract with their previous window company, Cincinnati-based Champion.

Ochestein’s father-in-law, Alvin Levine, founded Champion in 1953. Working in corporate and regional management roles, respectively, Ochstein and Rahn helped Champion grow from about $7 million in annual revenue in 1988 to $486 million in 2007 — doubling sales every 18 months. Boston-based private equity firm Summit Partners bought Champion in 2007, and after three years Ochstein and Rahn were out of work.

But they were itching to get back to running a business, not head to retirement. “We figured

we would end up in Florida someday, why not just give it a shot now?” quips Rahn. “I don’t fish, I don’t hunt and I don’t play golf. Neither does Danny.”

Two of the five states on the noncompete — North Dakota and Maine, were eliminated immediately. Too cold. Not enough people. California, another option in the contract, was also quickly ditched. Too hostile to businesses, says Rahn. That left Louisiana and Florida.

The Sunshine State won the day.

The company the duo founded, Tampa-based NewSouth Window Solutions, and a sister business, Doers Window Manufacturing, have since been on a remarkable run. The partners started from nothing, with no space and no customers, no advertising and no brand recognition. Their office for the first few months was in a spare bedroom in an apartment Ochstein and his

wife, Deb Ochstein, shared in Tampa’s Channel District. With what Rahn calls “a substantial investment,” they opened for business in May 2010.

Seven years later, NewSouth Windows is a $40 million window and door manufacturing and installation business with 150 employees that’s bursting at the seams. It has sales offices and showrooms in Tampa, Sarasota, Orlando and West Palm Beach, with plans to expand to Melbourne next year, Fort Myers in 2019 and Jacksonville in 2020, among other future locations.

NewSouth’s model is to sell factory-direct to homeowners, while Doers works with contractors and developers for new construction and renovation projects. NewSouth, says Rahn, averages about 330 customers a month. “We are all about highperformance, energy-efficient windows,” Rahn says. “We believe we have a window for every room, for every house, for

We are all about high-performance, energyefficient windows. We believe we have a window for every room, for every house, for every city in Florida.

Earl Rahn | NewSouth Window Solutions

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneurs: Daniel Ochstein and Earl Rahn Companies: NewSouth Window Solutions, Doers Window Manufacturing Year founded: 2010 Employees: 150 Revenue: $41.5 million in 2016, up 64.6% from $25.2 million in 2015

every city in Florida.”

NewSouth has about 100,000 square feet of factory and office space spread over four buildings in Tampa. It broke ground recently on a new headquarters, manufacturing and distribution facility, in the Crossroads Commerce Center, near the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 4. The new 238,000-square-foot complex, a $15 million project, will include five acres of factory space under air, says Rahn. NewSouth will get a property tax break over seven years from Hillsborough County, worth about $350,000, in return for hiring at least 30 new employees at the new location.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott attended the April 20 groundbreaking for the new space, something NewSouth executives call a top-of-the mountain moment. At one point in the ceremony, recalls Rahn, there was also a what-did-we-justget-ourselves-into moment.

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

As an entrepreneur you have to be quick learner. You have to be fast on your feet.

Daniel Ochstein | NewSouth Window Solutions

That’s when Scott, when he saw the planned size of the new plant, leaned in and whispered to Howard Bayless, the project developer, “‘Man, that’s a lot of windows they have to sell.’’

LEARNING CURVE There were multiple reasons the NewSouth Window founders chose Florida, not just because it wasn’t the other states. Rahn is from Jacksonville, for one, and Ochstein’s son, Sam Ochstein, was studying for his MBA at the University of Tampa in 2010.

Outside family, a big reason was what the founders say was a wide opportunity. They attended multiple home shows statewide, and found a common theme.

“Everyone was selling the same window,” says Ochstein, 64. “So we knew there was a market.”

The timing was right, too, in that the recession crushed the window and door industry. Rahn, 65, scoured Florida newspapers for window ads, which remains an industry mainstay for advertising. He found few companies.

Yet there were some early challenges in getting going. Florida, Ochstein discovered, has tightly regulated building

BusinessObserverFL.com

codes for windows. The codes require multiple rounds of weather tests that can be timely and expensive.

“We thought we knew a lot about windows,” says Ochstein. “But we didn’t understand all the obstacles and hurdles to get fully approved. We (also) learned we knew very little about impact-resistant windows.”

Impact-resistant windows are usually built with a layer of laminated glass, and are designed to shatter on impact but remain attached to the frame. Ochstein says NewSouth’s windows, after some early research and development, are now some of the top products in the industry. Features in the windows include argon gas and foam enhancement; wider and deeper interlocking channels; and a unique locking system and vent latch.

“As an entrepreneur you have to be quick learner,” says Ochstein, part of the first generation of his family to go to college, whose parents ran a used furniture store. “You have to be fast on your feet.”

facturing facility for only one or two retail customers,” says Ochstein.

That led to Doers, now a thriving entity with a client list that includes developers and builders in multifamily, senior living and hotels. The idea there, says Ochstein, was to experiment early on with materials and processes, then build a customer base. Ochstein has experience in manufacturing startups: He founded a patio room division and a logistics unit while at Champion.

An advantage in the startup process to manufacture the windows was the recession not only left the company with few competitors. It also enabled NewSouth to buy machines and equipment from failed businesses at pennies on the dollar, says Ochstein. And with unemployment high statewide in 2010, the company was able to grab factory employees from construction and trades. “These were people who knew how to work with their hands,” says Ochstein. “We needed to teach them how to make windows.”

DIFFERENT MODEL A regional leader in impact-resistant windows is Venice-based PGT Industries, one of the largest employers and companies in the Sarasota-Bradenton region. It had $458.5 million in sales last year.

NewSouth, stress Ochstein and Rahn, isn’t trying to be, or compete head-on with PGT, which sells windows mostly through a network of hundreds of dealers and partners. “They don’t want to know the end user,” says Rahn, who has known PGT Chairman and CEO Rod Hershberger for years. “The only people we want to know is the end user.”

One early challenge for NewSouth in the startup process, and finding that end user, was the company had to prove it had the right stuff to attract a variety of customers. “You can’t open a manu-

SHIFT FORWARD NewSouth’s first tipping point came in spring 2014.

The company did $5.4 million in sales for all of 2013, says Rahn, and by the end of April 2014 it had already hit $3.9 million. “Everybody in sales was patting each other on the back,” says Rahn. “I said, ‘Danny, we have a problem.’”

Rahn and Ochstein knew they were about to have a slew of issues, from operations to delivery, keeping up with the newfound demand. Says Rahn: “We sailed into a storm.”

The company regrouped quickly. It hired more people, and by 2015, when it surpassed $20 million in revenue, Rahn says staffing levels were back to meeting the demand. The company also reinvested in equipment. One big purchase: NewSouth recently spent $1.4

11

AT A GLANCE NewSouth Window Solutions Year Revenue % growth 2013 $12.8 million 2014 $20.5 million 60.1% 2015 $25.2 million 23% 2016 $41.5 million 64.6%

million on an automated machine that can cut, wash and seal glass faster and better than ever before.

Another tipping point happened sometime last year, when the company began to grow its ranks of executives for the first time. New hires included a vice president of operations, a senior accounting officer and an official to run the product tests and test schedules. “Our major challenge now is to shift from an entrepreneurial state to a management state,” Ochstein says.

“That transition has begun.”

Ochstein’s and Rahn’s spouses work with the company; Amy Rahn handles marketing, while Deb Ochstein oversees accounts payable and is the cash flow manager. Sam Ochstein works in operations.

Even with the growth, and move to management, Ochstein and Rahn each work hard to make sure the company doesn’t lose its nimble edge. One phrase heard often at NewSouth, from the offices to the factory floor, is TD — total domination. Rahn says that’s an internal phrase to always aim for the best, from accounting to cutting glass to handling warranty claims. It also helps ensure employees are moving in the same direction.

“You have to have a vision, and you have to have a strategy,” says Rahn.

“But if you don’t have a team to get you through the strategy, you won’t go anywhere.”

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12

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

ENTREPRENEURS: REPEATERS

BY BETH LUBERECKI | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SUN SHINES

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

Steve Herrig, with multiple businesses during his career, emphasizes a key business axiom: Stick to what you know.

S

teve Herrig is well versed in the world of insurance.

After working at an insurance agency, he started insurance brokerage Elite Agency Services (a managed general agent) and then Progressive Employee Services, a professional employer organization that handled things such as payroll and health insurance for clients’ employees. He exited Progressive in 2010. In 2011 he began working as a consultant for Sunz Insurance, which provides workers’ compensation insurance for PEOs, staffing agencies and large companies.

Herrig bought Sunz in 2013.

The company had been struggling, but he’s overseen a turnaround, with revenues at the Bradenton-based firm rising from $51.7 million in 2013 to $137 million in 2016, an increase of 165%. Things are going so well, Sunz recently purchased a 60,000-square-foot office building in Bradenton (now being renovated) and launched Next Level Administrators, a third-party workers’ compensation claims administrator that’s an affiliate of the company.

Herrig’s also had ownership stakes in multiple businesses outside the insurance realm.

The list includes Jetshare US, Leibold Irrigation, ProPump and ProGro. “I’ve always been entrepreneurial,” he says. “And if anything, it’s just grown over the years.”

TEAM BUILDING: Herrig, 55, says his vision and competitive nature help make him a good entrepreneur. But he wouldn’t be where he is today without the folks working alongside him.

“I have an understanding of the importance of surrounding yourself with really good people and of collaborating [with them],” he says. “That usually gets you where you want to go, and what keeps you there is integrity and relationships. Who you hire and surround yourself with are usually your best business decisions.”

FILE PHOTO

Serial entrepreneur STEVE HERRIG acquired Sunz Insurance in 2013. The company, based in Sarasota when he bought it, has since relocated to a Bradenton headquarters.

GET REAL: One challenge Herrig faces is his tendency to think (too) positively. “If I have a fear of anything, it’s being too optimistic about something,” he says. “That’s why you surround yourself with good people and strong advisers, so you can collaborate and take calculated risk.”

I brought a little business acumen and some capital,” he says.

“We just had some different skill sets that complemented each other for a while, and we’d been together long enough where I wasn’t really of that much of value to the companies anymore. He was running with it.”

“It’s a very difficult business to begin with, and it’s expensive,” he says. “It’s not something you can do as a sideline, and it was a sideline business for me.”

He saw the downfalls that resulted from not having the time to fully commit to the business.

“It taught me to do what you know,” he says.

EXIT STRATEGY: Herrig recently had longtime partner John Leibold buy him out of several business ventures after Herrig realized he’d served his purpose. “John was the brains behind the outfit, while

LEARN FROM MISTAKES: Herrig says the worst business decision he ever made was “deciding I could go into the aviation business” right before the recession, referring to his unsuccessful Jetshare venture.

ON HIS MIND: What keeps Herrig up at night is his to-do list. “It’s the number of things that I haven’t gotten to yet that I need to,” he says. “You just kind of think about those things. It’s the price you pay.”

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Steve Herrig Current company: Sunz Insurance, Bradenton Year purchased: 2013 Employees: 120 Revenues: $137 million in 2016, up 63% over $84 million in 2015 Past companies: Elite Agency Services, Progressive Employee Services, Jetshare US

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

BusinessObserverFL.com

ENTREPRENEURS: REPEATERS

13

BY TED CARTER | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

JIMJETT.COM

OSKARI KARISTE is building a greenhouse in Naples for Local Greens, a startup he founded that can grow produce in a cool climate. The greenhouse is an $8 million project.

FRESH LOOK

In going from Finland to Florida, an entrepreneur found more than sunshine. He also found big opportunities.

F

in la nd nat ive Oska ri Kariste brought along the mindset of a serial entrepreneur when he landed in Naples for a vacation at the start of the new decade. The sunshine, ocean views and breezes soon led him to decide Naples would be just the place to initiate business ideas swirling around in his head.

lesson he’s learned. “Starting the company at 18 I did not have an education or experience,” he says. “So it was a big learning curve in understanding how to work with people.

When I stepped aside from my CEO position from Ilme and moved here, it gave me an opportunity to grow even more.

It helped my companies here grow and helped my ad agency because under new leadership real growth started to happen.”

Kariste has since launched four companies in Naples: Local Greens, Mroom, Northstart and Naples Shell. He’s also continued as chairman of Ilme Advertising, a company he started at 18 and 20 years later has expanded to offices in Lahti and Tampere, Finland, and now a Naples office. The agency does $3.5 million a year in sales, and the expansion into the U.S. as the Finnish marketing agency to plant the flag here has got a lot of “traction in the media in Finland,” Kariste says.

GO GREEN: Local Greens reverses greenhouse technology developed in Finland to grow leaf y vegetables in a warm climate during the prolonged winter darkness. Local Greens can grow its produce in a cool climate even in Florida’s hottest months, Kariste says. He bought 15 acres in Naples on which he will build a 2.5-acre, $8 million greenhouse. Local Greens’ produce should be in supermarkets next year, he says. Florida food retailers, he adds, are eager “to buy from someone able to give consistent quality all year round.”

STEP BACK: Ka riste says learning to share executive responsibilities, a professional development that led him to give up operational control of Ilme and instead focus on his Naples startups, has been the biggest entrepreneurial

OTHER INTERESTS: Mroom is a high-end barbershop with a European men’s club ambiance, complete with a bar. You buy a yearly membership for a few hundred dollars and get

all the haircuts, manicures and facial massages you like for the year, he says. Kariste is the U.S. franchisee of the European chain and has recruited Ed Rensi, former CEO of McDonalds USA, as a senior adviser.

Kariste has a pair of locations open and two more to come soon. From there, Mroom will expand up Florida’s west coast.

“I expect by 2020 to have 200 of these in Florida,” he says.

Nort hStart helps companies in Finland get started in the United States. He is helping seven Finnish companies set up shop here so far. Naples Shell provides luxury vacation rentals from a roster of eight homes.

BETTER WAY: The main difference between being an entrepreneur in the United States and in Finland, says Kariste, is lower and fewer taxes. A U.S. entrepreneur, he says, puts time and money into a business that creates jobs for people, who then pay taxes instead of getting heavily taxed on the business itself, like in Finland.

“Here you are able to do that in an encouraging way,” he says.

“I just love it.”

ASPIRATIONS AND MOTIVATIONS: “I admire the companies that can change the

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Oskari Kariste Companies: Ilme Advertising, Local Greens, Mroom, Northstart, Naples Shell Years founded: 2011 to 2016 Employees: 65 Revenues: Ilme Advertising, $3.5 million annually; each Mroom location $350,000-$550,00 annually

industry,” Kariste says. “Oftentimes that means those companies make a ton of money and are happy to invest in new companies. Very strong companies with very strong cultures can change an industry.”

Very strong companies with very strong cultures can change an industry.

Oskari Kariste | Local Greens, Naples

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BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

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JUMP FOR JOY

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

ENTREPRENEURS: REPEATERS

BY TED CARTER | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JIMJETT.COM

JOY RANDELS says the key to being a good leader is being decisive, but not reckless, and admitting when you are wrong. “I know I’m not going to be right all the time,” she says.

Sharing victories is nice. But in Joy Randels’ world, it’s just as crucial to talk about, and learn from, defeats.

J

oy Randels says the best business decision she has ever made was leaving Computer Associates and her job as an executive vice president of the software giant to work for a startup raising venture capital.

W hy? Because she loves building businesses. And with 15 ventures, including nine that were successfully acquired and two IPOs, she has become an expert at it.

I t ’s n o t j u s t h y p e o r self-promotion.

“She’s the real deal,” says Ken Evans, a Tampa technology executive with both startups and

Fortune 50 companies. “Here it is an anomaly to have someone with the depth and breadth of experience as an entrepreneur and as a leader … she’s lived and worked all over the world, lived and worked in most of the major tech hubs and has seen the bubbles and the busts … the iterations of the industry.”

Randels, in total, says she’s helped launch more than 89 companies, raise nearly $360 million in venture capital and generate more than $15 billion in revenue for various public and private companies.

Today, Randels is involved primarily in four companies: She’s CEO of Citizinvestor; founder and CEO of New Market Partners; member of the

I can accomplish anything if I’m willing to make the sacrifices. Joy Randels | CEO, Citizinvestor

board of Inv ision Communications; and cofounder of AppliedG2.

Randels doesn’t stop at starting or running companies.

She’s a board member for Technova in Tampa, an organization that puts on two major tech events annually — BarCamp Tampa and Ignite Tampa Bay. She serves as a board member of the Sarasota Bradenton Leadership Circle, and she’s the director of StartUp Grind in Florida.

Randels also organizes StartUp weekend in Sarasota and has spoken at numerous tech events in the greater Tampa Bay region. She mentors women through various organizations, including Metropolitan Mi n ist r ies a nd Sma r tGi rl, which focuses on bringing high school girls into STEM careers.

She’s also represented the Florida tech community through Launch Florida, meeting once a quarter in Tallahassee with tech communities statewide to work on initiatives with a lobbyist.

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Joy Randels Companies: New Market Partners, Citizinvestor, Applied G2, Invision Communications

“I’m a capitalist — I want to make money,” Randels says, “but I also want to do something I feel good about at the end of the day.”

STARTUP OBSESSION Randels says she had a normal childhood, growing up in Atlanta. Her dad worked for Delta Airlines and her mom owned a salon and later had “side hustles,” from breeding pugs to selling antiques. Randels’ dad died when she was 16, but she credits lessons learned from him as the motivation for her success. That includes teaching herself technology at night when she was 21 years old, after her son went to bed. “My dad encouraged me to be brave,” says Randels.

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

SOLVING PROBLEMS Randels just can’t help but get involved, according to Evans.

“She’s a problem solver … when we see a problem, we want to fix it. When we see an opportunity, we want to cater to it,” he says. “That’s what she’s done her whole life.”

Sometimes solving a problem can be easier than it looks from inside the company.

Ta k e Austin-based ClearCube Technolog y Inc. Randels was hired to help turn around that company in 2007.

Teams were acting in silos, and there wasn’t good people management or recognition in place. Randels started an initiative where accomplishments were shared across the company, asking department heads to email one employee a week who accomplished something amazing. She also started the Peak Performer newsletter, which she sent out each week. It included a quote and an explanation of how that quote tied to the company’s challenges.

“She’s driven because there’s a community need — there are people out there with questions,” Evans says. Randels sees the Tampa-Sarasota area as a region that is emerging, but still needs help. “She takes it upon herself to mentor the region,” he adds.

BEING INCLUSIVE Randels has also led several grassroots initiatives to cultivate the tech community in

15

THE JUGGLE Joy Randels seems to be the type of entrepreneur who does better when she has more things going on. A list of her current projects includes: n Citizinvestor, CEO Crowdfunding and civic engagement platform to raise funds for government entity or a public/private partnership.

Raises funds for everything from building a park to an after-school program for teaching entrepreneurs to an autism and Asperger’s curriculum.

At least 200 projects funded in the last 2.5 years. Some 70% of projects are successfully funded — high for crowdfunding platforms. n AppliedG2, cofounder Cyber security organization focusing on risk mitigation or control of breach.

It makes sure a company is secure and compliant and has the right controls in place with outside vendors.

Since she co-founded it in 2008, the company has grown sales 200% each year. n New Market Partners, founder and CEO Technology company accelerator and consulting firm.

Since founding it in 2004, Randels has worked with over 800 startups to help raise funds and scale the businesses. n Invision Communications, board member Physical security firm that provides low voltage security from cable, camera and card key systems. Works with clients ranging from condos on Longboat Key to AmTrust.

The company has been in business 2.5 years and was profitable in the second month. It’s doubled revenue each year and targets 2.5 times revenue growth this year. n Technova, board member Nonprofit that runs two major tech events in the Tampa area: Ignite Tampa Bay and BarCamp. Both events are all volunteer-driven and funded by donations. n BarCamp started with 100 attendees in 2008. For the last five years, the event has brought in 700-800 people each year, making it the biggest in the Southeast and one of the top in the country.

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Florida, says Tonya Elmore, president of Tampa Bay Innovation Center and TEC Garage.

What makes her stand out is her wish to be “inclusive,” Elmore adds. “She’s good at bringing folks across the bridge, from other communities across the state of Florida.” W hen she hosts an event, she reaches out to all of the major players in the tech community.

Randels is also not afraid to share her failures publicly. At a recent Tampa Innovation Center Tech Talk event, she said one of her biggest mistakes was not properly vetting a business partner. She then got into a sticky situation when she claimed lies were told to her board and lies about the price at which the company sold.

She shared the story to let others know they should run background checks on partners and funders. You should “understand and talk to people about what they are like to work with, or do business with,” Randels says. “If they don’t act with integrity, that can reflect poorly on you.”

Sharing defeat is just as important as sharing the victories, says Randels. “W hat’s the post mortem — what did you learn and how do you apply that? Everyone has to deal with it.”

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Randels also showed little fear in sales. She started selling stuff at 9 years old, walking door-to-door advertising catalog items such as stuffed animals and small electronics. She later graduated from the University of Georgia, Emory University Goizueta School of Business and the MIT Entrepreneurship program.

Now, after Computer Associates and other companies, Randels is no longer interested in being someone else’s employee. She’d rather be in charge of building a business, and fostering an environment of creativity and teamwork. “To work in the corporate environment every day, I’d rather be homeless,” Randels says.

Now that she knows her niche is with companies in the building process, she protects herself in her contracts so she has a way out of her own companies.

For example, with Velocitude, a mobile content firm, Randels included a clause that if there were a change of control, her equity would convert automatically. When Akamai Technologies bought the Bradenton firm in 2010, that move provided an option to not become an employee. She did stay with the firm for six months to assist with the transition.

“I’m great at scaling and building out teams because I love being in that position,” Randels says.

She thinks she works best when the company has fewer than 300 employees. At Cheyenne Software, a Long Island, N.Y., firm that Computer Associates acquired in 1996, Randels says when the company reached 500 employees, she didn’t like that she didn’t know who people were or what they did. The company had 1,500 employees when CAS acquired it in a $1.2 billion deal.

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16

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

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ENTREPRENEURS: BEGINNERS

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

BY TRACI MCMILLAN BEACH | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JUMP RIGHT IN

When Rosanne Clementi couldn’t find the niche product she wanted, she built it on her own. Translating that to a successful business is the hard part.

I

n 2014, after she won a Kindle in a raffle, Rosanne Clementi found herself suddenly addicted to tablets. But there was one problem: It was difficult for her to hold due to arthritis in both her thumbs. “I fidgeted a lot and couldn’t get comfortable,” Clementi says. “I wanted to put handles on this device.”

That’s when the 63-year-old decided to dive into product development and use her retirement money to create a product that adds handles to any tablet device. She calls it the Pad Go Round.

E N TE R I NG E N TR E PR E NEURSHIP: The Pad Go Round isn’t Clementi’s first entrepreneurial venture. She started an environmental consulting firm in 1995 with a business partner.

After they parted ways, she reopened her own firm in 2009, which still pays the bills today.

DEVELOPMENT DIVE: Clementi created prototypes via a 3-D printer. But when she realized that after carrying around for a while the handles would become brittle and break, she decided to manufacture the real product. She partnered with a local firm that helped refine the design and manufacture in China. “I jumped in the frigid ice cold water,” Clementi says, and ordered the minimum 1,000 units. She now owns 950 in each of the Pad Go Round’s two sizes.

SALES DRIP: Right now sales are trickling in from Amazon, and Clementi receives a few orders on her Shopif y website. She’s looking forward to a test run through Starcrest, in a catalog specifically targeted to people with limited use of their hands looking for assisted devices.

PUSH ON: Though Clementi admits she hasn’t found major success yet, she’s going to keep trying. She plans to attend a couple of national conventions this year for occupational therapists and human resources directors. “It’s a product people wouldn’t k now they would want until they actually see it and touch it,” she says.

ON HER OWN: Her biggest fear is not getting enough money to keep the doors open. She’s already invested more than six figures in the business. “The first three years are toughest,” she says.

TRUST YOUR GUT: The most expensive option is not always the best option, and Clementi says she learned that the hard way, hiring a big firm to build her website. “You don’t need to hire a $20,000 firm,” she says, “when you can hire someone

MARK WEMPLE

ROSANNE CLEMENTI created a product that adds handles to any tablet device. It’s called a Pad Go Round. for $5,000.” Though she asked for a Wordpress site, they persuaded her to do something else. “It forced me to stay with them to maintain it,” Clementi says.

loves reading how different entrepreneurs were able to get to where they are today. Even entrepreneurs in different industries share valuable insight, she says.

FIND AN AUDIENCE: Clementi developed the product to be more ergonomic for dayto-day use, but she has found fans in other areas. For example, a boat tour company near the Tampa Convention Center started using the Pad Go Round for easy handoff when registering customers.

STAY STRONG: “I admire anyone or any business that looks to stay relevant and make improvements and not be static,” Clementi says. “I’m fascinated by what allows them to be successful and what causes them to go out of business.”

THAT’S HOW THEY DO IT: “I read Inc. magazine cover to cover,” Clementi says. She

RISK TAKER: One of Clementi’s mottos is, “You can’t win the lottery unless you buy a ticket.”

She believes that as an entrepreneur, you have to be willing

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Rosanne Clementi Company: Ruddy Turnstone Product Development, Tampa Other Company: Clementi Environmental Consulting Year founded: 2014 Employees: 1 Revenues: Declined to disclose

to take a risk. “You choose if you want to sit behind a desk for someone else or sit behind the desk that you own,” Clementi says.

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

ENTREPRENEURS: BEGINNERS

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17

BY ALICIA CECCARELLI | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

STEFANIA PIFFERI

JOHN DOBBS has been running a specialty pharmacist business in Fort Myers since 2013.

WITH GRATITUDE The biggest lesson John Dobbs has learned in going from day job to entrepreneur? Trust your instincts.

J

ohn Dobbs left his cushy and safe employment as a Clinical Emergency Services pharmacist for Lee Health Systems — a position he created, to open his own pharmacy, Apothicare 360, in 2013.

“We went out on a limb,” says Dobbs, whose business offers traditional pharmaceuticals, an addition to compounds and unique medicinal solutions.

The types of things not available at your corner drug store.

PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS: Having the ability and education to create compounds helped Dobbs leverage more sales because he can recommend alternative treatment options such as supplements and natural remedies. “We needed a way to help patients,” he says, “and they don’t have to see a physician, we can dispense those products for them.”

TIPPING POINT: Mail-order contracts were a big step for the company. Dobbs and cofounder Denny Bauman had to white-knuckle it with what Dobbs says was “a huge investment” before they reaped the rewards. “Everything we did,” says Dobbs, “I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s no turning back now.’”

COUNTERACTING FEAR: “You control your destiny, and what you think and feel,” Dobbs says. Embodying the mindset of an entrepreneur means “you have to be more optimistic about everything you are doing in life because your business touches everything.”

INSTINCTS OVER DIPLOMACY: “Overall, the mistakes I have made were all because I didn’t listen to my instincts,” he says. Sometimes Dobbs’ business sense would warn him “things were too good to be true.” But having an openmind to other’s opinions within his counsel nudged him to

Everything we did I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s no turning back now.’

John Dobbs | Apothicare 360

overlook his apprehensions.

In the end, he says, “I paid the price for it.”

INSPIRATION INJECTION: W hen Dobbs a nd Bauma n worked together at Lee Health, it was Bauman’s own entrepreneurial hunger that prompted Dobbs to consider the benefits of owning his own pharmacy.

“He’s got the magic touch,” says Dobbs. “He has a very philosophical approach: Be grateful for everything.”

MAY CAUSE INSOMNIA: What keeps Dobbs up at night is “what’s next.” With Apothicare 360 running efficiently, Dobbs wants to continue to build, not sustain. He’s open to new ventures, and wants to continue moving forward as “a true entrepreneur,” he says.

“After you’ve done it once, doing another startup is easy.”

MOTIVATION DEPLETION: A needed day off won’t hurt, as long as you accept that your problems will still be waiting for you when you return to the grind. Says Dobbs: “You’re allowed to not be motivated for a day, take a day off, be sad if you have to heal that way, but at the same time, you have to have a plan to be back, to be positive, to run that business.”

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: John Dobbs Company: Apothicare 360 Headquarters: Fort Myers Year founded: 2013 Employees: 8 Revenues: $9.5 million in 2016

CULTURE CURES: “If you are doing something for the good, typically, it is always against mainstream culture,” Dobbs says. “People might call you crazy, but you have to keep doing what you believe in.” With a clear mission, a supportive group of mentors and resources, Dobbs says, “Keep going with your life and purpose. You only answer to yourself.”

LISTEN AND LEARN: The Tim Ferriss book “The Four Hour Work Week” lays out a different philosophy on how to think, says Dobbs. So do Zig Ziglar and fellow self-help author Andy Andrews, who taug ht Dobbs t hat “if you give enough people what they want, you’ll get what you want.”

Dobbs recommends watching Andy Andrews’ speech, The Butterfly Effect, on YouTube.

Says Dobbs: “It gives me goose bumps.”

18

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

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ENTREPRENEURS: BEGINNERS

THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

BY GRIER FERGUSON | STAFF WRITER

BEST DRESSED

The fickle fashion industry can be tough on startups. Yet Camilyn Beth Leavitt has persevered — and prospered. ‘Sales are your oxygen,’ she says.

I

t all started with “I do.” In a single year, Camilyn Beth Leavitt was invited to 16 weddings. So she took things into her own hands — literally — and started designing dresses for herself and friends.

Soon after, she got her first wholesale inquiry on Twitter from a boutique owner who had seen photos of her dresses.

She put together photos of her dresses and created a line sheet with information about each piece. The wholesaler placed a 32-dress order, and Leavitt made all of the dresses herself.

“It’s not a typical business startup,” she says of her 2012 deal. “I didn’t have a beefy business plan, I just didn’t want to say no.”

Today, the Sarasota-based Camilyn Beth clothing line is sold in about 50 boutiques nationwide and on online.

And it just celebrated its fifth anniversary in the notoriously challenging fashion industry, where startup attrition rates run high. Leavitt declines to disclose sales figures. She says the business has been self-funded, so far, and profitable the past three years.

Leavitt, 30, hadn’t dreamed of being a fashion designer since she was a little girl — like some others in the field. “Not until junior year,” she says. “I made my prom dress, and I thought, ‘I want to be a fashion designer.’ I always thought I would work for someone else, not have my own brand, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

After going to high school in Bradenton, Leavitt attended The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and graduated in 2008 with a degree in fashion design.

She moved to Sweden, where she was a nanny and worked for a couture fashion designer in Stockholm.

That job in fashion, as well as hours of experience, helped her learn to sew.

For the next couple years, she was the creative director for a small clothing brand in Sarasota. But she had an itch to design clothing herself.

Leavitt describes the dresses she designs as classic and timeless. They’re a favorite, she says, for women attending weddings, bridal showers, graduations and holiday events. And for women who want something chic to wear on an average Tuesday.

“I wear my dresses every day,” Leavitt says.

Living in the brand helps her create content for social media. It also helps with market research. “I notice when there are more compliments on a dress and how it wears.”

DESIGNING WOMEN When designing, Leavitt focuses on the women who will wear her dresses.

“I think about our core customer and if she would ever wear a design,” Leavitt says. “If I can’t picture her wearing it, it’s probably not going to sell.”

Leavitt designs a year ahead and is now working on dresses for spring 2018.

The company usually releases one to four new styles a month, and the dresses retail from $180 to $375.

A perennial favorite is the Camilyn Beth Go Go Dress, one of Leavitt’s first designs. “Everyone needs their go-go dress in business — that product you’re confident in,” Leavitt says. “We’ve seen it sell so many times, it’s almost our

MARK WEMPLE

CAMILYN BETH LEAVITT just celebrated the five-year anniversary of her eponymous clothing line, Camilyn Beth.

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

I always thought I would work for someone else, not have my own brand. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Camilyn Beth Leavitt

bread and butter, and it gets people hooked.”

That gateway dress often leads customers to other dresses in the line, many of which are inspired by Leavitt’s favorite eras in fashion — the 1960s and 1970s.

After she’s sketched a design and created a pattern, Leavitt sews a sample.

While she sews, she listens to business podcasts such as “The #AskGaryVee Show,” “Fashion is Your Business” and “American Fashion.” Then she sends the sample to her New York City-based manufacturer.

IN GOOD HANDS At the Garment District manufacturer where Camilyn Beth dresses are made, more rounds of samples are created and sent to Leavitt to review. After Leavitt approves a top of production sample, the manufacturer scans and digitizes the pattern. The dresses are sewn by hand.

“Finding a manufacturer that specializes in what you do is key,” Leavitt says.

“A T-shirt manufacturer won’t work.” A good manufacturer is hard to find, she says, and she was lucky to discover this one in New York City through word of mouth.

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“I haven’t had the desire to manufacture in other countries,” Leavitt says.

“The main thing is having people making the dresses treated fairly.”

Although she sees financial value in ma nufacturing in ot her countries, Leavitt appreciates the control and communication of having a U.S. manufacturer.

Another benefit? Leavitt’s sister, Ashten Wenniger, lives in New York City. She visits the company’s facility to try on dresses and make sure the fit is right.

Leavitt works with a Sarasota-area European seamstress for custom gowns for weddings, a sales area that has grown lately.

MARKETING STYLE After dressmaking, Leavitt shifts to sales. A key strategy there is social media. “It’s crazy how important it is,” she says Camilyn Beth has a presence on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. Leavitt says it can be challenging to keep up with the frequent changes social media platforms make, but it’s a must. “Original content is huge,” Leavitt says, and she often goes about her day thinking, “That’s a good place for a photo.”

Another key sales tool? The chat feature on her website, which allows customers to ask questions and get quick answers, a feature launched about a year ago. “It’s a game-changer,” Leavitt says. “It secures a sale. It’s almost like a sales associate in the store.”

Blogs have been a crucial driver, too.

Sarah Tucker, a lifestyle blogger in Palmetto, has posted about Camilyn Beth dresses several times. She went to high school with Leavitt and has been wearing her clothing since she started designing. Tucker’s blog, which has about 60,000 page views a month, featured one post about a Camilyn Beth sweater that led to an immediate increase in overnight sales of the item. “It’s inter-

esting to see how blogs can impact what people are buying,” Tucker says.

Leavitt has developed relationships w ith bloggers around the countr y through the company’s in-house marketing efforts, led by Leavitt and Camilyn Beth Director of Operations Nicole Unger. They also use a public relations firm in Los Angeles to connect with celebrities and other high-profile people.

All the social media, blogs and buzz lead people to camilynbeth.com, the company’s website. It sells two to four dresses a day through the site.

NICE BALANCE In addition to the website, there are the boutique options for customers. Leavitt says people enjoy having the option to shop online or in a boutique. “A lot of brands only do one,” she says. “For us it’s nice to not have all of our eggs in one basket.”

Her dresses and brand are big at boutiques in Southern cities such as Louisville and Lexington, Ky., Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and Raleigh, N.C. “It’s the lifestyle up there,” Leavitt says.

“A lot of women have events to go to.”

And they need dresses for those events.

One strategy Leavitt is focusing on now is to host trunk shows in different cities where Camilyn Beth customers can meet her. The events present a friendly atmosphere, she says, for customers to learn more about the brand.

It’s also a way to move inventory. “Sales are your oxygen,” Leavitt says. “You need to have sales to do everything else.”

Leavitt also attends apparel markets in New York City, Dallas and Atlanta, which help her connect with potential retailers. Today, 60% of sales come from the Camilyn Beth website and 40% are from wholesale orders.

‘BIG HIT’ The next stage, Leavitt says, is scaling.

“We’re at the beginning stage,” she says.

19

AT A GLANCE Entrepreneur: Camilyn Beth Leavitt Company: Camilyn Beth, Sarasota Year founded: 2012 Employees: 2 Revenue: Declined to disclose “I’m looking forward to making the collection bigger and getting into more stores. There’s so much opportunity.”

She plans to add more people to the Camilyn Beth team, which consists of just Unger and herself.

There are also plans to grow in the bridal department. “That almost could be a whole other area of the company,” Leavitt says.

Dresses for weddings are available now on the Camilyn Beth website and in some bridal stores. Fondren Watts, owner of bridal boutique Blush Bridal Sarasota, has carried Camilyn Beth’s collection of little white dresses for six months. “It’s been a really big hit since then,” Watts says. Her dresses are purchased for rehearsal dinners, bachelorette parties, bridal showers and ceremonies. “What really gets people is when they try it on and feel the quality,” Watts adds.

A year from now, Leavitt says she wants Camilyn Beth to be a little bit bigger. “I want to grow, but not fast,” she says.

A couple years from now, there might be a showroom space in New York City to consider. In five years, she’d like to see her dresses in at least one larger department store, such as Nordstrom.

But for now, there’s much to be done — emails to answer from wholesalers, communication lines to keep open with her manufacturer, photo shoots to organize for social media.

And then, of course, there are dresses to design. Work often spills into nights and weekends. But, Leavitt says, “I never count my hours because I love it.”

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ENTREPRENEURS: ADVICE THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

How to value your business for a sale

Plan early — and often — to maximize the value of your business.

W

hen you first start a business, you might not be thinking about the day it’s time to sell.

But you should be.

“You have to understand what your destination is,” says Bert Seither, CEO of The Startup Expert, a St. Petersburgbased firm that provides coaching and other assistance for entrepreneurs. “If you want to exit out of the business at one year, three years, or 20 years, you need to make decisions for your business based on what that destination is. The fact that people should be planning an exit strategy is ridiculously important, but no one does it.”

Proper planning helps when it comes time to value your business for a sale — and helps get the best price. Seither knows of what he speaks. The serial entrepreneur started Tampa Bay Drone Photography in 2015, seeing an opportunity to get into the drone space in its early days.

But he wasn’t in it for the long term. “I never wanted to run an aerial photography company,” he says. “My exit strategy was about two years. I was able to position myself as a leader in the market to get media attention and get on the news.

I did things throughout those two years that would make the business attractive to potential buyers.”

Multiple factors come into play when determining the value of a business.

Keeping detailed records is key, because that helps figure out things like discretionary earnings.

“It sounds basic, but you wouldn’t believe the number of businesses out there that don’t have good records,” says John Davis, founding partner at Davis & Associates, a Bonita Springs accounting firm that does business valuations along with other services for businesses and

MARK WEMPLE

Business and entrepreneur consultant BERT SEITHER started and sold a business, in aerial photography, in two years. individuals.

He says sellers need to know their earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization, or EBIDTA. The value of their business is generally a multiple of that, which could range from two to five times or more, depending on the industry and other factors. “Basically what you’re doing is calculating the cash flow of the business and then deciding how much of a premium someone would be willing to pay for that cash flow,” says Davis.

There are other business-specific factors. A one-person business can be harder to sell, for example, and therefore priced lower than one with a solid team and systems in place.

Salvatore Urso, president of Tampabased business appraiser Ameri-Street Advisory, says something such as a Subway sandwich shop can sell quickly because its operating guidelines mean the owner doesn’t have to be on site 24-7.

“The more you take yourself out of the business and the more you make it autonomous, the more value there is and the easier it is to sell,” Urso says.

If the business founder stays around to help with the ownership transition, that can also bump up the sales price, Seither says. “This puts potential buyers at ease,” Seither says, “to know they’re not going to be handed the keys to the car and have no clue how to drive stick shift.”

— Beth Luberecki

GO HIGH Some tips to get the best value when selling a company include: n Plan the business valuation and sale three to five years in advance. That allows time to fix any problems that could turn off buyers; n Maintain strong margins — the slimmer those are, the lower the value; n Don’t be over-dependent on any one customer, supplier or salesperson. “It makes it very hard to sell a business and makes it less valuable,” says Salvatore Urso with Ameri-Street Advisory in Tampa. “Figure out where your dependencies are and remove them.”

How to leave work at work The problem of not having a work-life balance is vast. Here’s how to turn things around.

W

hen Tracy de Chevron Villette opened The Clever Cup coffee shop in Sarasota last year, it was a big change going from being a stay-at-home mom to business owner.

One of the biggest challenges was balancing work and life at home. “At first I always had it on my mind,” she says. “It was a big change for me and the kids.”

Running a business can be like having 20 full-time jobs, and it can be tricky leaving work at work. But there are ways to do it, says St. Petersburg’s Bert Seither, founder and CEO of The Startup Expert.

“Entrepreneurs need to try and shut off,” Seither says.

“We’ve got smart phones and we tend to stress ourselves out.

We are constantly waiting for the phone and it’s sucking you back in. You don’t have to respond to a client at 3 a.m.”

About 50% of Seither’s clients deal with the issue of shutting things down when they are not on the job. Says Seither: “The problem of work-life balance is vast.”

De Chev ron Villette says starting her cozy coffee shop in Sarasota’s Gulf Gate community was like having a baby.

“It grows with you, and in the beginning it needs your full attention,” she says, “but after six months I started to find a balance.”

One of the basic tricks to combat the issue of work/life balance is to be disciplined and organized, so you can get tasks done quickly, says Seither. “You

FILE PHOTO

TRACY DE CHEVRON VILLETTE and EDGAR DE LA O opened The Clever Cup, in Sarasota, in early 2016. can be so much more productive if you focus on one task at a time,” he says. “Work off of a calendar and put in the activities you absolutely have to do.”

Adds Seither: “At the end of the day you’ve feel like you’ve conquered the world and now

you are likely to say ‘I’m not going to take a call during my personal time.’”

Some more adv ic e : P ut blocks on the cellphone, such as shutting down the business email. Kerry Wilson, president of Winter Haven’s Six/Ten, LLC,

turns off his email as quickly as possible at the end of the workday. “It’s your life and has a monetary and emotional impact,” he says of his job at Six/ Ten, a real estate development firm focused on revitalizing downtown Winter Haven, in Polk County.

Yoga also helps Wilson destress from work. “I exercise at night,” says Wilson. “You have to get away and quit thinking about it and regroup.”

Seither also suggests joining a group of like-minded entrepreneurs. “Surround yourself with people who know more than you and have walked the walk,” he says.

De Chevron Villette says having a business partner, Edgar de la O, has helped tremendously. They both have children and can help each other balance work and home life.

Another must-do, says Seither, is to harness support from loved ones. Says Seither: “They can empathize and understand you.”

— Liz Morrisey

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

How to run a business in constant transformation The ‘change is hard’ mantra no longer cuts it for a successful entrepreneur.

It’s hard. It’s also essential — and attainable.

I

f Hubertus Muehlhaeuser can run a business in constant transformation, anyone can.

The CEO of New Port Richey-based Welbilt, Muehlhaeuser executed two major changes within 12 months. First, in March 2016, the company, then named Manitowoc Foodservice, spun itself off from its original business, Wisconsin-based construction equipment giant Manitowoc. That created a $1.45 billion company. Next, in February, the company changed its name, to Welbilt. The shift included a new logo, brand identity and stock ticker on the NYSE. Through the changes, the company internally transformed into an entrepreneurial-style business, says Muehlhaeuser, where we “challenge the status quo, and we fight the bureaucracy.”

That kind of model should be more commonplace in entrepreneuria lminded businesses — big or small — according to a host of new research and experts. The big takeaway: Keeping a business ahead of competitors requires a keen understanding of how to plan and execute continual business transformation.

Nearly two-thirds of business executives in the KPMG 2016 Global Transformation Study, out of 1,600 responses, say their companies have started or completed a transformation program in the past two years. And the Boston Consulting Group, in its new eBook, “Transformation: Delivering and Sustaining Breakthrough Performance,” contends, “Business as usual with incremental improvements will not suffice.”

Adds the book’s introduction: “Leaders must transform the company, through a fundamental reboot that leads to a sustainable step change improvement in performance and, ultimately, shareholder value.”

But what exactly is constant transformation? And how can a company do it?

“It means an entrepreneur has to investigate everything that’s going on in their business and be ready to change,” says Cookie Boudreaux, a Sarasotabased business consultant and senior partner with Mark Kamin & Associates.

“This is about leading all the time.”

Doug Van Dyke, founder of Bra-

Pinnacle surgeon new Blake Medical Center surgery chief Pinnacle Medical Group’s Dr. Sharla Sundberg is the new chief of surgery at Blake Medical Center in Bradenton.

Sundberg will continue her practice as a general surgeon at Bradenton’s Pinnacle Group while also heading up surgical practices and processes at Blake Medical Center.

“She provides excellent care for her surgical patients and will be a great department chair officer at Blake,” says Ben Johnston, market manager for Pinnacle, in a statement.

A medical school graduate of the University of Texas, Sundberg has been with Pinnacle Medical Group for two years and practicing in Manatee County for more than three years. She specializes in minimally invasive and robotic-assisted surgeries.

of

events

MAY 23

RAY DAY: The St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce will host its annual Tampa Bay Rays luncheon. Featured guests include manager Kevin Cash, President Brian Auld and President of Baseball Operations Matt Silverman, in addition to a handful of players.

The event, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., will be held at the Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Park, 950 Lake Carillon Drive, St. Petersburg. Tickets are $50. For more information go to stpete.com

MAY 24 BUILDING SUCCESS: Angela Melvin, founder and president of Valerie’s House, a nonprofit dedicated to helping grieving children, will speak about building a successful entrepreneurial organization at a meeting of the Entrepreneur Society of America. The meeting, from 6 to 8 p.m., will take place at Endeavor Innovative Workspaces, 8831 Business Park Drive, #301, Fort Myers. Cost is $25 per person. Register at esoa15. wildapricot.org.

FILE PHOTO

HUBERTUS MUEHLHAEUSER helped oversee two transformational changes at New Port Richey-based Welbilt in the past year. denton-based Leadership Simplified, says he coaches clients to think about transformation, or what he calls re-invention, at least every two years — both for themselves and their company. “To keep up with changes in market conditions,” Van Dyke says, “we need to be nimble today, no matter what industry we are in.”

At Welbilt, Muehlhaeuser and his top managers run the business, which operates 18 manufacturing facilities worldwide and has about 5,500 employees, with that kind of keen sense of urgency.

The company also seeks to put people in leadership roles who understand transformation is a good thing, not something to run away from.

“You need to be fast and find people who are good change agents,” Muehlhaeuser says. “You have to find the distractors quickly and move them out.”

Business consultants agree. “Transformation only occurs with people,” says Boudreaux. “It’s not really something you can have an algorithm for.”

— Mark Gordon

corporatereport | SARASOTA-BRADENTON

21 calendar

BusinessObserverFL.com

TRANSFORM TIMES Steps companies and entrepreneurs can take to become a company in constant transformation include: n Redo the company’s organizational chart every year or 18 months. (This is a cousin of the noted business philosophy from “Good to Great” author Jim Collins, to put the right people in the right seats on the bus.) “Put all the people in your organization over to the side,” says business and executive coach Doug Van Dyke. “Then take a deep breath and think about what you need to really be successful.” n Change the company’s meeting structure. Sarasota-based executive coach Marc Simms suggests going from a weekly setting to a daily standup meeting, 10 minutes tops. That provides a good forum, says Simms, for an entrepreneur to execute on one of the most important elements of constant transformation: being transparent with employees. “You need to have something to talk about what’s going on now,” says Simms.

MAY 25-26 CHANGING LANDSCAPES: Speakers for the annual ULI Florida Summit, under the theme “Navigating Florida’s Changing Landscape,” include former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood; Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn; and John Burns Real Estate Consulting CEO John Burns. The summit, which includes tours of different parts of the Tampa region, will be held at the Marriott Waterside, 700 S. Florida Ave., Tampa. For more information call 800-321-5011 or go to florida.uli.org.

JUNE 1 PLAY BALL: The Manatee Chamber of Commerce presents a 2017 VIP luncheon with Jeff Podobnik, director of Florida operations for the Pittsburgh Pirates, which have held spring training in Bradenton since 1969. The event will be held at the Stoneybrook Gulf Club, 8000 Stone Harbour Loop, Bradenton. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., and the program runs from noon to 1:15 p.m. Tickets are $30 for chamber members and $45 for non-members. For more information or to register contact Lisa at lisar@manateechamber.com or go to manateechamber.com.

BY STAFF

New College librarian named ‘Mover & Shaker’

National publication Library Journal named Theresa Burress, humanities librarian at New College in Sarasota, a Mover & Shaker in the library field.

Burress was among 52 professionals nationwide to receive the Library Journal designation, according to a statement.

The publication noted Burress’ commitment to the profession and her community-building efforts in the sciences and the humanities. She has served as co-chair of the of the St. Petersburg Science Festival, an annual event which draws more than 25,000 visitors, since 2011.

Burress has worked as the humanities librarian at Cook Library, which serves New College of Florida and nearby USF Sarasota-Manatee, since 2014. Prior, Burress served as a science and outreach librarian with the U.S. Geological Survey.

FORT MYERS-NAPLES

Nonprofit CEO announces retirement after 15 years at helm of organization Bob Simpson, who has run LeeSar/ Cooperative Services of Florida for 15 years, has announced his retirement.

A nonprofit health care supply chain, LeeSar was created in 1998 to deliver goods and services to Lee Health and Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System. But when Simpson came on board in 2002, the organization was struggling, says Lee Health CEO Jim Nathan, a LeeSar/CSF Board member.

“At the time Bob was hired in 2002, he told me that he wanted me to be able to sleep at night knowing that not only was the business in good hands but that it would be amazingly successful,” says Nathan in a statement.

“Bob’s visionary leadership transformed the company into an award

winning and nationally recognized resource that allows member health systems to become more efficient, while also improving patient care.”

Under Simpson’s leadership, LeeSar/ CSF has grown 18% to 20% a year. A 205,000-square-foot regional service center is currently under expansion to meet growing demand, a project that will add approximately 100,000 square feet to the facility and bring 50 new jobs.

Simpson says he will stay with the organization and assist in finding a successor, according to the statement.

“I’ve been blessed to work with some of the greatest minds in business and medicine to bring innovative solutions that improve the care we provide in this community,” Simpson says in the release. “It’s allowed caregivers to focus on what’s important: the patients.”

22

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

ENTREPRENEURS: INSPIRATION THE ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE

Why Not You?

COURTESY PHOTO

BRIAN MURPHY, founder, president and CEO of Tampa-based IT security firm ReliaQuest, gives the commencement speech May 6 at Florida State University.

Passion is a starting point for a great business, says a been-there, done-that entrepreneur. Then it’s time to outwork everyone.

(Editor’s Note: This is from a commencement speech at Florida State University’s graduation given May 6 by Brian Murphy, founder, president and CEO of ReliaQuest, a Tampa-based company that specializes in IT security. ReliaQuest is one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Tampa, with more than 200 employees, including nearly 100 hired in 2016. Murphy graduated from FSU in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance.)

Not long ago, in December of 2000, I was sitting right where you are… I remember thinking: This is it. Now it’s time to go find success. Now it’s time to win. Now it’s time to go be great. At the time, I thought success was this singular thing. This destination. This place you packed a bag to get to. And once you get there, you’re done. You’re good…. It was a point I needed to run to…. I couldn’t have been

more wrong.

Success is multiple. It’s interdependent. It’s dynamic. It means something different to everyone. Success is personal.

It’s something you strive for, and I’m not sure you ever reach it... Hopefully I’ll never reach it. Hopefully it’s something I keep striving for.

I thought about some of the things that I use every day, some of the things that have driven me. It’s really just three basic things, and two questions. Those three ingredients, for me, are attitude, energy and effort. These are three things that coaches have probably yelled to you across a field at some point, or teachers or your parents have said to you. They’re very basic, and that’s the point…

And then the two questions.

I’ve asked myself these things since I was a kid, and now we use them at ReliaQuest to challenge ourselves. They are: How good can we be, and why

not us?

Let’s start with attitude.

In 2007 I started ReliaQuest.

We got off to a rocket start.

I quickly hired six employees. And then coming into September of 2008, I started noticing our customers canceling contracts. The newscasters were losing their minds about the financial market’s performance… that was the beginning of the second-worst financial crisis in the history of the United States. So I’m sitting there with six employees, my 3-year-old daughter Devin, my wife is pregnant with our son Parker, I was burning through cash, spending everything in my savings and leveraging ev-

ery last bit of credit that I had.

These are the times in your life when the spectators will come out. They’ll fill in the arena… and question what you’re doing… then you turn on the news and it’s nothing but negativity.

I remember a day, standing in the mirror, asking myself a series of questions: Can you do this? Yes. Do you work with good people? Yes. Do the people who matter, the people in the arena, do they stand with you? Yes. My wife, Renee, was right next to me and said, ‘Just go get it.’ So I started to ignore the spectators and I started to focus on the people who were actually in the arena. We went step by step and we started

SEMINOLE SUCCESS For a video of Brian Murphy’s Florida State commencement speech go to: https://youtu.be/5lM0mTKmMtQ.

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

BusinessObserverFL.com

23

You don’t have to be positive all the time… that’s not possible… just don’t be negative.

Brian Murphy | ReliaQuest

FILE PHOTO

BRIAN MURPHY founded Tampa-based ReliaQuest in 2007. the grind. While everyone else was focused on those things they couldn’t do… we were capturing market share. We were finding those companies that were finding ways to win.

And by the time we came out of the Great Recession, we had been sling-shot ahead.

In the past 10 years, there was only one year ReliaQuest hasn’t doubled in size. And that year we grew by 40%... for

all you business majors out there, that’s pretty good. Last year we grew by 300% in our core business. It’s all about the attitude. How are we going to perceive what’s coming at us? So I will challenge you, as you move on to your careers… pay attention to your attitude.

It’s your filter. How are you reading that email? How are you reading that text message? You don’t have to be

positive all the time… that’s not possible… just don’t be negative.

Energy. Energy is an interesting one when you run at the pace we run… last year I was across the east and west time zones four different times… I don’t really remember… In entrepreneurship and in business I’ve heard a lot and I’ve read a lot. There’s this challenge people talk about

of, can you be good at what you do and be a good mother, father, partner, significant other, son, daughter… can you have it all?

Most people tell you no. I disagree with that. I think it’s about an allocation of energy.

What’s made me successful?

It’s focus. What’s most important to me? I love my wife, I love my children and I love my company. And I allocate my energy accordingly. I don’t go to certain events, I don’t waste time, I don’t talk about what I’m going to do…. At our corporate office, there’s a diagram painted on the wall. It’s a dog barking and it says, ‘No show dogs.’ What I challenge you is: Don’t listen to the show dogs. Focus on what’s important to you, and go execute.”

Finally, effort. To beat me, you have to out-work me. I can control that. Just work hard.

And when you think you are working hard, work harder…

I have two older brothers, they are seven and eight years older than me. And my parents, one year they made the decision to drive down to

Florida … with probably less money than you will spend in a bar tab tonight. I can’t imagine how scared they were. If you grew up in the Murphy family, you learned how to work. They worked hard, and they were there for us all of the time…I encourage you to work hard. It’s the easiest thing you can do – just continue to work. Find something you’re passionate about and do it better than anyone else is willing to do it.

As I said, there are two questions that I use every day … I challenge you, as you move on to your careers or to further your education, to ask yourself two questions: How good can you be, and why not you? Why not have the next leader of global finance in this room? Why not have the next leader in education? Why not have the next leader in government? Why not have the next leader in the arts? Why not you? And when you get to some place that you are proud of, ask yourself: How good can you be?

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24

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

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COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

Millennials are pushing regional CRE growth, report says At least a portion of the commercial real estate growth in Tampa and St. Petersburg, especially, is the result of millennials aged 18 to 35 who have been moving to the area, accordK.L. ing to a new MCQUAID report by commercial real estate brokerage Coldwell Banker Commercial.

Enhanced nightlife and affordable housing have prompted millenials to abandon traditionally trendier areas such as New York City in favor of the Gulf Coast, the report notes. Interestingly, the millennial population influx was cited only in the Tampa Bay submarket, one of 19 the report covered in Florida.

“Tampa and St. Petersburg have a lot of professionals here now, and they want to stay here,” says Karl “Dee” Maret, Coldwell Banker’s Eastern U.S. Director, which includes the company’s Florida operations.

“And commercial real estate is having to adapt,” Maret adds. “Commercial real estate in Florida has traditionally accommodated the over-50 crowd, but that is changing.”

More specifically, Maret says restaurant chains and concepts are adjusting to younger patrons, and industrial e-commerce fulfillment projects by the likes of Amazon and WalMart are being built specifically to accommodate mostly younger, predominantly online shoppers.

He also cites the boom in multifamily development as evidence that younger consumers are becoming more prevalent in the Tampa Bay area, a trend he expects to continue as developments like the $3 billion revamp of the Channelside District by Strategic Property Partners and Cascade Investment LLC advance.

“Already, you go to Tampa’s Riverwalk at 5 p.m. on a Friday and the place is jammed with mostly young people,” he says. “It’s a big demographic change from the past.”

Moreover, Maret expects millennials’ influence in coming years to expand into less urban areas such as Dunedin, Brandon, Winter Haven and elsewhere.

“It’s not just the central business districts that are reacting to these trends,” he says. “More suburban COLUMN page 25

BY K.L. MCQUAID | CRE EDITOR

JIMJETT.COM

ANTHONY SOLOMON stands in front of Naples Square, one of the company’s best-known residential projects. Although it specializes in luxury high-rises, Solomon’s Ronto Group has also developed large, single-family communities such as TwinEagles and Heritage Greens, both in Collier County.

The Wisdom

of Solomon Ronto Group’s opportunity-driven culture hinges on caution, market knowledge and customer trust.

R

onto Group President Anthony Solomon is very clear on what his company’s mission is, and should be.

“We’re opportunistic,” says Solomon, 42, whose father, A. Jack Solomon, founded the company in 1967 in Toronto. “We don’t live by growth goals, and we don’t do deals for the sake of doing deals.”

Nevertheless, Ronto Group these days is flush with the kind of upscale residential projects for which the company has come to be known.

There’s Seaglass at Bonita Bay, a 120-unit, 26-story condo tower in Bonita Springs that is under construction and slated for completion later this year. To date, more than 60% of its units — all priced at $1 million and above — have been sold.

There’s 624 Pa lm, an 18-stor y condo tower in downtown Sarasota that is also under construction and scheduled to be completed this summer. The $20 million-plus project, where the 17 residences cost in excess of $2 million each, is sold out.

There’s Naples Square, a 300-unit, phased residential development in the heart of Naples’ downtown with more than 150,000 square feet of commercial space that is scheduled to be completed by 2019. At present, Ronto is nearly sold out of the project’s second phase.

“We’re finding there’s great demand for high-end units, especially in Naples, Bonita Springs and Sarasota,” Solomon says. “And partly, that’s because we think we understand what it takes to get customers who are willing and able to spend $2 million, $3 million and up. There has to be a level of trust there. Customers want to know that you’re going to be able to deliver on the dream they are banking on, and we do that. It’s what our reputation is based upon.”

But Ronto Group has also excelled at single-family communities, often those with golf course amenities, such as its TwinEagles project in North Naples, which it acquired as part of a lender workout in 2010.

In the years since, Ronto has rede-

signed a golf course to complement the Jack Nicklaus-designed, awardwinning Talon links, added amenities like a resort-style swimming pool and fitness center, and enhanced walking paths and neighborhood parks.

Ronto also decided to provide a golf membership to everyone who bought a newly constructed home in the community by Lennar Corp., Minto Homes, Arthur Rutenberg Homes, Stock Signature Homes and Divco Custom Homes.

The strategy worked. In 2015, sales topped $135.6 million, prompting the developer to introduce three new neighborhoods. Today, five of TwinEagles neighborhoods are sold out.

“Their success stems in part because they were very early to the table in securing unique properties and opportunities before the market showed clear improvement a few years back,” says Randy Thibaut, founder and CEO of Land Solutions Inc., a Southwest Florida commercial

We don’t live by growth goals, and we don’t do deals for the sake of doing deals. Anthony Solomon | Ronto Group

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

COURTESY RENDERING

More than 60% of the units are sold at Seaglass at Bonita Bay, a 120unit condo tower in Bonita Springs slated for completion later this year.

real estate brokerage firm that has worked with Ronto Group.

“They take big, but educated, risks and they’ve paid off, and their relationships and access to capital has been integral in their ability to get deals closed.”

The company also developed Lindsford, in Fort Myers, a gated, step-up community where D.R. Horton is building, and Orange Blossom, a 1,600-home,

similarly priced Lennar project in Naples.

“We don’t want to be relegated to extremely high-end developments,” Solomon says.

“I don’t want us to be pigeonholed. If the right opportunity for an entry-level or move-up project surfaces, and it’s the right opportunity, we would certainly do it.

“But we’re very cautious by

transactions | DEEDS/MORTGAGES The following real estate transactions more than $1 million were filed in Charlotte, Collier, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota county courthouses. The information lists the seller, buyer, amount of sale, previous price and date, mortgage and lender, if available, address and book and page of the document.

CHARLOTTE Buyer: Tuckers Point I LP Seller: Crimson Tamiami Trail Holdings LLC Address: Punta Gorda Property Type: Vacant land Price: $6,500,000 COLLIER Buyer: Piedmont/Metrolina Fund #12 LLC Seller: Piedmont Development of Florida LLC Address: 8915 Sage Ave., Naples Property Type: Vacant commercial land Price: $5,080,000 Previous Price: $2,101,400, March 2016 Buyer: TT of Bonita Springs Inc. Seller: TT of Lake Shore Inc. Address: 5870 Naples Blvd., Naples Property Type: Vacant commercial land Price: $2,700,000 Buyer: TT of Naples Inc.

BusinessObserverFL.com

nature, and we look for the right opportunity and the right price and the right timing,” he says.

Such a tria ng ulation occurred earlier this year, when Ronto and W heelock Street Capital, of New England, paid $15.1 million to acquire a nineacre site at 1075 Central Ave., in Naples.

Solomon says Ronto is designing a project that will likely contain more than 200 residential units and a smattering of retail space. Sales could begin next year.

The site, where the Naples Daily News operated until 2009, attracted Solomon because it reminded him of Naples Square.

“The units may be a little smaller, and less expensive, but the site is very walkable to Fifth Avenue, and you’re not going to find nine acres come available very often in the heart of Naples,” he says.

After developing more than 10,000 condos and 2,000 singlefamily home sites, Ronto Group knows what it doesn’t want to be and where it doesn’t want to build, as well.

It refuses, for instance, to engage in bidding wars even for prime properties.

“We’d rather have an opportunity to properly study a market and sit down with someone and work out a deal,” Solomon says.

The company’s boundaries also extend to geography.

“I have no desire to develop in the Caribbean, for instance,” Solomon says. “Sure, it sounds sexy, but one mess, one disaster and it takes your whole bandwidth to fix — you end up getting pulled away from other

projects, other opportunities,” Solomon says. “I’ve seen it happen to a lot of really smart people.”

He’s also content to remain focused on coasta l Florida in places like Naples, Bonita Springs, Sarasota, Boca Raton and Palm Beach — though he would entertain a deal in Tampa or St. Petersburg if it was right, too.

“I don’t have any visions to go, say, to Denver,” Solomon says. “You hear a lot of Florida developers say they want to go out West to places like that. But the way I see it, they already have developers out there.

They’re on top of it, and things here need constant minding.”

To maintain focus, Ronto Group maintains a staff of 13 employees, some of whom have worked for the company for decades, though it also relies heavily on consultants who Solomon says are “like family.”

Look ing a head, Solomon doesn’t foresee the kind of turbulence that derailed the real estate grow th cycle in 2008. He believes buyers are self-reg ulating, a nd ba nks are being appropriately more reserved about to whom they lend money.

“Buyers are being more cautious; they remember the last go round,” he says. “That’s been good for us, because people know our reputation. And banks aren’t lending to anyone, especially for high-end residential, that doesn’t have experience.

“Prices, meanwhile, at the high end, have leveled off, and that’s a good thing,” he says.

“I think as a result we’ll see a steady few years ahead.”

25

COLUMN from page 24 areas are also creating or encouraging amenities to being these people in.”

Tampa growth, Gulf Coast communities leading the nation

And speaking of Tampaarea growth, the city ranked in the Top Five in the U.S. last year for metro area population growth, according to U.S. Census figures contained in Eshenbaugh Land Co.’s first quarter newsletter to clients. In all, the city grew by 58,000 residents.

At the same time, Burns Real Estate Consulting’s most recent annual list of the best-selling masterplanned communities nationwide contains a number of Gulf Coast projects.

The Villages, in Sumter County, in Central Florida, ranked as the second-best top-selling community nationwide, with nearly 2,000 home sales in 2016.

The West Villages, a collection of four communities in Sarasota County, took the fourth slot, with 848 overall sales; and Lakewood Ranch, the 31,000-acre community straddling Sarasota and Manatee counties, rounded out the Top Five, with 775 sales last year, Eshenbaugh notes.

BY STEVEN BENNA | CONTRIBUTOR

Seller: Runway Business Park LLC Address: 2745 Corporate Flight Drive, Naples Property Type: Warehouse Price: $2,250,000 HILLSBOROUGH Buyer: MG3 Carrollwood LLC Seller: CGCMT 2004 C2 West Village Commons LLC Address: 5320 Ehrlich Road, Tampa Property Type: Shopping center Price: $8,700,000 Buyer: 8105 Anderson LLC Seller: Ashley Property Enterprise LLC Address: 8105 Anderson Road, Tampa Property Type: Manufacturing plant Price: $5,300,000 Buyer: Beate Rotermund Inc. Seller: Muneer Properties LLC Address: 1901 W. Brandon Blvd., Brandon Property Type: Convenience store Price: $2,975,000 Previous Price: $1,975,000, July 2010 LEE Buyer: Hometown Southern Pines LLC Seller: Tesone Development LLC Address: 26300 Southern Pines Drive, Bonita Springs Property Type: Parking lots

Price: $24,000,000 Previous Price: $8,038,500, December 2000 Buyer: 247 Post Avenue LLC Seller: B&D Pine Island LLC Address: 1731 N.E. Pine Island Road, Cape Coral Property Type: Vacant commercial land Price: $2,600,000 MANATEE Buyer: Merion Bradenton Reserve LP Seller: Bradenton Reserve LLC Address: 6050 W. 34th St., Bradenton Property Type: Apartment units Price: $19,100,000 Buyer: Manatee Realty LLC Seller: Florida Reliance Properties LLC Address: 5627 E. Ninth St., Bradenton Property Type: Sanitation homes Price: $15,500,000 Buyer: Manatee Central LLC Seller: Finesse Holdings LLC Address: 902 E. Manatee Ave., Bradenton Property Type: Commercial building Price: $1,000,000 PASCO Buyer: 85 NW 72 ST LLC and 3D 85 LLC Seller: Local Holiday LLC Address: 2513 U.S. Highway 19,

Holiday Property Type: Retail store Price: $3,400,000 Previous Price: $2,610,000, March 2014 Buyer: SLM Commercial Center LLC Seller: Creekside 54 LLC Address: 35354 State Road 54, Zephyrhills Property Type: Office building Price: $1,050,000 Previous Price: $407,000, December 2012 PINELLAS Buyer: Clearwater Seller: Clearwater Marine Aquarium Inc. Address: 200 S. Osceola Ave., Clearwater Property Type: Vacant commercial land Price: $4,250,000 Previous Price: $2,100,000, December 2012 POLK Buyer: Growing For You II LLC Seller: Lonesome Ranch Revocable Living Trust Address: Lake Wales Property Type: Pasture Price: $5,400,000 Previous Price: $2,050,000, January 2011 Buyer: SDWD Properties LLC Seller: Palmetto Bartow Highway 60 LLC Address: Hankin Road, Bartow

Property Type: Dollar store Price: $1,902,800 Previous Price: $330,000, March 2016 Buyer: Belvedere Business Park Inc. Seller: Centre Corp. Inc. Address: 6885 U.S. Highway 27 N., Davenport Property Type: Timber yard Price: $1,765,000 SARASOTA Buyer: DR Horton Inc. Seller: LALP Development LLC Address: Nokomis Property Type: Vacant land Price: $7,701,700 Previous Price: $1,201,200, December 2012 Buyer: Elliot Bay Healthcare Realty II LLC Seller: Brink Avenue Invest LLC Address: 2989 Fruitville Road No. 1, Sarasota Property Type: Office building Price: $2,887,800 Previous Price: $500,000, March 2013 Buyer: West Florida Distributors Inc. Seller: SRQ Gulf Coast Real Estate Inc. Address: 4500 Carmichael Ave., Sarasota Property Type: Warehouse Price: $1,773,569 Previous Price: $1,837,500, August 2013

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

Q&A

BY K.L. MCQUAID | COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE EDITOR

Gandy Boat Ramp 7 miles to St. Petersburg

Fish and Wildlife Conservation Riverhawk Marine

Subject property

Westshore Marina Distrcit (Proposed)

Tampa Harbour Marina WCI at Westshore Yacht Club

Bertram Yachts Family boating Hula Bay

Westshore Yacht Club

COURTESY PHOTO

TREY CARSWELL Principal Avison Young, Tampa Trey Carswell has worked at Avison Young, a Toronto-based brokerage that bills itself as “the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate ser v ices firm,” since September 2013, joining the firm as a principal. Prior to Avison Young, Carswell was a director and founding member of Lane Witherspoon & Carswell Commercial Real Estate Advisors; worked in developer Trammell Crow Co.’s Tampa office; and spent three years with GVA Advantis. Founded in 1996 through a merger of two Canadian firms, Avison Young today has 79 offices and more than 2,400 real estate professionals.

Carswell and partner Lisa Ross are working with Michael T. Fay and John K. Crotty of the company’s Miami office in listing a nearly 31-acre tract on Rattlesnake Point, in South Tampa, near a 52-acre site BTI Partners of Fort Lauderdale is developing known as the Westshore Marina District. The property also contains nearly 140,000 square feet of industrial space and features a half-mile of direct water frontage.

How did Avison Young secure the listing on this property?

We did a series of relatively shortterm leases involving the property and as a result got to know the owner. During talks with them over time, we told them we be-

Aerial shot of 5411 Tyson Ave., Rattlesnake Point, in Tampa. The 31-acre property, just south of the Gandy Bridge and near the city’s Westshore Business District, is being sold by the Miami and Tampa offices of Avison Young on behalf of owner Viper Ventures LLC. lieved the timing was right to bring the property to the market.

And by working with our Miami office, we’ll have a better opportunity to reach buyers, because Michael Fay has national and international connections with developers and investors who may feel the South Florida market has gotten crowded and that there is now a lack of quality, large sites available.

And we’ve sold sites like this before. Our team has a lot of clout.

John (Crotty) and Michael (Fay) will be leading the charge on the sale, and Lisa and I will be integrally involved because we know the local market.

Do you see these type of infill redevelopment opportunities proliferating in the Tampa area?

I think the opportunities are there because Tampa has a relatively low cost of living, an exceptional quality of life, population growth, and there’s a lot of positive momentum in the immediate area with the other developments that are ongoing, such as the BTI Partners’ project and the Related Group apartments that are underway.

And this property is part of a larger picture. Tampa is clicking on all cylinders now, with what’s happening downtown, in the Channelside area, Westshore — there’s a lot of new development to meet

demand and it’s all helping one another. We believe this site will be the next area for redevelopment, given its location and proximity to services.

What do you envision as the ultimate development plan for the property?

I think it’ll be a mixed-use development, a combination of multifamily, be it condos or apartments or both, destination retail, waterfront restaurants that take advantage of the property’s stellar views, and I hope whoever develops it will incorporate the waterfront and make it a walkable area for the general public. But the majority of the property will likely be residential in nature, again a mix of condos or apartments, with some retail.

Why is owner Viper Ventures selling now?

They believe that with all the other momentum in the immediate area surrounding their property that it would be a good time to take advantage of that and entertain offers now.

Do you expect this property to attract a large amount of foreign or institutional capital, or do you expect that more traditional developers will primarily make a run at it?

You know I think we’re going to see interest from all kinds of differ-

We think this is an iconic site.

You don’t come across tracts very often that can boast a half mile of waterfront views on a peninsula.

Trey Carswell | on 5411 Tyson Ave., in South Tampa

ent entities, foreign and domestic, and sure, I expect that some local groups may make us an offer as well. We’ve just begun marketing the site this week and we’ve had a lot of good activity and interest from local and national groups.

We think this is an iconic site. You don’t come across tracts very often that can boast a half mile of waterfront views on a peninsula. This could be the next Harbor Island.

What price range is Avison Young and Viper marketing the site for sale? Is there a minimum offer that has to be met?

We don’t have an asking price.

We’ve specifically decided to put it out there and we’ll accept and review all the offers we receive.

What’s the timeframe in which you hope to dispose of the property?

We’ve just started the process. As I said, marketing began just this past week, so we don’t have a set timetable in place as yet, either.

We’d like to have something happen sooner rather than later, of course, but we’ll have to see.

There’s no gun to our heads in terms of timing. We’ll evaluate the offers and carefully consider various factors before moving forward.

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26

MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017 | BUSINESS OBSERVER

MY VIEW

BusinessObserverFL.com

27

BY JOHN SAPUTO | GUEST COLUMNIST

This is no time to cut Visit Florida’s funds It is with grave concern I watched the Visit Florida issue unfold in our Legislature under House Speaker Richard Corcoran.

The speaker found problems with the spending of the vital advertising tool that advertises Florida throughout the U.S., Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

Instead of fixing and firing the people who made poor advertising expenditures, the speaker chose to bully members of the House and disrespect the governor, who was more than willing to reform Visit Florida and punish the people making a few bad marketing decisions.

Numerous legislators remarked to me that they would

not be able to help their constituents unless they voted to cut drastically Visit Florida’s budget as requested by the speaker.

These legislators know that the Visit Florida advertising money is one of the life bloods of our economy. But they choose to vote to deflate the state budget for Visit Florida to keep their road projects and community center or arts funding in their districts in the budget.

I travel for my work throughout the U.S. and Europe, and I see the advertising dollars from Visit Florida in places like Cincinnati, Saginaw, Mich., Chicago, New York state, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Canada, Eng-

land, Belgium, even Colorado.

The preponderance of visitors to Southwest Florida hail from all these areas with the majority of our tourism from the Midwest, Northeast and Canada. I also noticed recently on my travels that other states and tourist destinations such as Asheville, N.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C., Maryland, Las Vegas, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, California and Arizona are all advertising on TV and social media with the intent of luring away the 110 million Florida tourists.

Now is not the time to cut our Visit Florida advertising budget. Now is the time to accelerate our efforts in light of this competitive activity for our tourists.

out of the office | TRENDS |

Does the Legislature ever see market leaders such as Coke, Apple, Geico or Bud Light cut their advertising budgets? Not ever!

These companies know that to keep their products and services top of mind that they must advertise or lose market share! They know they must keep their products’ sights, sounds, culture and usefulness in the “hearts and minds” of their consumers or risk losing them to their competition.

Visit Florida is the tool to use to keep Florida in this vicious fight for the “hearts and minds” of the 50 states, Canada and Europe’s tourists. When these tourists visit and fall in love with Florida, they want to come here to live and buy a home. They also bring with them job skills and a work ethic that is sorely needed. My local business employs 180 people. Eightyfive percent of my associates were once tourists from the Midwest and Northeast who

visited and now live and work in Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Let me close by being totally transparent: Visit Sarasota helps attract 4 million tourists to Manatee and Sarasota counties. These tourists come to relax and usually enjoy themselves by buying the more than 208 beers my company sells to more than 1,600 grocery stores, convenience stores, taverns and restaurants in Sarasota and Manatee.

The tourists buying from our retail partners make up more than 35%-40% of my total beer business. Without the tourists attracted to us

by Visit Florida, our economy and our opportunities would make us just another Midwest state with poor job prospects and nice sunshine.

— John Saputo, a resident of Longboat Key, is owner and CEO of Sarasota-based Gold Coast Eagle Distributing.

BY MARK WEMPLE | CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

High Tech Security Business leaders learned about new trends in cybersecurity.

The Tampa Bay chapter of Financial Executives International (FEI) held a panel event April 20 at the Hilton St. Pete Carillon Park. The theme of the panel discussion was “IT Security as a Competitive Advantage.” FEI was also scheduled to present Bay Area Advisors with a $2,500 check to support Moffitt Cancer Center.

BRIAN ADAMSKI with American Traditions Insurance Co. and Modern USA Insurance; JEFF BAUMAN with Frazier & Deeter; CHRIS RUSSO with Vaco; DAN WINTERS with PNC Bank; and MIKE HENDRICKS with Frazier & Deeter.

COURTNEY LONG with Dominion Payroll Services and KATIE TROTT with Foundry Commercial.

MARY JOYCE with Ferreri Search and KEVIN MCCALL with Kforce.

BRUCE TERRY with BodiData and BOB WATTS with Metaformers Inc.

28

BUSINESS OBSERVER | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2017

BusinessObserverFL.com

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Now,sexual with the circuits discrimination split on this issue, the stage may be Now, with the circuits split on this issue, the stage may this be set for the Supreme Court of the United States to resolve set for the Supreme Court of the United States to resolve this conflict. Although the employer in the Seventh Circuit case conflict. Although the employer in the Seventh Circuit case has said it will not appeal the decision, the appellants in the has said it will not appeal the decision, the appellants in the Second Circuit and Eleventh Circuit cases have petitioned to Second Circuit and Eleventh Circuit cases have petitioned to have their cases reheard en banc (before all the judges of the have their cases reheard en banc (before all the judges of the court). IfIf either either petition petition isis accepted, accepted, there there isis aa chance chance that that court). one of these cases may eventually be heard by the Supreme one of these cases may eventually be heard by the Supreme Court. Otherwise, Otherwise, another another case case will will have have to to make make its its way way Court. through the lower courts. through the lower courts.

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5/16/17 8:10 AM