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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana edition)
Bank board has Gulf Coast addition
GCBR's 2003 banker of the year, Jerry J. Williams, has joined the Federal Home Loan Bank's Atlanta district board of directors.
Williams is chairman, president and chief executive of Orion Bancorp Inc. The Naples-based holding company for Orion Bank recently passed the $1 billion mark in total assets. The Atlanta bank is one of 12 congressionally chartered regional institutions across the country that provide low-cost financing to member banks, credit unions, thrifts and insurers to foster homeownership and economic development.
Williams is one of only three Floridians on the Federal Home Loan Bank Atlanta's board. The bank's territory also includes Alabama, the District of Columbia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Virginia as well as Georgia.
Since his GCBR recognition, Williams has guided Orion to its ninth consecutive year of record profit. Net income jumped 30% and earnings-per-share was up 25% in 2003. Return on average equity was 25.3%.
With those numbers, Williams should be welcome on any bank board.
Michael Saunders nominated for award
Michael Saunders, president of Michael Saunders & Co., is one of three finalists for Ernst & Young's Florida Entrepreneur of the Year award in the category of real estate and construction.
The Tampa office of Foley & Lardner nominated the head of the Sarasota-based real estate firm. Other finalists in that same category include Chaim Katzman, chairman and CEO of Equity One Inc., based in North Miami Beach, and George Donovan, president and CEO of Bluegreen Corp., Boca Raton.
The awards ceremony will be June 24 at The Peabody Orlando hotel. If Saunders wins, she'll be eligible for Ernst & Young's national Entrepreneur of the Year award.
SMRT closing Sarasota office
The Portland, Maine-based architectural firm of SMRT Inc. is closing its Sarasota office.
"Essentially it will remain open for about a year for our existing clients," says Maura Ryan, marketing manager for SMRT. "There were a lot of opportunities up here (the Northeast), and we needed the resources up here to proceed with the projects. We will probably be closing it for good sometime in 2005." According to Ryan, the office was SMRT's most southern office.
"Arthur Thompson, a partner with SMRT, will continue to work in Florida, as well as up North," Ryan says.
Gathering RESPECT
Like a setup to a Rodney Dangerfield joke, local construction business owners say they aren't getting the respect they are due from government and the general public.
Several Sarasota County real estate and allied business professionals recently decided to change that through a grassroots effort called RESPECT. One of the group's main goals is to make the thousands of people who work in real estate related industries more visible through bumper stickers, shirts and hats that bare the red RESPECT logo.
"They are not trying to advocate for any specific position right now," says Tom Nolan of The Nolan Group. "They just really want to make people more aware of exactly how many people are directly affected by the industry."
The group's eight core values: To increase the visibility of the thousands of people who earn their living from the construction business; to awaken political awareness of the thousands who earn their living directly and indirectly from the construction industry; to call attention to the economic impact of the construction industry through employment, job quality, taxes paid and taxes generated; to display the strength of the building industry by encouraging employees, customers and suppliers to be a part of the political process; to improve the image of the building industry through employee, customer and supplier inclusion in the voting process;
To treat elected officials and their staffs with respect and to conduct our business in a professional manner with all constituents; to create teamwork and collaboration through open communication; we respect, encourage and promote the power of mutually supportive relationships in pursuit of our objective of gaining respect; and to demonstrate that the people employed by the building industry and its allied business touch everyone's life every day.
Interested parties can purchase the RESPECT merchandise from The Nolan Group in Bradenton or contact Billy Springer of Sarasota's Ridgewood Building & Development Co.
Lightning strike may be coming
So, what does a Stanley Cup championship mean for the Tampa Bay Lightning?
Are home tickets going to be as hard to come by as admission to Buccaneer games? Will Brad Richards' jerseys be as plentiful as those of Derrick Brooks around the bay?
Coffee Talk is a wee bit skeptical. The St. Pete Times Forum seldom filled up before the Stanley Cup finals, even for this year's early-round playoff games just two months ago.
Hockey fever was a bit late coming to football country.
The Bucs owned the eighth best-selling specialty automobile license plate in Florida last year. The Lightning plate was 43rd, right behind the Boy Scouts. (But two places ahead of the World Series champion Florida Marlins, speaking of teams with fair-weather fans. Go figure.)
Still, Coffee Talk thinks the Lightning experience offers some valuable lessons for business owners of all stripes.
First, there's the importance of good management. The Bolts are not the best team to have ever hoisted the Cup. (That would be the '71 Canadiens.) At the risk of needing our mug to deflect the pucks thrown at us, Coffee Talk thinks the 2004 Bolts were a fairly good club that peaked at the right time of the season, thanks to the masterful determination of blunt-talking coach John Tortorella.
Second, ownership was fiscally responsible. Lightning owner Bill Davidson opened his wallet a little wider than the team's two previous owners. Without the television fees of professional football, basketball and baseball teams, however, Davidson wasn't about to mortgage the Forum to keep up with free-spending losers like the New York Rangers.
The team's parent company reported a $10 million operating loss on about $65 million of revenue in 2003. The Bolts will only show a profit when its fiscal year closes at the end of this month because the long playoff run added unanticipated home dates at the Forum.
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