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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana edition)
Winning marketing
When 17-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, she contributed immeasurably to the future of Bradenton's IMG Academies/Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she trained.
"It's very hard to quantify how this will impact us," says Ted Meekma, senior vice president and co-director of IMG Academies. "From an advertising and exposure standpoint this is the best publicity you could ask for - a sporting event that is watched all over the world, where they were explaining the academy's role in Maria's development. It's about as much as you can ever hope for."
Meekma says the phone for the sales reservation line has rung far more than usual following the Wimbledon win.
"Now, whether that translates into camp business or full-time academy business I am not sure," he says. "This is just the beginning of her career. But we have been doing this for over 25 years. A lot of people have come out of here in a variety of sports that have done very well in their own particular stage. The academy has been a very unique place ... well known in the world of sports for a while now."
Land buyers guide
One of the key men at the center of the recent major reorganization of Bruce Williams Homes is Wes Thompson. Thompson, director of operations for Williams Communities, the Bradenton-based home builder's separate land acquisition and development division, came to Bruce Williams from the land acquisition department of The Haskell Co., a large Jacksonville-based design-build firm.
Thompson came to Bruce Williams a year ago, with the goal of running his own division.
So how does Thompson find the right piece of property in such a tight land market? "We have reports done by American Metro Study that measure new home starts," he says. "We read the papers and all the journals. We look at all the demographics and trends. You really can't read enough to keep up. We are also networking constantly. This market is changing hourly. It comes down to the same reason that Michael Jordan did so well, he was constantly working."
After Thompson and his five-person team identify a parcel for development it takes about two years of work to make the property developable.
"This new division opens us up to a lot," Thompson says. "A lot of developers are going out and acquiring land and then parceling it out to different home builders. We want to do what works in the big picture. ¦ We want to grow smartly to continue the legacy that Lloyd Williams provided."
Construction salaries surveyed
Birmingham, Ala.-based Construction Executive LLC, a national outplacement and career counseling consulting company for construction executives, has released average salary/compensation figures for the industry.
The ranking was based on a database of the Construction Executive's 200,000 or so members nationwide and includes only construction companies producing more than $20 million in annual revenues.
POSITIONMEDIAN BASE SALARYMEDIAN TOTAL
CASH COMPENSATION
Board Member/Inside Director*$19,773
Board Member/Outside Director*9,521
Chairman/CEO$245,008$367,512
President$207,248$290,148
Executive Vice President/COO$163,637$216,092
Senior Vice President$141,956$172,738
Vice President Operations$128,042$166,454
Vice President Marketing/Sales$125,099$157,428
Vice President Preconstruction/Est$125,106$144,927
Vice President Administration$119,003$130,903
Division Manager$150,130$182,169
Vice President Finance/ CFO$122,228$145,897
Vice President Human Resources$102,070$112,278
Vice President Legal/General Counsel$135,045$149,900
Director MIS/CIO/CTO$89,867 $99,752
Marketing/Sales Director $93,791$104,107
Chief Estimator$102,109$113,341
Project Executive/CM$125,368$139,166
General Superintendent$112,119$128,781
Controller$86,113$93,256
Chief Scheduler$84,779$94,105
No further comment
Urine-Off.
No, Coffee Talk is not talking about the latest Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick from Russia. Urine-Off is the name of a new product from a Sarasota spin-off of Environmental Biotech Inc.
A nice lady who answered our telephone call to Bio-Pro Research LLC assured us this was no hoax.
"Urine-Off permanently removes both the stain and odor of urine from practically any surface," according to the company's promotional material.
The product, available in bottle or spray, is said to be especially helpful to cat owners whose pets haven't quite gotten the hang of the litter box yet - and are about two more squirts away from the animal pound.
The nice lady told Coffee Talk that Bio-Pro got some national exposure on July 13 when the Home Shopping Network invited the company up to St. Petersburg to hawk Urine-Off on the cable television channel.
Regrettably, Coffee Talk missed both the 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. demonstrations of Urine-Off on HSN. So we cannot say how tastefully the segments were carried out.
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