'Titans' share advice with Tampa Bay techies

Most folks in the Tampa Bay area would be happy just to get a few quick minutes of advice from a local business leader. Thanks to the Tampa Bay Technology Forum, they got an hour with four.

The organization's annual Titans of Tampa Bay luncheon Feb. 15 presented a panel of leading executives including John Ramil, president and CEO of Tampa-based TECO Energy Inc.; Chuck Sykes, president and CEO of Tampa-based Sykes Enterprises Inc.; J.T. Tonnison, executive vice president and CIO of Clearwater-based Tech Data Corp.; and Jon Zettel, CEO of Tampa-based AVI-SPL Inc.

The panel touched on a wide variety of topics, such as personal lessons learned during their careers and how tech is used by their respective firms (for example, iPads are becoming more necessity than novelty). However, the best information they were able to give the audience of 250 at the DoubleTree Hotel Westshore was how to best respond to a sagging economy.