Gov. Scott spotlights job creators

Everyone knows Gov. Rick Scott has almost a one-track mind for his term — jobs. In fact, every time he delivers a speech, he makes reference to his magic number of 700,000 new jobs in seven years.

To demonstrate that he is counting his progress every day, Scott used a portion of his state of the state address to point to four recent successes in the job-growth journey. Two of them were Gulf Coast companies — Chromalloy in Tampa and Naples-based Arthrex.

Scott introduced to the Legislature Chromalloy President Armand Lauzon, who was seated in the governor's gallery seats in the House Chambers. Scott noted that Chromalloy will add 400 jobs at its new manufacturing plant in Tampa.

Chromalloy, a division of Tampa-based Sequa Corp., Manufactures gas-turbine engine parts for the airline, marine and heavy industrial machine sectors. It recently broke ground on a $5 million, 40,000-square-foot manufacturing plant next to its recently completed 150,000-square-foot foundry.

Scott introduced Rheinhold Schmieding, founder, owner and president of Arthrex as well. Scott noted that Schmieding's firm recently announced plans to add a 160,000-square-foot medical-device manufacturing plant to its existing operations. Scott said the plant will expand Arthrex's workforce by 150 jobs a year for the next five years.

Scott also introduced top executives from Vision Airlines, the Las Vegas-based airline that has expanded with 43 flights into Destin, and Bing Energy, which recently relocated to Tallahassee, because, Scott said, of the governor's commitment to eliminate the corporate income tax.

Scott said he is making cold calls every day to persuade businesses to move to Florida. And he told legislators if they hear of a lead, let him know. He'll make the call.

So . . . The math: based on Monday's speech, Scott has 1,150 down, 698,850 to go.