Aqua Expertise

When David Brown and James Guida worked for a state government water permit office, they struggled to balance the needs of clients with the bureaucracy that paid their salaries.

“We would see people come in and say, 'why are they doing it this way?'” recalls Guida, who, with Brown, worked for the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly called Swiftmud. “As best we could, we would steer them in the right direction, but we were still regulators.”

Instead of prolonging the bureaucratic agony, however, Brown, Guida and business partner Stephen Suau, another former government employee, took an unusual turn: They launched a private company, Sarasota-based Progressive Water Resources.