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Traveler: Paul Blackketter, chief operating officer, Suncoast Aquatic Nature Center Association. The association recently won a bid to host the 2017 World Rowing Championships at Nathan Benderson Park in north Sarasota County.
Itinerary: Blackketter meets in person with decision makers in the worldwide rowing community with one focus: To make sure the Sarasota-Manatee area is a player in hosting global events. His travels have taken him to a wide range of cities and countries, from Philadelphia to Seattle and Austria to Korea. Other stops include Bulgaria, Copenhagen, England, France, Italy, Slovakia and Switzerland. Blackketter flies somewhere at least once a month. “I don't think the travel will ever stop,” says Blackketter, a 30-year U.S. Army veteran who served in combat in Iraq. “The moment we stop taking trips and see what everyone else is doing is the moment we stop growing.”
Lost in Translation: Blackketter has sat on a C-130 four-engine turboprop military transport plane with 90 pounds of combat gear on his lap. But the toughest flight of his life, he says, was from California to New Zealand in 2010. “I'm a pretty big guy, and I was stuck in the middle of two other big guys in the last row,” Blackketter says. The passenger to Blackketter's left was German, and the one to his right was Arabic. Neither spoke English. All three, says Blackketter, struggled for hours to get comfortable. “I had to talk myself out of not having a panic attack,” says,” Blackketter. “It was 22 hours of pure torture. It was the most difficult and painful flight I've ever been on.”
Lessons learned: The New Zealand debacle taught Blackketter some important travel must-dos. He always books a seat early, and he always gets an aisle seat. He also confirms the seat reservation a week or so before the flight.
Just do it: Another lesson Blackketter has learned over a decade of global travel is the importance of research. Not just how to say hello, and whether to bow or shake hands, but to prepare for anything that gets in the way of the mission. “You have to adapt to overcome,” says Blackketter. “That's basically what you do on the road. There's no excuse to not accomplish whatever you are there to accomplish.”
Take a hike: Blackketter lived that mantra in September when he joined a group of Sarasota and Manatee county officials and business leaders on a 10-day trip to Chungju, South Korea. That's where the International Federation of Rowing Association picked Nathan Benderson Park over Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to host the 2017 World Rowing Championships. The trip was victorious, but far from glamorous. Blackketter slept on a 3-inch mattress in a room more like a dorm than a hotel suite. He cleared his head each morning during 6 a.m. hikes with Benderson Development President Randy Benderson and other officials.
Pack smart: Blackketter knows how to pack light and efficiently from his Army career. But no matter where he goes, he always makes room for two pairs of shoes. One nice pair, he says, and one for doing all the other things.
Sky office: Blackketter gets work done on flights. He hits send on dozens of email notes and memos when the plane lands and he immediately feels a sense of accomplishment. “I look forward to flying trips,” he says. “I get an insane amount of work done on an airplane.”
Lifetime memories: Seoul, South Korea, ranks high on Blackketter's list of all-time great cities. It's the cleanest, fastest, most focused and most efficient city he's ever seen, he says. The prettiest city he's been to, meanwhile, is Bled, a tourist-driven lakefront town in northwestern Slovenia. Says Blackketter: “I don't think I've ever seen a place as beautiful on the entire earth.”
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