Startup Station

Onetime Disney executive Don Robinson's resume for overseeing ambitious startup ventures is filled with some remarkable global successes, from Disneyland Paris to Hong Kong Disneyland.

Robinson will need that experience and any leftover Disney magic he can marshal for his latest project — a passenger railroad planned for downtown Miami to Orlando, with a possible eventual Tampa station. The bold project, privately owned and operated with no public subsidies, is All Aboard Florida, a unit of Coral Gables-based Florida East Coast Industries. Announced in early 2012, the railroad is estimated to cost FECI at least $1 billon.

“This will require every bit of fortitude, discipline and entrepreneurial sprit we can muster,” says Robinson, co-president and chief operating officer of All Aboard Florida in an interview with the Business Observer. “It doesn't happen naturally. It has to be nurtured.”