Erika Nikla Quartermaine, 37

Erika Quartermaine received the call of a lifetime for an lawyer in late 2013, when Florida Gov. Rick Scott was on the other line.

Scott told Quartermaine she had been appointed to serve as a judge for a vacant seat in Sarasota County. A Sarasota native, Quartermaine beat out more than 30 applicants. “At first I thought it was a prank call,” Quartermaine told the Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer, in November 2013. “After I got off the phone, I asked myself, ‘Did that really happen? Is that for real?’”