- March 14, 2025
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The past few years have been pivotal for former Florida Senate Pres. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and his friend Tom Pepin, the 72-year-old former CEO of Tampa-based Pepin Distributing Co.
Lee left office in 2020 with two years left on his term, knowing he wanted to dedicate more time to his family but unsure of his next move. Pepin sold his family’s beer, wine and beverage distribution business to Maryland-based Redwood Capital in 2021 and has had a mind to put the $300 million in proceeds to work for generations to come. Over the past few years, Lee, with a background in homebuilding and real estate development, acted in a consulting capacity and he recently stepped in as CEO of the newly formed Pepin Family Office.
“Over time, he approached to ask me to take on a bigger role. I thought it was a good fit for where I found myself at this stage in my life, so it all kind of happened organically,” says Lee, age 63.
From 1998-2000, Lee, in his first of two separate stints in Legislature's upper house, chaired the Senate Regulated Industries Committee, which had jurisdiction over the sale of alcoholic beverages. In 1965, Florida passed legislation limiting the sale of beer to eight, 12, 16 and 32 ounces. As craft beer began emerging in popularity, many products from outside the state and country didn’t conform to those standards, and Lee began hearing from industry leaders. It was during this time he got to know Pepin, although they’d met elsewhere, whose company held the Tampa marketplace for Anheuser-Busch distribution since its 1967 founding by Pepin’s father, Art Pepin.
“He is just a genuine gentleman, you know, with such high values,” Pepin says.
Lee’s commitment to his values are what brought him to resign from the senate in 2020 — even though he wasn't term-limited yet. “I did two tours of duty in the Senate, I call it. My second one wasn't as fun as the first one, just because the group think had sort of taken over and and there wasn't a lot of room anymore for independent perspectives or, you know, a lot of decisions,” Lee says. “The process had become very centralized, so everybody was expected to wait for the governor to issue his edict, and then everybody would roll over and vote for it.”
Like many, he also had a COVID-era epiphany of wanting to prioritize his family. Although he stepped away and didn’t seek to run for local office in 2024 as many speculated, the Lee family is not removed from politics. His wife, Laurel Lee, was serving as Florida’s secretary of state when he left the senate and she is now serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 15th congressional district, which covers northeastern suburbs of Tampa. “You never get out of politics for good,” Lee says.
Now Tom Lee is redirecting his professional values in his new role. “We’re trying to get in business with quality people who have a good reputation in our community, and to stay away from things that don't have a social purpose,” Lee explains, “We try to stay away from things that, regardless of the return, we wouldn't be proud to have on our balance sheet if it was a public document.”
Some of those social purposes are in line with the focus of the Pepin Family Foundation, which is run by Pepin’s daughter, Executive Director Tina Pepin. The foundation’s mission emphasizes mental health care for first responders, educating the next generation through Pepin Academies and cardiovascular health. Beyond that, Pepin has an environmental, sustainability and governance or ‘ESG’ focus, noting his interest in coral regeneration and salmon farming that doesn’t incorporate use of steroids or antibiotics. “The family office is just a conduit to continue our corporate citizenship. And, you know, we want to continue with businesses that benefit the Tampa Bay community,” Pepin says.
“We're constantly looking at the macroeconomics of our economic environment, the geopolitical risks, and trying to assess, you know, what is the right way to balance a portfolio in the current political and economic climate we're operating in?” Lee adds, “But we get all these deals that come in to us from time to time, and we have to try to sort through them and figure out, are any of these things going to be successful? Are they going to be a good fit for our investment philosophy?”
For Pepin, he’s enjoying the learning curve. “In any exit strategy, you need to invest your proceeds so that you can continue being productive. So I have been learning new businesses. The tough part was, for 45 years, I stayed in my lane. I knew one business, and I did it very well, but now I have to learn all the nuances of all the other businesses,” he says.
Thus far, he has dipped his toes into equity deals involving multifamily housing, office space and storage facilities.
Both men are future focused on Tampa Bay.
That includes politics. Locally, for example, Lee sees the strain on infrastructure. “I think we've grown too fast. I think we have stripped local governments of the tools that they need to regulate growth on occasion, and our infrastructure has not kept pace with our growth, so we've seen a deterioration in our quality of life brought about organically by our infrastructure being overtaxed,” Lee says, “It was always more important to me to get it right than get it done fast and that comes from, you know, shockingly, comes from a guy who was a homebuilder and real estate developer.” (Lee served in leadership roles at Sabal Homes and Lithia Properties for decades, both of which he stepped away from as he prepared for his next chapter.)
On a larger scale, “ I think the most pressing problem facing America today is health care and how to deliver quality health care that meets the standard of care we've come to expect as Americans without breaking the piggy bank,” Lee says.
Whatever the future holds, Pepin has a great deal of confidence in the vision Lee brings. “He stands for what I stand for," Pepin says, "and we make a good team. And he's got the business savvy, you know, knowledge of the market and the compassion for his fellow man, and those enduring values just remind me and know why I admire my father so much, because that's the way my dad was.”
