ONWARD! The Best is Yet to Come for Tampa and Hillsborough County
October 30, 2020
Yesterday afternoon we hosted our 2020 Annual Meeting virtually with a livestream presentation. Definitely not the preferred format – with hundreds of us mingling and reconnecting in person at The Straz – but it was exciting nonetheless. The Tampa Bay EDC had an excellent year thanks to the support of our Investors, community, and businesses that firmly believe that Tampa is the best place for their future growth.
As you will read in the recap in this edition of the newsletter, the Tampa Bay EDC secured 20 new projects in FY2020 that yielded a total of 2,620 new jobs and a whopping $595 million in capital investment. Many of these jobs are being filled virtually right now – a testament to our business community’s ability to swiftly adapt to our new reality and keep our economy moving forward. It’s that kind of resilience that is going to propel Hillsborough County forward, help us recover quickly, and keep us competitive.
My thanks go to everyone who purchased a ticket to see the show. I hope you enjoyed it and found it worth your while to tune in. We appreciate your support and interest.
To our Annual Meeting Sponsors and Investors – we could not host this program or do what we do without you, and we are so grateful.
My heartfelt thanks and deepest appreciation go to our FY2020 Chair, Marie Chinnici-Everitt of DTCC. Marie’s steady leadership, her unflappable nature, and her vision for guiding us through the kind of uncertainty we’ve never faced before was remarkable. I could not have asked for more capable leaders this year than Marie, our Vice Chair Jim Weiss of Fifth Third Bank; our Secretary/Treasurer, James Nozar of SPP; and our General Counsel, David Weinstein of Greenberg Traurig. The EDC is in a very good place thanks to them.
I am looking toward FY2021 with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for our future. We are strong and resilient, and we’ve got some exciting projects in the pipeline that prove our region’s momentum. Welcome to our new Chair, Jim Weiss; our new Vice Chair, James Nozar; our new Secretary/Treasurer, Angel Gonzalez of CenterState Bank; and our new General Counsel, Ron Christaldi of Shumaker. You are the perfect leadership team to guide us this year. Onward!
Craig
