Fluent in Floridian

As Florida House Executive Director, Diana Beckmann and her team have worked tirelessly to help the nation's only state embassy reach its fullest potential. By elevating the space and collaborating with partners on visitor and staff experience, Beckmann is bringing a true sense of rejuvenation to this historic building on Capitol Hill while staying true to its objective of connecting, celebrating...

Holly Bell, Florida's first director of cannabis, is focused on leading the state's new medical marijuana and hemp programs. More than two dozen people applied for the position, however, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Nikki Fried said Bell was the person "to get it right" on implementing a state hemp program. For the past year, the former banker has been developing the prog...

Fines and Fees Justice Center Florida State Director Ashley Thomas is a trailblazer for change with a passion for policy reform. She's working hard to advance state and local campaigns to reform the imposition and collection of fines and fees in Florida, specifically dealing with driver's license suspensions due to unpaid court debt. Tune in to hear how fines and fees are addressed in the justice...

Today, more than 22.7% of children in Florida live in "food insecure" homes. No Kid Hungry Florida is working to eradicate this statistic for good by providing innovative hunger solutions to communities across the Sunshine State. The organization recently hired long-time child advocate Sky Beard as its new Florida Director. She's using her experience and connections to create partnerships and new...

Flagler College President Dr. Joseph Joyner is a third-generation educator and his passion for the classroom has been the guiding force of his career. From Florida State University football player to teacher to superintendent of St. Johns County School District, Dr. Joyner's work and leadership has been recognized many times over for its commitment to students. Now, Dr. Joyner enjoys serving as a...

NASCAR fans, this one's for you. This week on Fluent in Floridian, Daytona International Speedway Corporation & NASCAR Southeastern Region President Frank Kelleher (formerly vice president of sales and marketing) takes the driver's seat to share what life is like working for one of the largest motorsports corporations in the world. From the high-energy, epic sporting event of the Daytona 500 (the...

Growing up in Tampa as a young girl, Susan Glickman had a childhood that created a heart for advocacy. As a child, she saw her father open one of the few desegregated dentist offices in Tampa. As a young Jewish woman, she attended Episcopal and Catholic private schools. Early in her career, she helped her brother successfully run for Hillsborough County Commissioner. Now, as a seasoned environment...

At 75 years young, Dr. Norman E. Thagard is a Floridian whose work has been immortalized in history books. While he jokes about being a foot-note on Sally Ride's first trip to space, Dr. Thagard has had a long and illustrious career as a doctor, pilot, engineer, astronaut and first American Cosmonaut. A two-time graduate of Florida State University, Dr. Thagard exemplifies a lifelong commitment to...

Florida Polytechnic University President Dr. Randy Avent embodies what it means to bring application to education. A longtime researcher, Dr. Avent has led the university to go all in on STEM studies. When students aren't in the classroom or library working hard, they're likely to find Dr. Avent enjoying the beautiful campus, taking part in ping pong tournaments or attending the annual integral be...

Albert Einstein famously said, "we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Thinking differently has never been a problem for Chris Castro, the Director of Sustainability for the City of Orlando and a self-proclaimed 'ecopreneur,' who has made it his mission to catalyze change through organizations such as IDEAS for US, Fleet Farming and Citizen Energy. The U...

Mac Stipanovich is known throughout Florida as a Republican cognoscente, so when he penned an open letter to his fellow Republicans in 2016 imploring them to vote for Hillary Clinton, it came as somewhat of a shock. Now he's left the Republican party completely. He explains why in the latest episode of Fluent in Floridian. Mac sits down with SalterMitchell PR President Heidi Otway to discuss the s...

The fastest growing sector in the United States job market isn't technology or real estate. It's marijuana. Christian Bax, former director of Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use, sits down with SalterMitchell PR President Heidi Otway. In their conversation, they discuss the growth of Florida's medical cannabis industry from zero patients to over 250,000 in two years, the takeaways that Flori...

Dr. Larry Robinson has been a steadfast presence at Florida A&M University since joining the faculty as a visiting professor in 1997. A nuclear chemist and researcher by trade, Dr. Robinson went on to serve as interim president at FAMU on three separate occasions. In 2017, he was finally named the 12th president of Florida's only historically black public university. The strengthened relationship...

One of three U.S. Attorneys for the state of Florida, Larry Keefe has spent his life setting and achieving his goals as the result of hard work and great mentorship. On the newest episode of Fluent in Floridian, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Larry Keefe talks to SalterMitchell PR CEO April Salter about his career, his mentors, and how he progressed from the Levin College of La...

"The future 100 years of Southeast Florida will be about managing the water relevant to the land, building vertically, and connecting them with elevated transportation systems." This week on Fluent in Floridian, SalterMitchell PR President, Heidi Otway, sits down with Jim Murley, the Chief Resilience Officer for Miami-Dade County to talk about the ways Southeast Florida is going to have to adapt t...