The Economic Club of Florida podcast
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Since 1977, The Economic Club of Florida has become one of the South’s most important forums for distinguished speakers on major issues of the day. The Club provides a platform for discussion to educate, engage, and empower citizens on important economic, political, and social issues. Major topics include the economy, business, investment, politics, public policy, government, education, entrepreneurship, healthcare, defense, space, and sports. New podcast episodes are published monthly. To learn more, including how to become a member, visit www.Economic-Club.com
Episode results
The Economic Club of Florida podcast
Aug 24, 2023
Episode 47: Name Image Likeness Panel Discussion
“What’s in a Name? Perspectives on Name, Image, and Likeness” A panel that includes a student athlete, a lawyer, and a sports agent shares the evolving rules allowing college athletes to be paid by marketing their name, image, and likeness, before a July 27, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.
Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)
Previous to an NCAA rule change in 2021, student athletes were not able to profit or receive compensation for their participation in collegiate sports. Today, they are allowed to do so through product endorsements, autograph signings, and social media posts under name, image, and likeness (NIL) laws and regulations. Florida recently amended its NIL law, removing restrictions that prohibited schools from facilitating NIL deals and now allowing compensation from booster clubs and other third parties affiliated with an athlete’s school.
While technically not being paid to play, “somewhat like the pro athletes, they’re able to be entrepreneurial and benefit and provide support for themselves and earn some income as they go through college,” said Hugh Tomlinson, Director of Development and Gift Planning for the Florida State University Seminole Boosters Club. He moderated the panel discussion that included a college athlete, a sports agent, a lawyer, and the head of an NIL “collective” that helps put together these deals.
“A collective pools resources in a given community to maximize a student athlete’s exposure. Otherwise, you would end up with the athletes all kind of fending for themselves,” said Will Cowen, Chief Operating Officer of Rising Spear, based in Tallahassee, Florida. Rising Spear is a third-party NIL collective that develops NIL opportunities for FSU student athletes and collects donations from donors. “Collectively we can raise more money and we’ve done over 1,500 hours of athletes giving back to the community,” he said. The donations are tax deductible and can be allocated per sport. Collectives also work with local businesses to solicit NIL deals.
Will Hall, an attorney at the Dean Mead law firm, serves as outside counsel to Rising Spear and explained that collectives come in two varieties: nonprofit and for-profit. “The NIL rules require athletes spend a portion of their time in community service. What Rising Spear Garnet does is buy that time and essentially donate it to the local schools and the Boys and Girls Club. On the for-profit side, Rising Spear Gold harnesses opportunities for local businesses, especially for those athletes who may not be able to afford to have a sports agent,” said Hall.
One of those athletes is Michaela Edenfield, catcher for the FSU Seminoles Softball team. The team most recently went all the way to the 2023 Women's College World Series championship finals.
“I'll never make a living from softball, but I can have softball help me make a living. And I think the idea of that has been able to change and grow due to NIL,” said the incoming junior, who has amassed a social media following for her makeup tutorials. “NIL has definitely been able to help me provide for myself and pay for my education here alongside of my softball scholarship,” which she noted is among the sports that don’t offer full scholarships. The Sneads, Florida native is majoring in Business with the dream of becoming a media marketing manager for either a sports team or sportswear company.
Ben Chase, Director of NIL Strategy for the University of Florida, acknowledged the....
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The Economic Club of Florida podcast
Sep 11, 2023
Episode 48: It All Starts with Dredging
“It All Starts with Dredging” Lasse Petterson, President and CEO of Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company outlines the economic impact of its Florida port deepening and beach restoration projects and why the company is diversifying to offshore wind projects, before an August 24, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.
Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)
The Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company is the largest provider of dredging services in the country and the only U.S. company with significant international dredging operations. It’s also responsible for many of the major beach restoration and dredging projects in Florida. Some of the biggest construction projects in the Sunshine State wouldn’t have happened without dredging.
“It all starts with dredging because we find that every major deepening project has an economic impact that occurs of a magnitude greater than estimated,” said Lasse Petterson, the company’s President and CEO. He said port and shipping channel deepening typically average a 7-to-1 or 8-to-1 benefit to cost ratio in federal spending, but are actually much higher when you take into account supply chain benefits “because the ports and the shippers always find more innovative and inventive ways of utilizing that deeper channel and port.” Deepening the ports allows larger vessels access, bringing in more goods.
Likewise he said for beach renourishment projects, noting “there’s nothing more important to Florida than its beaches.” Although the benefit to cost ratio for beach projects is lower at 4-to-1, “the feds are not allowed to include recreational or tourism benefits in their calculations. We have heard presentations that estimated it in the range of 20-to-1.
Among the company’s significant Florida projects have been a large deepening of Port Miami, another one at the Jacksonville port, and a third at the Tampa port that was finished ahead of time and under budget. There are ongoing beach restoration projects in Boca Raton and Panama City. “And we are doing the maintenance work in the Tampa Harbor while we are rebuilding the beach on Egmont Key with the material that is dug out of the harbor channel,” Petterson said.
The company was one of the first to utilize advanced methods for beach renourishment in South Florida to replace the old method of rebuilding eroded beaches with chunks of old concrete and other debris. Along the way, the company has become increasingly eco-conscious with marine wildlife. They have special precautions in place to protect wayward sea turtles during dredging operations and have partnered with the Florida Aquarium to help grow coral.
The company employs more than 1,000 dedicated engineering, operations, and support personnel. It has a rich 129-year history of developing and executing successful dredging and marine construction projects, operating the largest and most diverse dredging fleet in the U.S. comprised of over 200 specialized vessels. It is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange with annual revenue that ranges between $650 million to $750 million. Its operations, in part, are funded by hundreds of millions of dollars of federal and state taxpayer money.
Petterson said that it’s part of that reliance on government money that...
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The Economic Club of Florida podcast
Jul 6, 2023
Episode 46: Florida Chamber Leadership Council President Katie Yeutter
“Making Florida the Safest, Healthiest, and Sustainable State in America” Katie Yeutter, President of the Florida Chamber Leadership Cabinet and its Safety Council outlines a new effort to improve mental health and substance abuse issues in the workplace and beyond, before a June 6, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.
Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)
Katie Yeutter leads the team that created the Florida Chamber Leadership Cabinet on Safety, Health, and Sustainability, which consists of global leaders who practice in these three areas. The Safety Council focuses on tactical safety training and compliance, the Health Council addresses long-term systemic issues such as mental well-being and preventative health programs, and the Sustainability Council focuses on cleaner air, water, and land. One goal is to make Florida one of the top five states in the nation for well-being.
Yeutter said that despite opioid prescription rates being at an all-time low, unintentional drug overdoses are on a dramatic upswing, many happening in the workplace. In addition, one in five US adults experience mental illness, with depression and anxiety disorders costing the global economy a trillion dollars each year in lost productivity.
“So if we're going to accomplish being the safest, we can go into organizations, we can teach OSHA, we can teach training…but if we don't address the long term systemic issues of mental well-being, opioids, and preventative health programs, we can never get to safest,” Yeutter said.
Florida, she said, ranks 49th in the US for access to mental health care, with 1,343 Floridians currently waiting for help. She also cited new Census Bureau household pulse surveys, conducted annually since the COVID pandemic. “If 59% of Floridians are feeling nervous, anxious or on the edge, those are individuals that make up our workforce. They're coming into our organizations and we're expecting them to have high productivity, be good members of the team focused on what they're doing, and most importantly keeping themselves safe and keeping their team members safe at the same time,” she said.
Yeutter told the Club that an estimated 1.4 million Florida adults have a major depressive disorder (MDD) causing them to miss almost seven days more work than other employees. “Depression interferes with a person's ability to complete a physical job task about 20% of the time and reduces cognitive performance about 35% of the time,” she explained. Addressing that workforce gap created by MDD could potentially add the equivalent of 89,000 full-time employees back into the workforce.
Although workplace fatalities continue to decrease in Florida (42nd in the US), the state ranks 32nd for lost time, non-fatal workers’ compensation insurance claims, resulting in an estimated GDP loss of $293 million in 2021. Furthermore, 13% of workers do not return to work after a lost time injury, leading to even higher costs. Florida reported 52,852 non-COVID worker comp claims in 2022, with an average cost per claim higher than the US median.
(You can also view the entire Club meeting on YouTube.)
Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Florida Chamber Leadership Cabinet on Safety, Health, and Sustainability
Katie Yeutter Biography
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Economic Club of Minnesota
Apr 22, 2019
His Excellency Ron Dermer, Israel's Ambassador to the United States
Ron Dermer was born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida. He earned a degree in Finance and Management from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford University. For three years, he was a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
In 2004, Ron co-authored with Natan Sharansky the best-selling book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which has been translated into ten languages. From 2005-2008, Ron served as Israel's Minister of Economic Affairs in the United States. From 2009-2013, he served as Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He became Israel’s 18th Ambassador to the United States on September 30th, 2013.
He is married to Rhoda and has five children.
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Economic Club of Minnesota
Nov 9, 2019
Col. Robert Cabana - Director of the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center
Robert D. Cabana is a former NASA astronaut, currently serving as director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In his current role, Cabana manages all NASA facilities and activities at the spaceport, including the team of civil service and contractor employees who operate and support numerous space programs and projects. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Cabana graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and completed Naval Flight Officer training in Pensacola in 1972. Cabana then served as an A-6 bombardier/navigator with Marine Air Wings in Cherry Point, North Carolina, and Iwakuni, Japan.
Returning to Pensacola in 1975, Cabana began pilot training and was designated a naval aviator in September of 1976, earning the Daughters of the American Revolution award as the top Marine to complete flight training that year. He graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval…
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