Jimmy Patronis
Florida Chief Financial Officer
Jimmy Patronis is a native Floridian born and raised in Panama City. He earned his associate degree in restaurant management from Gulf Coast Community College and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida State University. He is a partner in a family-owned seafood restaurant called Captain Anderson’s that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017. His public service career began with experience as an intern in the Florida Senate and the United Kingdom’s House of Commons. Following Patronis' college graduation, Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him to the Florida Elections Commission, and he was later reappointed by Governor Jeb Bush.
He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2014, representing his hometown region in the Florida Panhandle. He was appointed to serve on Florida’s Public Service Commission, as well as the Constitution Revision Commission, which meets once every twenty years to propose changes to the state constitution.
Florida's CFO oversees the state's accounting and auditing functions and unclaimed property, monitors the investment of state funds and manages the deferred compensation program and risk management program for the state
Insurance consumer service is handled by the CFO, and the office is responsible for the licensing and oversight of insurance agents and agencies, as well as funeral homes and cemeteries.
Insurance fraud investigation also is overseen by the CFO, as well as ensuring businesses have workers' compensation coverage in place for employees and helping injured workers with benefit payments and re-employment.
Dane Eagle
Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Secretary
Dane Eagle was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to serve as Florida’s Secretary of Economic Opportunity in September 2020. In this role, Secretary Eagle assists the Governor in advancing Florida’s economy by championing the state’s economic development vision and by administering state and federal programs and initiatives to help visitors, citizens, businesses, and communities.
Previously, Secretary Eagle represented parts of Southwest Florida in the Florida House of Representatives from 2012 to 2020 and rose to the rank of Majority Leader, where he was responsible for leading the Republican Caucus and ushering legislation to the Governor’s desk. Secretary Eagle focused on supporting Florida’s families and small businesses by reducing taxes and regulations to further establish Florida’s business-friendly environment and further diversify Florida’s economy. During his tenure in the House, Secretary Eagle also served as the Majority Whip and the Chairman of the House Energy and Utilities Subcommittee.
Before being elected to serve in the Florida House of Representatives, Secretary Eagle served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Executive Office of the Governor from 2008 to 2009. In the private sector, Secretary Eagle has two decades of experience in real estate, most recently as a commercial real estate broker providing investment strategy, consulting, and sales and leasing services in the Southwest Florida market.
Secretary Eagle was born and raised in Southwest Florida and earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Business Administration at the University of Florida. Secretary Eagle and his wife, Brooke, enjoy spending time with their son and exploring the treasures of the Sunshine State.
Noah Valenstein
Former Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary
Noah Valenstein is a founding partner in the consulting firm Brightwater Strategies Group, PLLC, where he provides strategic guidance, lobbying, and external affairs services to both the non-profit and private sectors. Noah’s years of service in high profile public positions, as well as serving clients in the private sector, provide him with a unique perspective to assist clients in Florida. His work with national environmental associations, strong Washington D.C. relationships, and past leadership positions on the United States Coral Reef Task Force, the United States Everglades Task Force, and the Environmental Council of the States, allow him to advise national and international clients as well.
Prior to rejoining Brightwater Strategies, Noah served as both the Secretary for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the state’s Chief Resilience Officer. Appointed in 2017, Noah was the first DEP secretary to serve two consecutive governors. He was unanimously confirmed by Florida’s bipartisan Cabinet, illustrating the respect he has earned from both sides of the aisle. During his tenure as secretary of DEP, Noah worked to champion and advocate for water quality improvements, Everglades and springs restoration, coastal resiliency and conservation of Florida’s prized properties. With Governor DeSantis’ leadership, Noah aided efforts to secure record funding from the Florida Legislature for Everglades restoration and protection of water resources as part of the largest environmental budget in the state’s history. He also worked to ensure the unanimous support and passage of the Clean Waterways Act.
As only the second Chief Resilience Officer in Florida’s history, Noah led the creation of the Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection at DEP, the development of the agency’s resilience grant program, and assisted with securing record funding for climate change and resilience initiatives in Florida.
Prior to his service as Secretary, Noah cultivated more than 15 years of public service experience, beginning by working closely with both the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate. Later, working in the Executive Office of the Governor, Noah was responsible for building successful platforms for multiple environmental initiatives. He then served as executive director of the Suwannee River Water Management District, where he oversaw the protection and conservation of water and land resources across 15 counties. During Noah’s time serving the state’s legislative and executive branches, he aided former Speaker of the House Marco Rubio and former Governor Rick Scott, both of whom are now sitting U.S. senators.
L.K. Nandam
Florida Department of Transportation Secretary
L. K. Nandam, P.E. is the District Secretary for District One of the Florida Department of Transportation. He has over twenty-two years experience in the transportation industry in both the private and public sector. He has a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering from Andhra University, India and a Masters of Science in Transportation Engineering from Wayne State University.
Prior to becoming the District Secretary, he has served as the Director of Operations and District Traffic Operations Engineer at the Florida Department of Transportation. He has previously served as the Traffic Operations Engineer with the City of Boca Raton and as a Sr. Transportation Engineer with a private sector engineering firm.
He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Florida. He is the statewide Pedestrian/Bicycle Coalition Safety Champion. He is passionate about safety and making a difference for our communities.
Victor Dover
Dover, Kohl & Partners
Victor Dover is principal-in-charge at Dover Kohl & Partners, a town planning and urban design practice based in Coral Gables, Florida. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech and Master of Architecture degree from the Town & Suburb Design Program at the University of Miami. Along with his partner Joseph Kohl, Mr. Dover’s practice focuses on the creation and restoration of real neighborhoods as the basis for sound communities. Mr. Dover lectures widely around the USA and elsewhere on the topics of livable communities and sustainable development.
Mr. Dover was cited by Architecture magazine as being among “the country’s best urban designers and architects.” Work by Dover & Kohl has been published in Southern Living, Urban Land, Metropolitan Home, and featured on HGTV, National Public Radio, CNN’s Earthwatch, and in BusinessWeek magazine. Their projects are also profiled in a number of planning textbooks, including The New Urbanism by Peter Katz, Community by Design by Kenneth Hall, and Sustainable Urbanism by Doug Farr.
Victor Dover is a board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and the founding chair of the CNU Florida Chapter, the first of its kind. He also helped found the Form-Based Codes Institute and the National Charrette Institute, both leading think tanks. He is credentialed by the American Institute of Certified Planners, and serves on the core committee setting green urbanism certification standards for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development rating system (LEED-ND).
Matt Simmons
Maxwell, Hendry & Simmons LLC
Matt is a native of Southwest Florida and a graduate of the Lutgert College of Business at Florida Gulf Coast University. He joined the appraisal profession in 2003 and joined Maxwell & Hendry Valuation Services in 2005 serving as the residential division manager until becoming a partner in the firm in 2013. Maxwell, Hendry & Simmons provides appraisal and consulting services for commercial and residential real estate in the 5-county region (Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades, and Hendry).
Matt’s individual practice includes forensic valuation work for eminent domain, zoning matters, family law, foreclosure/deficiency actions, bankruptcy, VAB appeals, and general civil litigation. He leads the firms’ efforts in specialized studies, including Value Impact Studies and Economic Impact Studies. Matt also manages the day-to-day commercial valuation service functions of the firm.
Matt is a Past-President of the Real Estate Investment Society, is an FHA/HUD approved appraiser, and has served as a guest lecturer at Florida Gulf Coast University for several years. Matt is qualified as an expert witness in Florida District Court: 20th and 7th Judicial Circuits, and in U.S. District Court: Middle District of Florida, as well as several jurisdictions out of state. He has also been recognized as an expert on value and economic impact issues in cases involving zoning and land use changes in several Florida communities. He is a licensed broker and consults commercial and residential investors in income-producing acquisitions. In 2012, Matt was appointed by Governor Rick Scott to serve on the Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board. He is the youngest appointee in the history of FREAB and served as the 2014 Chairman. During his term of service he focused on issues of license enforcement and rule-making associated with the Administrative Code applicable to real estate appraisers, instructors, and appraisal management companies.
Danville Leadbetter
Soltura Development Group
Danville is the co-founder of the Soltura Development Group, LLC (SDG). Danville formed the company with Arron Simon in 2020 to develop rental home communities in Southwest Florida with a goal to offer a single-family experience within an apartment setting at an apartment price. Currently, SDG has more than 625 units under various stages of construction and development within Lee County. Danville is also involved in many different local charity organizations and has been on the board of SWFLinc for more than 3 years.
Justin Thibaut
LSI Companies
Justin Thibaut is the President and CEO of LSI Companies. He is a graduate of the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Construction Management and joined LSI after a successful career in the Nuclear Power and Petroleum Industries, where he held positions in project engineering, construction, and business management of major capital projects valued from $500 million to $1 billion.
Specializing in real estate analysis and acquisition/disposition of commercial real estate, Justin is also well versed in all stages of land development and vertical construction. In addition, he is effective and experienced in complex RE transactions including 1031 exchanges, income-producing investment sales, and developer/homebuilder-developed lot programs. Justin spends his free time enjoying the outdoors and Southwest Florida waterways with his wife and daughter.
Lucienne Pears
Kitson & Partners
Since 2002, Lucienne has been a resident of the Gulf Coast of Florida. After spending nearly a decade as a consultant with civil engineering firms in land use entitlement, construction, acquisition, and development projects, Lucienne launched her Economic Development career in Marion County, creating the office of Sustainable Growth. In 2010, Lucienne was recruited back to the Gulf Coast in to work in the Charlotte County Economic Development Office. In January 2016, Lucienne took the helm as Director, reporting directly to the Board of County Commissioners.
During her years in Charlotte County’s EDO, Lucienne was recognized twice (2017 & 2018) as one of the Top 50 Economic Developers in North America by Consultant Connect, a consortium of site selection consultants, economic developers, and industry CEOs. She has also been honored as a Person to Watch by Florida Trend magazine. Under Lucienne’s leadership, the EDO secured several key-commitments: the sale of Murdock Village, over $2 billion in capital investment in Charlotte County, and over $3.2 million in grant funding for infrastructure improvements to support economic development. In addition, during her tenure, the EDO received numerous awards from the FEDC, SEDC and IEDC for innovation in economic development, marketing, and strategy.
Lucienne’s notable accomplishments and community involvement caught the eye of real estate developer Kitson & Partners, who had recently launched an 18,000-acre project to build America’s first sustainable city. In January 2019, Lucienne was invited to join Kitson & Partners at Babcock Ranch as the VP of Economic and Business Development. In the short time that Lucienne has been a part of Babcock Ranch, she has led the team that secured $8 million in State funding for the construction of a Southwest Florida Regional Emergency Shelter and athletic field house.
Lucienne attended Salisbury University on Maryland’s eastern shore and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Geography with a concentration in Urban and Regional Planning.
Dr. John Meyer
Hodges University
Dr. John Meyer was named the fifth president of Hodges University in December 2017. In his more than 20 years of public and private education experience, he has served as a professor, chair, dean and an executive vice president of academic affairs. He’s positioning Hodges University to provide workforce-credentialed programs for career laddering by investing more into Hodges University and the communities it serves.
In 2020, he led the multi-million dollar renovation of Building U on the Fort Myers campus, now a modern Health Sciences Building that has state of the art labs and classrooms for nursing, EMS, Physical Therapist Assistant and dental programs. He also formed an alliance with Goodwill of SWFL to further increase accessibility of workforce training opportunities by bringing instruction into the communities. The first three sites, located within Goodwill stores in Bonita Springs, Lehigh Acres and Port Charlotte, have opened to offer classes and workshops that provide workers with the skills and knowledge needed for their career goals.
His business expertise includes managerial consulting, owning and operating private automotive ventures, and conducting corporate trainings Dr. Meyer earned his management DBA from Argosy University. He is a two-time graduate of Hodges University, earning his Master’s in Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in accounting.
Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Gravina, Smith, Matte & Arnold Marketing and Public Relations
Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster is an award-winning political reporter turned public affairs professional, who currently serves as the public affairs director at Gravina, Smith, Matte & Arnold Marketing and Public Relations. Prior to joining GSMA, she served as the director of government relations at the Greater Naples Chamber. There, she helped advance the chamber’s governmental and legislative priorities at the city, county and state levels. She also managed the successful One Collier campaign, which, in 2018, supported the passage of a one-cent infrastructure sales surtax in Collier County.
Jenna graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a degree in journalism. After college, she spent more than a decade covering local and state government and politics, for the Naples Daily News and then Florida Politics.
Jenna currently serves as the board secretary and a founding board member of the Collier County Community Land Trust and is a member of the Women’s Foundation of Collier County Board of Directors. In 2020, she was named a 40 Under 40 honoree by Gulfshore Business.
Josh Goergen
SWFL Inc.
Josh Goergen is the Government Relations Manager for SWFL Inc., a regional chamber of commerce serving businesses in Charlotte, Collier, and Lee County. Prior to his current role, Josh was a legislative assistant to Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto and Senator Ray Rodrigues for 3 years. His professional interests include policy development, economic development, advocacy, and lobbying. In his work at SWFL Inc., Josh focuses on workforce housing, water quality, and talent development. Josh received his B.S. in Economics at Florida State University and his M.B.A. at Florida Gulf Coast University. He is a proud 5th generation Floridian and enjoys spending time outdoors whether it is fishing or boating.
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State of the Region will feature speakers, panelists, and experts from across Florida to discuss the trends, economics, and policies that have a direct impact on the Southwest Florida community.
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