Flitches & Futtocks - A Roundup of News Items from the Florida Maritime Leadership Coalition
- By FMLC Staff
First Regional Maritime Economic Summit to be held this week: We at the Florida Maritime Leadership Coalition eagerly anticipate this week's economic summit being convened by Florida State Representative Lake Ray. In addition to his job representing portions of Duval County in the Florida Legislature, Rep. Ray also is a marine engineer with Halcrow. As such he has strong understanding of the importance of Florida's seaport system to the state's economy and the critical need to update port infrastructure to prepare for the imminent opening of the Panama Canal. His goal for the regional summit and three more that are being planned around the state, is to foster an understanding of these critical issues with fellow policymakers and opinion leaders to rally state lawmakers for increased state support of port infrastructure needs. This is precisely the mission of the Florida Maritime Leadership Coalition and we appreciate Rep. Ray including us in helping to plan these conferences.
The first Summit will be held this Tuesday, August 18th, at the Jaxport cruise terminal. For more information, please contact the representative's district office at (904) 723-5300 or write lake.ray@myfloridahouse.gov.
South Florida ports aren't experiencing the economic upturn being felt by the rest of the nation's ports: An article from the Miami Herald that may be accessed through this edition of the newsletter, reports that the Commerce Department is seeing increased imports and exports at all of the nation's cargo ports except those in South Florida.
In the same manner that Florida's recession lagged the rest of the nation, economists expect Florida's recovery to also lag. We should see these numbers being to improve as Florida's economy slowly turns around, but there are significant caveats. It has become clear that Florida's economy can no longer be predominately dependent upon tourism and new home construction. Economic activity at Florida's cargo ports has long been driven by the need to import consumable products to support these industries. Yet the population of Florida is declining for the first time in modern history and a housing glut will keep new home construction depressed.
Florida's seaports can play an important part in helping to reinvent Florida's economy. The opportunity offered to entrepreneurs to inexpensively ship products to foreign markets is an asset not always appreciated. The state may best support this activity by investing in intermodal transportation and education. The fertile soil of an efficient transportation system combined with an educated workforce will grow Florida's economy through the new century.
Speaking of education: We love both the maritime studies initiative and the teacher internships sponsored by the Technological Research and Development Authority, underway at the Port of Tampa. Fostering an understanding at the high school and college level of the challenging technical careers available in the maritime industry can only help to drive innovation and economic growth around Florida's seaports. Not to mention some of the out-moded stereotypes associated with jobs on the waterfront.
FMLC Chairman Stan Payne profile: We recommend the Orlando Business Journal's profile of Port Canaveral Director J. Stanley Payne and not only because he is chairman of the FMLC Board of Directors. He's also a pretty interesting guy who's doing great things for the port.
Website update: You may have noticed that the news articles posted on our website have not been updated for a few weeks. We apologize. We are hoping that soon our website will feature a RSS newsfeed that will be updated daily. We are now feature press releases submitted by our members in our news section, which you also will be able to receive via an RSS feed. To take advantage of the ability to post news releases and have them featured in our weekly newsletter and immediately broadcasted on our RSS feed, you must be a member of the Florida Maritime Leadership Coalition. You can join on-line, or if you'd rather be invoiced, just drop us an e-mail and we'll be happy to send one. We will shortly have a downloaded form that you can print out and send in with your membership fee.
We appreciate your patience with our growing pains. The FMLC came together quickly at the beginning of 2009 to have a voice in the 2009 Florida Legislative Session. Since then we've been constantly tinkering with our mission, structure and tools to best meet the needs of the state's maritime industry without duplicating functions and services available from other long-standing state and local organizations. Our goal is to be a partner and not a competitor.
Seaport Security update: The FMLC's first intiative was to fight at the legislative level for elimination of Florida's duplicative worker security identification laws. While we did not eliminate the separate requirement, we gained some valuable understanding and relief from lawmaker and state law enforcement. Currently the seaports are working individually with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to implement the changes to the law. There is a new spirit of cooperation between the ports and the FDLE and we commend FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey and his staff for their appreciation of the delect balance between security and commerce.
Flitches & Futtocks - some of the bits and pieces that make up the ship - is the newsletter of the Florida Maritime Leadership Coalition, featuring a mostly weekly roundup of all of the maritime-related news of Florida. Taken as a whole, this compilation of news articles illustrates the vital importance of Florida's seaports and international trade to Florida's economy, and some of the challenges faced in continuing to fuel this economic engine.
If your interest in this newsletter (and our website www.floridamaritimeleaders.com) is because your livelihood depends in whole or in part on the maritime industry, we hope that an increased awareness of these issues will lead you to be active in the coalition. We consider anyone who subscribes to the site to be a member of a coalition, but you can support our continued work by becoming a financial contributor through visiting the membership page of our website. Financial membership provides you with special discounts to FMLC-sponsored events, the ability to feature your product our services on our website, and other benefits.
You may also get more involved by becoming an active member of our electronic advocacy network "Make Waves," which you can link to from our home page. We currently have no active campaign underway, because legislation for the 2010 Florida Legislative Session is just beginning to be filed, but please take action when we send out our first action alert and become part of Make Waves.
Finally, if you would like a vote in the policy positions the coalition takes on state and federal legislation, you may become a member of our board of directors through a $5,000 donation from your company or organization, or through combined contributions from members of your organization totaling $5,000 and selecting a designated representative to the board. The first board meeting for the 2009-2010 fiscal year will be held in October, so join soon.
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