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started out as a country boy, raised in what he described as a “lower-lower-lower-middle class family,” not unfamiliar with hard work, low wages and getting hands dirty. Hunting and fishing and being outdoors in the country became his lifelong passions. An Old-Florida drawl was scratched forever into his voice. But Dyer was smart. Really smart. And ambitious. After graduating from Osceola High School he got into Brown University on scholarships. He earned a civil engineering degree and became an engineer. After a few years he went to law school at the University of Florida where he rose to editor-in-chief of the law review. In 1987 he placed first in the state in the Florida Bar Exam scores. He became a litigator, representing engineering companies, with Orlando’s Smith, McKinnon and Matthews. He married well, the former Karen Caudill, CENTRAL FLORIDA com FloridaPolitics. another smart attorney who is now a nationally renowned trial partner at Boies Via Schiller & Flexner. She also is a Fort Lauderdale PHOTO:Pepsi bottling company heiress, with financial resources that were handy when SUMMER/FALL 2016 INFLUENCE | 111 Dyer first entered politics. In 1990 the political bug bit and he started a run for the Florida House of Representatives. Timing was terrible. His father became terminally ill. Karen became pregnant with Trey. Dyer pulled out. In 1992 he tried again, only this time the political landscape had shifted, opening up an even better opportunity, a new state Senate seat in Orlando drawn to elect a Democrat. With the help of some veteran Democrats who taught him how to reach out to Orlando’s African-American leaders, the unknown 33-year-old lawyer pulled off a primary upset and went to Tallahassee for what was a very safe seat for Democrats. A few years later, he became minority leader for three years. And that’s where he learned what might be his most telling skill as Orlando mayor, building across-the-aisle consensuses that weren’t bipartisan, but nonpartisan. “The Senate experience was very beneficial to this job for a number of reasons. One being that I knew everybody in Tallahassee, so it was very easy for me to get things done, such as SunRail and the downtown UCF campus,” Dyer said. “But secondly, when you’ve been managing 20 senators and having to work with the House and work with the governor, you learn how to compromise and learn how to put deals together … working with other people, compromising, knowing when to compromise.” Of course, to create a Big City, you’ve got to break a few things. It began shortly after Dyer took office and approved the razing of a city block of old buildings and stores that old-timers had considered historic, a strip that had helped define Orlando’s downtown retail district for generations. A big office building, The Plaza, went up there. But that’s because it included part of Dyer’s vision, a big, downtown cinema multiplex. There was an old church that went down near Lake Eola. And then another in the historically black neighborhood of Parramore on downtown’s west side. And then there was 100-year-old Tinker Field, revered home to Orlando’s minor league baseball teams and Major League Baseball Darkest Days Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer addresses his constituents at Camping World Stadium after the Pulse night club massacre in June, 2016.


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