ASI USFSP Bayboro Harbor Intrinio
Ceridian, Power Design, L3 Security
& Detection Systems and HSN, recently
acquired by retail giant QVC
for $2.1 billion, are among the city’s
many anchor corporations.
A global manufacturing services
company, Jabil continues to grow
its presence here with research labs
dedicated to developing novel
manufacturing processes in wearable
technology, sustainable energy,
medicine, aerospace, defense,
and the automotive industry.
Power Design, a national electrical
contracting business, is also growing.
The company expanded its
training and evaluation center, and
added new assembly space and
of��ces. Says COO Frank Musolino,
“For more than 25 years, Power
Design has been headquartered
in St. Pete. We’ve been able to
grow, attract and retain the talent
we need. The city appeals to both
families and young professionals,
and meshes well with our corporate
culture.”
Last year, ��nancial giant Raymond
James invested more than $10
million in an expansion of its
sprawling, 1.3 million-square-foot
campus in St. Petersburg’s Carillon
Business Park and has plans to
hire at least 650 more associates.
Founded in St. Pete in 1962, the
company has grown exponentially
over the years and now has an
international reach with over 3,000
locations in the U.S., Canada and
Europe. “While St. Petersburg has
always been a wonderful place
to call home, the city has really
transformed over the last couple
of decades,” says Raymond James
CEO Paul Reilly. “There’s a young,
vibrant energy that has added exciting
new dimensions to St. Pete,
even as it has maintained many of
the unique characteristics of the
town I grew up in.”
BORN IN THE ‘BURG
In the heart of downtown, in the
city’s emerging Warehouse Arts
District, entrepreneurs Shannon
and Brad Doyle are creating a cool
eco-friendly urban farm, a small
startup company that combines
technology with agriculture. The
couple grows plants hydroponically
in eight-foot vertical climbing towers
inside temperature-controlled
refurbishing shipping containers.
The Doyles represent the emerging
number of young professionals
thinking outside the box when it
comes to identifying business opportunities
in the ‘Burg. Shannon is
a former senior project manager at
Duke Energy and Brad continues to
work there as a software engineering
specialist. The two took their
high-tech skills and applied it to
developing the perfect closed environment
for plants, all controlled
via an app on Shannon’s smartphone
or laptop.
“We saw the national trend toward
a healthy, local food movement and
decided that St. Petersburg was
the right place to make that kind of
investment because of the tremendous
support here for local small
business,” says Shannon. At the
end of last year, the couple added
their fourth shipping container,
which will increase their productivity
by 30 percent and enable them
to meet the demand for their innovative
produce.
Mike and Leigh Harting are another
example of a ‘Burg-born success
story. The couple were early pioneers
in St. Petersburg’s exploding
craft beer scene when they opened
3 Daughters Brewing. Now they
are one of the top ��ve breweries
in the state. “It was all a matter of
timing. We were ��rst in the industry
and it was exactly the right time,”
says Mike. “We were poised for
growth.” Today their craft beers
can be found in restaurants, bars
and grocery stores throughout
Florida, Georgia and the Bahamas.
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