FEBRUARY 2018 | SARASOTA SCENE 79
SCENES FROM
AN INTERVIEW
IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH
CENTURIES, our once-sleepy gulf
coast was developed by visionaries
named Burns, Palmer and Ringling.
In the past forty years, you can include a
visionary named Saunders, who has become
synonymous with today’s real estate and
development.
Michael Saunders, founder of Michael
Saunders & Co. (MS & Co.), has not only
defined an iconic real estate company,
but is also a woman of incredible
foresight, just like our early pioneers.
Today, her son, Drayton Saunders,
president of the forty-two-year-strong
real estate brokerage with 26 branch
offices in three counties, handles many
important and varied responsibilities
of this well-known local, regional and
international company.
He is a man very much entrenched in
the happenings of our town, not only
through his role in his family business,
but as a board member of the Economic
Development Corporation of Sarasota
County (EDC), Visit Sarasota County,
and the Sarasota Bayfront 20/20 project.
As I talked with this hard-working,
community-loving family man, and
looked into his piercing blue eyes, just
like his mother’s, I was impressed by his
measured vision of our future, where it’s
going and how it’s growing, as well as
his respect for Sarasota’s cherished roots.
on the town
DRAYTON SAUNDERS ON
SARASOTA’S FUTURE
by Gus Mollasis