A proposal by United Insurance Holdings Corp. to build a new headquarters in St. Petersburg and add 300 jobs would pump up local economic spending by more than $23 million.
That’s among the benefits cited by Mayor Rick Kriseman’s administration, which is recommending the City Council approve a $5 million offer from United Insurance to buy 4.6 acres of city-owned land at 800 1st Ave. S.
Kriseman’s administration chose the offer from United, which does business as UPC Insurance, although Related Development LLC in Miami said it would pay $1.5 million more than the insurance company for the property. Related offered $6.5 million and said it wanted to build luxury apartments on the site.
From his corner office in a nondescript white stucco building in South Tampa, Erik Maltais is looking into the future.
As CEO of Immertec, Inc., the 35-year-old is in possession of a revolutionary new form of proprietary VR (virtual reality) technology. Immertec has made tremendous strides in remote presence – a fully immersive 3D experience – for the lucrative medtech industry. It’s called Medoptic Virtual Surgical Observation (VSO).
“Remote presence,” he explains, “is the closest thing possible to being there. Essentially, we can make it affordable to allow any doctor, any student to remote in for consultation, and remote in to observe surgery, from anywhere in the world. To understand and learn how to do it.”
In a tumultuous retail landscape, the top executive at women’s clothing company Chico’s FAS Inc. has her own recipe for success.
Shelley Broader, president and CEO of Chico’s, pays attention to customers, not the competition.
“When you focus on what your competition is doing, you’re not focusing on your customers’ wants and needs,” Broader said. “If you focus hard enough on your customer, you make the competition irrelevant, because you will be what your customer needs and wants. You’re competing for their heart and their share of wallet.”
In 2017, nearly 3,000 children were paired with caring adult mentors in the seven-county service area: Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Pasco, Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties.