Bekky Beukes, who left her native South Africa just four years ago for the Tampa Bay area, has in that short time become a visual artist whose works are respected, admired and – perhaps the greatest honor of all for a painter – immediately recognized.
Her spirit-like women, elastic, wide-eyed and blank-faced, entwined with mirror images and feathers and pulsating Medusa-snake hair, are like no other work created in our cornucopia community. You know them when you see them.
Beukes has painted several impressive murals as well, including the Rialto Theater in Tampa, so it’s not surprising that the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance invited her to be a part of the 2018 SHINE Mural Festival (Oct. 6-14).
In the year since Todd Myers moved GoZone WiFi LLC from south Florida to downtown St. Petersburg, the software firm has grown at an explosive rate.
The staff has expanded from two people to 13 over the past year, and revenue is up 40 percent in the past six months, said Myers, GoZone founder and CEO, a serial entrepreneur who previously started eight technology firms. The company’s software platform is used in nine countries – and that number is increasing as well, he said.
A veteran of Amtrak and AOL is the new chief executive officer at Catalina, one of the largest companies in St. Petersburg.
Gerald “Jerry” Sokol Jr., the new CEO, plans to accelerate Catalina’s transformation and emergence as a digital leader focused on marketing, analytics and technology, a news release said.
Sokol takes on a role previously held by Andy Heyman, who stepped down as CEO at Catalina in June.
Stevie & Fern has worked with some of the world's largest brands, including the Women’s Tennis Association, Red Stripe and Tiger Beer, and well-known local tastemakers like St. Petersburg Distillery, Jannus Live and Great Explorations Children's Museum.
