The St. Petersburg City Council has approved a one-year renewal for an agreement with Rowdies Soccer. The Rowdies will manage, maintain and operate city-owned Al Lang Stadium through Nov. 30, 2021, under the agreement approved by the City Council Thursday. Within the first five months of the term, the Rowdies will notify the city if they want to negotiate a new agreement with a term of not less than three years, beginning in December 2021. The agreement also calls for the city to control all exterior signage at Al Lang except for the marquee sign, which will be controlled by the Rowdies
Zone Defense LLC in St. Petersburg has a new owner. The company was acquired by Pro-Vision, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The purchase price was not disclosed. Zone Defense, founded in 2008, develops, engineers and manufactures advanced vision systems for the automotive and fleet industries. Pro-Vision designs, manufactures and installs vehicle video recording systems, body-worn cameras and video management software for commercial, law enforcement and transit applications. James Markus, CEO of Zone Defense, was named head of commercial solutions for Pro-Vision. Pro-Vision is a portfolio company of private equity firm JMC Capital Partners.
The University of South Florida will provide seed funding to 14 research projects designed to address the medical, technological and societal issues of Covid-19. It's the third round of funding by USF for Covid-19 projects, and this round is unique because researchers were challenged to partner with community organizations and corporations so that their projects could more rapidly be put to real-world use, USF said in a news release. USF Research & Innovation is investing nearly $320,000 in the projects, with the Florida High Tech Corridor Council contributing $100,000 in support of five projects. Click here for a full list of projects.
BayCare Health System has been named one of the top companies in the U.S. by Great Place to Work and People for supporting team members and the community during the Covid-19 pandemic. BayCare ranked sixth for its critical role in responding to Covid-19 and how it impacted the community and team members. The ranking is based on survey feedback from more than 4.7 million employees across the country. BayCare was one of the first health systems in West Central Florida to launch multiple drive-thru testing sites across the region, testing about 50,000 patients since mid-March. BayCare also worked with local health leaders and government officials to address the impact of the virus on long-term care facilities and provided innovative ways to help the community access information about the virus, including pioneering an online screening tool, launching a nurse triage hotline and providing extensive information via a dedicated website.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have named ReliaQuest as the team's official cybersecurity partner. Tampa-based ReliaQuest that will use its GreyMatter platform to help protect the Bucs from security breaches and will work with the team on both the on-premise and cloud technologies that power its operations, a news release said. ReliaQuest and the Bucs also will partner on charitable initiatives in the community. ReliaQuest earlier was named the official cybersecurity partner of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Host Committee, and both the Boston Celtics and Tampa Bay Lightning have also selected ReliaQuest as their official cybersecurity partner.
100 Women Who Care St Petersburg will hold its September meeting Wednesday, Sept. 9 from 6:30- 8 p.m at The Blend, 1211 4th St. North, with limited seating. Attendees can also participate via Zoom. During the meeting, the organization will vote on a nonprofit to receive its Impact Award and financial contribution. The three nominees are The Resurrection House St. Petersburg, The Children's Dream Fund and the Sanderlin Center. To sign up for the event or make a donation, click here.
RLS Inc. has purchased General Electric's U.S. radiopharmacy network, headquartered in Tampa and with 31 pharmacies across 18 states. The network supplies GE Healthcare molecular imaging products. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. RLS, or Radioisotope Life Sciences, aims to invest $2 billion over the next decade to expand the footprint of pharmacies and invest in scientific and technological advancements, a news release said. RLS also is expected to relocate the headquarters to the east coast of Florida in the near future, and is in talks with economic development councils and municipalities.
Jabil, a manufacturing services business and the largest company headquartered in St. Petersburg, will continue to benefit from an ongoing shift from outsourced manufacturing, a new report from Moody's Investors Service said. The credit agency report was issued in connection with Jabil's shelf registration, offering debt and equity securities. Moody's assigned a Baa3 rating, a lower-level prime rating, to the offering. Moody's also affirmed Jabil's Baa3 rating and stable outlook. The rating affirmation reflects Jabil's (NYSE: JBL) growing scale and increased diversification and those trends are expected to continue once the pandemic subsides, Moody's said in an Aug. 31 report. Moody's expects the company to benefit from its strategic collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, as well as expected growth in packaging of groceries and dry goods.
Publix and Publix Super Market Charities are increasing efforts to provide support to local communities and families that face hunger. Publix Super Market Charities is donating an additional $3 million to Feeding America member food banks and other nonprofit partners, bringing its total 2020 giving to $5 million. Feeding Tampa Bay will receive $225,000 as part of the new donation. Publix also is continuing a program it launched in April to purchase surplus produce and milk from farmers and deliver it directly to food banks. Since April, Publix has purchased and delivered more than 11 million pounds of produce and 500,000 gallons of milk to Feeding America member food banks throughout the Southeast, a news release said. Publix customers also can contribute toward hunger relief efforts in the stores by making donations at checkout, now through Sept. 13.
A half-dozen local sports organizations are among the local companies and nonprofits that are backing efforts to encourage people to sign up as election workers for the November election. The Tampa Bay Sports Commission, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Rowdies and USF Athletics joined forces as #TeamTampaBay to participate in National Poll Worker Recruitment Day. The Sept. 1 event was established by he U.S. Election Assistance Commission and aims to raise awareness about the benefits and importance of poll working and to inspire more Americans to volunteer. There's a critical shortage of poll workers in part because of the pandemic, and because most poll workers are traditionally older and potentially more vulnerable to complications if they contract Covid-19, a news release said. Each of the local participating sports organizations said they would offer their staff paid time off to volunteer as a poll worker.
Governor Ron DeSantis has issued an order for the Florida Department of Health to sever its ties with Quest Diagnostics after discovering the lab had failed to report 75,000 Covid-19 tests from as far back as April. "The law requires all Covid-19 tests to be reported to the Florida Department of Health in a timely manner," he said in a statement. "To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible." Without the backlog of Quest results, the positivity rate for new cases on August 31 is 5.9 percent; with Quest results, that number increases to 6.8 percent. Quest officials said that all individuals who tested positive for the virus were notified of their results.
