The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, by a landslide vote of 410-4, which classifies lynching as a federal hate crime. The bill was named after Emmett Till, a 14 year old black child who was lynched in 1955 while visiting Mississippi, after he was falsely accused of harassing a white woman. U.S. Representative Charlie Crist (D-St. Petersburg) released a statement regarding the legislation. “Lynching is and has always been a hate crime," said Crist. "It’s past time that the federal code reflects the horrors that historically were inflicted on the African-American community. “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘the time is always right to do what is right.’ Today I commend the People’s House for doing what’s right, and urge the Senate and President to take action.”
Organizers have announced the slate of companies that will participate at the March 12 St. Pete Pitch Night, an event that focuses on showcasing, elevating and seeding community-based businesses. There were 34 companies that applied to complete for up to $5,000 and the five selected to pitch are: Eat Your Words Custom Cookies, Eventron, Oh Yes! Shave Club, Jun Cyber and Cope Notes. The event will be held 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on March 12. It will be held at University of South Florida St. Petersburg Kate Tiedemann College of Business. Registration and more information is here. Kids Saving Oceans was the winner of the first St. Pete Pitch Night in November.
Empath Health and Stratum Health System have entered into formal discussions to merge the two organizations into a single entity that will care for more than 6,000 people a day. Empath Health is headquartered in Clearwater and is the parent company of Suncoast Hospice. Stratum Health System is based in Sarasota and is parent company of Tidewell Hospice. Rafael Sciullo, president and CEO of Empath Health, will serve as CEO of the as-yet-unnamed organization, while Jonathan Fleece, president and CEO of Stratum, will serve as the president until the integration is fully completed in January 2023. Then Sciullo plans to retire and Fleece will be president and CEO. The merger has no direct impact on patients at this time, a news release said.
Neptune Flood, a St. Petersburg-based insure-tech company, has begun offering coverage in Louisiana. Louisiana is Neptune's 39th state. It is the second largest market for flood insurance in the United States given its unique geography and history of catastrophic flooding, Neptune said in a news release. Louisiana is key to Neptune's growth, said Trevor Burgess, president and CEO, who outlined the company's growth plans in an interview with the St. Pete Catalyst in December. Neptune is an all-digital, online flood insurance company that uses advanced computing power to quickly evaluate and price flood insurance policies.
St. Petersburg Free Clinic has received a $300,000 gift from the Virginia and David Baldwin Foundation to create an endowment for the organization. The Community Foundation of Tampa Bay added $100,000 to the foundation's gift through its endowment match challenge. St. Petersburg Free Clinic plans to use income from the endowment to sustain operations of its eight food, shelter and healthcare programs. Previous gifts from the Baldwin Foundation to the Free Clinic helped fund the Virginia and David Baldwin Women’s Residence, a new facility for the Men's Residence and allowed the Free Clinic’s health center to move to a standalone location in 2017. Baldwin, a retired businessman, also donated $1 million to CASA through the Baldwin Foundation last year.
The Tampa Bay Innovation Center is preparing to launch its second early stage startup company accelerator, dubbed the Entrepreneur & Investment Challenge. The program will run April 29-July 15 and focuses on preparing leaders of technology ventures for scaling their companies. Seven startups participated in the first cohort, which ended in January. To learn more about the program, acceptance criteria and to register, visit the Tampa Bay Innovation Center's website. The Tampa Bay Innovation Center, based in St. Petersburg, is a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs and innovators.
Progressive said it plans to fill 1,000 jobs at its offices in Tampa this year, and an unspecified number of additional jobs at its office in St. Petersburg. In Tampa, the insurance company will be hiring for positions in customer sales, service, multi-product sales, claims representatives, bilingual Spanish sales and customer service, a news release said. Progressive also is hiring 270 people to fill property claims, property customer service and IT jobs in both St. Petersburg and in Nashville, Tennessee. Nationally, the company is hiring 8,000 people in 2020. The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies (NYSE: PGR), based in Mayfield Village, Ohio, is among the largest employers in both Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
Almost two-thirds of the small businesses in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area are profitable, a new survey from LendingTree finds. A relatively high level of profitable companies is among the factors that led LendingTree to rank the local area No. 3 in the U.S. for best metro for new small businesses. Just over one-third of the companies here, 35.4 percent, are less than six years old. About 74 percent of local businesses have less than $1 million in revenue and 95.8 percent of them have less than 250 employees. Among the 50 metros LendingTree looked at, Seattle ranked No. 1 and Memphis was No. 50.
Visitors to Pinellas County brought in more than $64 million in tourist development taxes in 2019. That was an all-time high and a 9 percent increase year-over-year, according to Visit St. Pete/Clearwater. The tax, also called a bed tax, is a a 6 percent tax collected on accommodations in Pinellas County rented for less than six month. Proceeds fund tourism marketing programs, as well as beach nourishment, construction on stadiums and museums, and reserves to be used in the event of an emergency. Crossing the $60 million mark means the destination generated more than $1 billion in hotel revenue in 2019, another first, VSP said.
More than 400 people will lose their jobs when organic grocery chain Earth Fare closes its stores. The company detailed the number of layoffs it expects in notices filed with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and posted Monday on the DEO website. Today is the last day of business for the store at 7774 113th St. N. in Seminole, where 96 employees are affected. The Oldsmar store, with 64 workers, and the Lutz store, with 87 workers, will close tomorrow. Stores also are closing in Lakewood Ranch (95 workers) and in Ocala (75 workers). Earth Fare was in negotiations to refinance its bank loans and to sell the company, when the potential buyer withdrew, the financing fell through and the largest supplier discontinued product shipments, the company said in its WARN notice.
Jeff Vinik, chairman and governor of the Tampa Bay Lightning, has created Vinik Sports Group, a new company to manage sports and entertainment assets. VSG is the parent company to the Lightning and the umbrella brand for three new business verticals, a news release said. One of them is VSG Commercial Sales, which handles sales for the Lightning and oversees multimedia rights for the University of South Florida's athletic department as well as a digital media company, The Identity Tampa Bay. Another new vertical is VSG Facilities, which manages and operates Amalie Arena, Yuengling Center on the USF campus and startup hub Embarc Collective. The third is VSG Live , which manages all events at Amalie Arena and Yuengling Center and has an agreement with the Tampa Sports Authority to serve as a ticketing solution for select events at Raymond James Stadium.
AccuSoft, a Tampa technology company, has launched OnTask, a new business unit focused on the growth of its document automation tool. Steve Wilson, who was vice president of product at AccuSoft, was named president of OnTask. OnTask is different from the other 20+ products at AccuSoft because it is targeted toward end-users rather than developers, Wilson said in a news release. "OnTask speaks to a different market, and needs a different strategy than we've used for other products in the past 28 years," Wilson said. OnTask helps businesses transform email and paper-based functions into efficient digital processes, as the St. Pete Catalyst reported when we talked to Wilson about OnTask last year.
