Charles L. Marohn, Jr

Strong Towns

Charles Marohn, known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues, is the founder and president of Strong Towns. He is a civil engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, both from the University of Minnesota.
Marohn is the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, And of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town.
He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America. Planetizen named him one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time.

John Marsh

Marsh Collective-Redemptification

John Marsh is the Co-Founder of Marsh Collective, host of the Redemptification Podcast and investor helping steward over $1.5b in redemptive real estate in 12 small towns (with populations of  800-180k) around America.
Over the last 25 years, John and his wife Ashely have guided over 60 startup businesses in various industries, such as Hospitality, Construction, Real Estate Investing, Advertising, and multiple Restaurants. John and his wife have renovated 280+ buildings within ten blocks of downtown Opelika to help save their city. Today, John's current focus is helping others make generational differences in communities and companies. By helping patrons bridge the gap between redeeming vision, financial sustainability, and execution to pioneering a new asset class of real estate which we have coined "Irreplaceable Real Estate."

William Larence

William Larence is a visual artist rooted and based in winter haven, fl. greatly inspired, following purpose with passion Bill has created Comm.unity love. A newly organized and ever growing collective with a vigorous approach to helping connect and elevate the community through art, nature, and love.

Karen Thompson

Lake Wales Main Street

ASSISTANT CRA DIRECTOR - MAIN STREET LAKE WALES DIRECTOR, KAREN HAS NEARLY 20 YEARS OF REDEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE. KAREN HAS WORKED WITH SEVERAL MAIN STREET COMMUNITIES AROUND THE STATE OF FLORIDA AND BRINGS THAT EXPERIENCE TO HER CURRENT PASSION PROJECT, LAKE WALES CONNECTED.

Pauline Eaton

Florida Downtown Association
Advocacy panel

Pauline eaton from eaton consulting is responsible for the development, application, organization, technical assistance, and training for Orlando's neighborhood commercial districts.

Pauline is actively involved in Downtown revitalization, economic development, tourism development and historic preservation. she is certified as a main street management professional from the national trust main street enter having graduated in 1999.

Wayne Carter

Florida Downtown Association
Advocacy panel

Wayne Carter is the executive director of the award winning main street deland association. He began his involvement in Main street as a volunteer in 2005. with more than 18 years Main street experience, he is a founding member of the florida downtown association, formed to support the florida Main street program and local executive directors and communities throughout florida.

Jessica Newman

Florida Downtown Association
Advocacy panel

Jessica Newman serves as the director of the wauchula community redevelopment agency. for the past 14 years she has worked to revitalize wauchula using the tools afforded by the cra program to facilitate growth. in this role she oversees the main street wauchula program. Jessica serves on the florida redevelopment association board of directorss and is past president of the florida downtowns association.
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Michael Stavres

WH City manager

Mr. Stavres has worked for the city of witner haven since 2001, serving as the Leisure servies director, director of community services, assistant city manager and deputy city manager and now as city manager. he earned a bachelor of science degree (1992) in leisure servies & studies and master of science degree (1997) in a certified public manager through florida state univeristy. he is recognized as a credentialed manager by the international city & County management association-one of only a handful in the entire state. he is also a certified parks and recreation professional through the national recreatin & park association and is a former president of the florida recreation & Park Association.

brad dantzler

Mayor of Winter haven

Mayor bradley T. Dantzler was elected to seat #4 in a special election in spring 2013 and re-elected in 2013, 2017, and 2021. brad served as mayor in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 & will be serving now in 2023. a winter haven native, brad is third generation winter haven city commissioner. he graduated from winter haven high schhol in 1980, university of florida in 1985 and earned a masters of business administration from nova southereastern univerity in 1991. he has been senior vice president and financial advisor at raymond james & associates for 26 years. he and his wife, susan, have two sons, two grandaughers, and one grandson.

M.J. Carnevale

City of Winter Haven

"M.J. Carnevale is an accomplished Public Works Director with over 16 years of experience in the environmental field. He holds degrees in Forest Resource Management, Business with an agricultural specialization, and Soil and Water Science, and is passionate about finding ways for his city to live in balance with Florida's delicate ecosystems while improving quality of life. M.J. is a natural-born leader who radiates authenticity, concern, and altruism. He takes pride in guiding others to work together to improve themselves and their community, and is a firm believer in the people. With extensive experience managing people and budgets, M.J. is an expert in natural resource management, solid waste collection, maintenance of infrastructure, and the city's fleet of vehicles and equipment. He is a charismatic and reliable professional who is motivated by a sense of purpose and a desire to make a positive impact on the world."

Benjamin Vickers

Honeycomb Bread Bakers

Benjamin has been a professional baker for 10 years in hotels, restaurants, resorts, and bakeries throughout New York, Tennessee, and Florida. He founded the artisan bakery Honeycomb in 2018 and now works with a team of 10 full-time artisans to diligently serve Winter Haven and greater Polk County.

Erica Love

Evolve pickleball

From the first moment the plastic ball hit her wooden paddle on the gym fllors of a ymca, erica love was completely hooked on pickleball. Since the, she has become a 5.0 player, a highly sought after coach, and has successfully developed the pickleball programming in multiple communities from apolo beach to bradenton to lakewood ranch. Erica is not only the director of pickleball at terra ceia bay country club, but she has also created a Coaches development program and a community development program through her ability to build thriving programs with lessons, clinics, socials, leagues, tournaments, and so much more.
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Derick Epps

H.E.A.T Program

Derick Epps, also known as Deek Beats, founder of the H.e.a.t. Program. With over 20 years of experience as a dj and over six years as a music producer, i utilize hip-hop as a tool for communication to ignite positive change within communities.
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Elizabeth Suarez, PE

Fehr & Peers

Elizabeth Suárez is a transportation designer/planner in fehr & peer's orlando office. she's in this industry because she realizes the impact, both positive and negative, that the transportation system has on peoples's lives. she wants to serve her community by planning and designing facilities that consider all residents and that mitigate negative impacts. elizabeth is also interested in how the transportation system is abused to facilitate human trafficking and has co-authored two articles on the topic for the institute of transportation engineers' ITE Journal.
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Andy Palmer, CPRE, CPM

City Of Winter Haven

Andy Palmer started his career in the public sector at 16 years old. Currently Andy is the Parks planning & strategic initiatives manager for the city of winter haven. He has worked as a grant writer, city planner, parks & recreation superintendent and has executed countless public projects.
one of those projects Andy and his team will be sharing is the Trail Town designation from the florida department of enviromental Protection.
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Carl "Bud" Strang

Six/ten,LLC

Bud Strang currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of , a privately held investment company based in Winter Haven, FL. Strang has been actively involved in the start-up, growth and development of a variety of business ventures including real estate, agriculture, software and business services. He is a managing member of Island Grove, LLC – one of the state’s largest blueberry farming operations – and is a director and officer of Gapway Grove Corporation, a closely held land and citrus business.
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LaQue

LaQue is a Winter Haven based professional singer and songwriter. She is proficient in all genres of music, with a specialty in Jazz. She is passionate about spreading joy and providing comfort through singing. She believes “when all else fails, still music speaks”.
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Anita Strang

main street Winter Haven

Anita strang bio....