I have just gotten home following a trip to USF and I am struck by the economic challenge and opportunity of an area referred to in the past as “suitcase city.”

First, USF is an academic dynamo with over 46,000 students - 40,000 who attend at the main campus in north Tampa making it the 9th largest public university in the Country. President Genshaft is quickly making the college a destination for the best and brightest around the world.

2nd - USF College of Medicine is undergoing amazing transformation - led by Dean Klasco - that is promising to turn the school of Medicine into an elite destination for doctors and students who one day will opening practices (we hope) in Tampa Bay. USF Health can help drive our transformation from low wage service to high wage life science jobs - as CAMLS (Center for Advanced Medical Learning & Simulation) promises to do - with its planned home in down town Tampa. This is just one of many projects that is coming to fruition.

3rd - USF is creating amazing partnerships with public and private entities that will foster new jobs and opportunities for students and entrepreneurs. Just watch as USF - Moffitt Cancer - TGH - VA Hospital - the USF incubator - Pepin Heart and many, many others leverage their assets to create an explosion of new health care opportunities throughout the Tampa Bay area.

To make this area the center for new opportunities - we need private enterprise developing new projects along corridors leading to USF - corridors that have the requisite “infrastructure” to make entry and exit quick - easy and accessible.

USF can be a destination - albeit one of many - throughout the Bay Area that drives our economic transformation.

This is just a quick note - following a long day, but the promise exists to kick start out economy in Tampa Bay if we have the fortitude to see it through.

Let’s get started!