Up For The Challenge
Florida is growing by just over 1,000 persons per day, and Polk County is growing by more than 80 residents every 24 hours.
PHOTOS BY JORDAN RANDALL
hen you sit and talk to someone like Gary Ralston, Managing Director and Partner for SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler, —who meticulously keeps track of and analyzes the Florida market—you realize we are both part of something special and something with its own unique challenges here in Lakeland.
The data shows the fastest growing industries in Polk County in the past year have been:
Private education & health services
Government including public education
Leisure & hospitality
Historical data from the last five years also paint a picture of a community growing quicker than originally projected (hello COVID-19 effect) meaning that tax dollars, infrastructure upgrades and strategic plans have a difficult time keeping pace, even when done in earnest.
The good news is Lakeland is filled with visionaries who are committed to the well-being of their neighbors, and who thankfully are in positions of influence where they can help bring clarity and decisive action that can direct Lakeland's growth now and for the foreseeable future.
It's a challenge that there is plenty of public opinion—and hopefully public involvement, as well—surrounding, but these men and women aren't afraid to do the hard work of identifying solutions it takes to keep Lakeland growing in a positive direction that generations to come can be proud of.
Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Danielle Drummond
President and CEO of Lakeland Regional Health
Currently serves on the boards for Lakeland Economic Development Council, Polk Vision, Florida Hospital Association and WEDU/PBS
Danielle Drummond is sharp-witted. When asked what magazine she would most love to be in, she instantaneously quips, “The Lakelander.”
You can tell she’s used to explaining complex things in more simple terms the way she talks with her hands and works to tie in local examples to broader answers.
And the 46-year-old has been leading the development and growth of Lakeland Regional Health since 2021 as President and CEO of what has bloomed into one of the largest hospitals in Florida and the second largest employer in Polk County.
She is deeply involved in the community, including as a board member with the Lakeland Economic Development Council, Polk Vision, Florida Hospital Association and WEDU/PBS.
THE LAKELANDER
How does LRH create solutions to meet the evolving needs of people, especially post-pandemic, in communities that continue to grow and have more people who need quality healthcare?
DRUMMOND
At Lakeland Regional Health, we are constantly trying to ensure that patients can conveniently access our services and that we have the service offerings that they're looking for. In a community that's growing as rapidly as ours, that has required us to constantly evaluate, ‘What are those needs, and how do we best meet them?' With that in mind, we've been hiring physicians and adding various services that we know our community is seeking. We want to make sure that there is good access to those services at our current locations…we know the community is growing in its geographical footprint, we need to make sure that we also are growing in those various areas, where we know new residents are deciding to live. With that has come a lot of new projects for us and new locations that we've never been in before. So I think really for us over the last three years, it has been growing and expanding, not only in the service offerings we have, but in the locations around the community where we provide those offerings.
TL
What are some of those markers that stand out to you as key developments of recent growth for Lakeland Regional Health?
DRUMMOND
The [Harrell Family] Center for Behavioral Wellness clearly has been one of our biggest investments over the last three years. The opening of that facility provided so much more access to that very much needed behavioral health service in our community. We've seen just amazing growth on both the inpatient and the outpatient side. So again, we know we needed the ability to be able to provide more of those inpatient services to our patients, but really our hope is that by growing and expanding access to outpatient services, that hopefully we'll be able to get people connected with providers earlier in their journey so that they are able to live their best life and have their best possible outcome. I think that has been fundamental.
At the same time, we recently launched our graduate medical education (GME) residency program. We now have a number of new sites of service to not only house the residents as part of their training programs, but also to have our faculty physicians be able to see those patients in a variety of settings. That was really what led us to open our new Kathleen campus in the fall of 2023. We also have a number of LRH specialists that are part of the LRH physician group, which has been a large growing division within our organization, as well as urgent care. We have seen that there are a lot of patients, as new individuals come into the community, who may not have yet established with a physician.
We’ve been growing and expanding our footprint in the surrounding communities. Plant City and Lake Wales are two of our newest locations, and our first ever freestanding emergency department will be opening in January of next year.
TL
In the next three to five years, what are some of the things the public will see rolled out through LRH?
DRUMMOND
We're really excited about opening our first freestanding emergency department. I think our emergency department at the main campus has a wonderful reputation in taking care of both the adults and the children in our community. We're really looking forward to being able to extend that reach and have a much more convenient location for the residents of South Lakeland to be able to come for those emergency services. So that'll be great to have that open in early 2025. Beyond that, we'll continue to look at other locations where we feel it would be beneficial for community members to have easier access both to our emergency services as well as our urgent care services. We'll be constantly adding on in our physician group as well; new sites for primary care providers, physical therapy—those things that we've identified where there's just not as good of access as we would like to see in our community today.
TL
Do you see it as LRH's job to inform, engage and educate community members in a way where they understand the partnership that you're trying to offer them, and if so, how do you do that well?
DRUMMOND
Clearly healthcare is complex, and often it's not top of mind unless you are using it or just recently had an experience. The more that we can do to try to have easier access to try to facilitate how patients can make those connections with us—be it scheduling an appointment, be it coming to one of our urgent care locations or emergency department—that remains a very high priority and focus for us.
One of the other things we've been doing in a much more significant way as of late is be out with our community health outreach division. We enlist many of our 7,600 team members that we have to help support those events. For instance, we’ve been at Bonnet Springs Park holding events on bike safety for children where we provide education, bike helmets…whatever we can do to try and help them be the healthiest possible and enjoy all this community has to offer. We also can make sure that they know how to connect with the health system, be it LRH or wherever their health provider may be, so that they can make sure that they stay on track for those things that are important [for their health.]
“By growing and expanding access to outpatient services...hopefully we’ll be able to get people connected with providers earlier in their journey so that they are able to live their best life and have their best possible outcome. ”
Katie Worthington Decker
Senior Vice President of Lakeland Economic Development Council
We all love our area for certain reasons and other people are going to love our area for a lot of those same reasons, right? ... We cannot be in denial and just shut the doors to Florida or Polk County.
If you sit with Katie Worthington Decker for more than five minutes you will realize she is lively, she is motivated and she believes that Lakeland’s finest future is one where more people are actively using their gifts instead of just talking about what could be done better.
She’s also not afraid to admit that the mantra of her generation was seemingly “we are never coming back to Polk County” after high school graduation—and just maybe, time and reality has proven that mantra comical, especially because it’s her job to help recruit people to come and stay in Lakeland.
She jokes that many of her friends, especially in the PR world that she was familiar with in previous roles with Clark Nikdel Powell and as the President/CEO of the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce, always talked about going to places like Austin, Texas or New York City to fulfill their dreams. But she has heard on numerous occasions that people chasing those dreams sometimes end up in singular roles that can be repetitive, while she came back to Polk County and had the opportunity to develop a well-rounded repertoire of skills.
“I was working with people buying ads, and we were working with photographers. I was doing video, I was doing media buying, and I was doing photo shoots and hiring models,” she recalls. “I was getting this breadth of experience in this really tertiary market where I got to build a portfolio.”
And now, the daughter of Terry Worthington, former President of the United Way of Central Florida, is helping build the city’s portfolio of businessmen and women through development projects, as well as programs, such as the Summer Leadership Program.
THE LAKELANDER
Whenever you think of the idea of smart growth or intentional growth, what does that look like for Lakeland from your vantage point at the EDC?
WORTHINGTON DECKER
I think we have to not be in denial that people are going to move to our area. We all love our area for certain reasons and other people are going to love our area for a lot of those same reasons, right? Our central location, our relative affordability, [being] pro business, both from a state perspective as well as from a local perspective. We love job creation and we certainly love high-skill, high-wage job creation. So we are going to be attractive. We cannot be in denial and just shut the doors to Florida or Polk County. So using a word you just said, intentionality around how we grow is really important, and also realizing where the strengths and weaknesses of our infrastructure is in that.
Traffic is people's biggest concern…what are the mechanisms that we can be doing to address that? And part of that is roads and infrastructure and concrete and things of that nature. Part of its data-driven light timing, what's our roadway network look like, that sort of thing. I think just being as proactive as we can be in a situation where we've been made to be a little reactive. And what I mean by that is we were experiencing percentages of growth every year, and then COVID happened, and that growth accelerated at a much greater pace than even the accelerated growth that was being projected. We just have to be honest and get after it and figure out how to creatively finance, leveraging whatever resources are available.
TL
To your point, I think a lot of times it is infrastructure people are complaining about or saying isn’t necessarily helping their quality of life. What are some things infrastructure wise specifically that the EDC working on right now?
WORTHINGTON DECKER
I would say we work very closely with the city of Lakeland for sure. And we highly value the relationship with the city of Lakeland, and we have an incredibly talented and passionate team in many of the department heads over there. I would say road infrastructure is very important; I would say wastewater infrastructure, which is not the sexy thing to talk about, but everybody wants to be able to flush a toilet.
When I go to speak to Kiwanis or [Rotary clubs] or groups, I often talk about the need for density. And people don't like that word, but they also don't like sprawl because sprawl is taking greenfield and creating neighborhoods and all of that. You have to have a mix in inventory in housing and residential and office and mixed-use.
But when you look at somewhere like a downtown or even some of the” fake” downtowns in Florida building mixed-use communities, it lessens traffic in those areas because if you rent downtown and work at Publix, you're not moving your car during the day. And now that you can walk to the bodega and get some food and your favorite third space—your bar or your restaurant that you hang out with your kids, your friends or whoever—is within walking distance, you're not moving your car. So when we talk about the need for more multi-family close to the downtown core, that's what we mean. If we get more people living close to where they live life then you start to reduce the need to drive—it’s that live-work-play mentality.
TL
I think our communities are at our finest when more people are understanding and are willing to not just listen, but to be involved in healthy civic engagement. How do you recommend, especially for the younger generation, that people get involved in the development of the city?
WORTHINGTON DECKER
First and foremost, they have to pay attention. (The City of) Lakeland in particular is very good about transparency in terms of every single meeting is livestreamed. So if you have any sort of interest, whether it's historic preservation or—this does not sound sexy at all, but I get super excited about planning and zoning—that's where everything is going through any sort of planning mechanism. So you're wondering about the Chick-fil-A? It's going through P and Z…all that information is out there.
What I tell young people…is that Polk County is a community that is so thirsty for people to get involved at any age level that you can be in your early 20s and raise your hand and say, “I'm interested in X,” and there probably is a committee that you could serve on, or a nonprofit you could volunteer for or a Steve Scruggs of the world that will sit down and talk to you about it.
That's what my career entirely was made of. In the beginning…I moved back to Polk County and I was like, where are all the other young people? I don't see them. I had people that said, “Why don't you join the chamber and meet people there?” And then we formed a young professionals group and we started to draw people out. And then the Lakeland Young Professionals Group…then we all made friends with each other and so you started to bridge a lot of divides and open a lot of doors for young people to serve in the community in different capacities.
TL
Talk a little bit about what types of industries and what kind of jobs the EDC is working to bring here to diversify and strengthen the portfolio of options for people in our city?
WORTHINGTON DECKER
So if we go all the way back in the day, obviously you had [agriculture], you had tourism and you had phosphate. And those industries were all struggling in the late 80s. So when Steve [Scruggs] came into the role at the EDC in 1987, the directive was pretty clear from the leaders of the business community: we have to diversify our economy because all three of our major industries are struggling. That's when the business community really got together and said, let's look at our location and let's leverage our location, which is why logistics and distribution obviously became a big part of that narrative. The beauty of that is it brought in a lot of different kinds of industry to help to diversify our economy and then the industries that supported those industries. I would say now the focus has pivoted to manufacturing.
The reason we like manufacturing is because that equipment is expensive and it's heavy and it's hard to pick up and move. So if you get manufacturers into the market, they're much less likely to leave. It's not as easy to pull up a multi-million dollar piece of manufacturing equipment as it is racks. We love our logistics and distribution—they're an incredibly important part of our market.
We really push hard to get our groups to say, 'What do we want and how can we attract them to come here? How can we send a message that you're welcome here and we want you?' Corporate headquarters are obviously huge—high-skill, high-wage. One of the big things we’re working on now is…how can we support the growth of jobs in the sectors that will help support the graduates of Florida Poly and Polk State and Southeastern and Florida Southern and Kaiser and all of our colleges and universities? But in particular, when you look at the growth of robotics, AI, and autonomous vehicles, we have a school teaching people with those skill sets and to [retain] them we have to have jobs that they can go into. That's gonna be a key focus for us going forward. So as we meet the new president [of Florida Polytechnic University Dr. G. Devin Stephenson] and we hear what his goals are, that will be one focus.
In aviation and aerospace we have an amazing team at the Lakeland International Airport. Most people don't even understand the economic impact, the number of employees already out at the airport. There's like 68 businesses on the airport campus— a crazy takeaway. I’m coming off the high of SUN ‘n FUN. I mean, there's just nothing cooler, frankly, than that week in our town. Kris Hallstrand and Adam Lunn, in their collaborations with Gene at SUN ‘n FUN and Eric Crump—that team out there is very economically minded and they're very ROI focused for the community…and one of the cool things at the airport is that they're able to leverage a lot of dollars that aren't tax dollars to make the airport what it is. We get a lot because they're very skillful leveraging state and federal dollars to get what we need at the airport.
I think we'll see a lot of growth in additive and subtractive manufacturing, like 3D printing, and just a lot of cool things in that aerospace sector, which I'm super excited about.
“The reason we like manufacturing is because that equipment is expensive and it’s heavy and it’s hard to pick up
and move.”
Cory Petcoff
Owner of Baron Realty, Inc.
Currently serves on the board of directors for: Lakeland Christian School, Lakeland Economic Development Council (chairman) and Lakeland Regional Health
Some might know Cory as the son of Tom Petcoff, co-founder of the highly successful Summit Workers Comp Insurance group, and the founder of Baron Realty.
Some might know Cory as the owner of a family-owned commercial brokerage and property management firm that oversees more than 1.4 million square feet of real estate space.
Some might know Cory as a proud Lakeland High School graduate who has served on and continues to serve on so many local boards and councils that you could forgive him if showed up at the wrong meeting at the wrong time on occasion.
At his core, the 46-year-old wants to create as many opportunities for Lakelanders as possible while attempting to balance the needs and wants of a diverse and growing population.
“My dad came from a very modest upbringing,” Petcoff reflects. “Yet he had a philosophy of respecting every single person, and would get righteously angry if he saw someone disrespect a person based on their background or their economic status.”
THE LAKELANDER
You serve on and have served on many local boards. What are some of the commonalities you find whenever you're talking about everything from mental health to private education to economic development? What do you see as some of the common threads that run throughout our community?
PETCOFF
All of them have been just an awesome opportunity to meet people I wouldn't have otherwise and get a deeper exposure into organizations that serve this community in ways I didn't know. You wouldn’t know they serve the city how they do without interacting with them specifically.
You use the word “community” but I think it is relationship; in all of those organizations I think that there's a relationship between the nonprofits, the donors and the folks that are serving them. There's a relationship between the recipients of the folks and the caregivers or the recipients of the services and the caregivers. I think that is Lakeland's strength—our relationships.
TL
What are some challenges you see from your perspective being engaged in all those areas?
PETCOFF
It was actually pointed out to me by someone else recently…because I am blinded to it. I'm a lifelong learner. I grew up here and I run into a lot of people I went to high school with…someone pointed out to me recently that it's not as easy as we grow—it's harder for new people to get plugged into the community. So when you're not somebody's son or somebody's brother, or somebody's nephew, getting those introductions and getting plugged in is harder. That is a challenge that I was unaware of, just because I take it for granted. I think that there are some places where for newcomers it is harder to get plugged in.
TL
What have you learned that works in Central Florida in this market, in terms of not only building partnerships and getting developments going, but just also keeping people happy and satisfied
PETCOFF
Not to sound boastful, but I think it's just relational intelligence. I have to put my mind in the mindset of an owner when I am negotiating with an owner, and I have to put my mind in the mindset of a tenant when I'm working on a lease to get them started up. Finding the spot where both of them are served well is generally where deals get done.
TL
In the last couple years, has there been a sector that you are focused on more or where you see the opportunity for growth that you're really pinpointing?
PETCOFF
I love our downtown—it's beautiful to begin with; the historic buildings when you walk down Kentucky Avenue and the trees opening up into Munn Park. And there's been a lot of growth in services. We're attracting more and more restaurants.
We're working on a development right now that's gonna bring a cool restaurant downtown on Main Street right between Black & Brew and Linksters….that God willing will move in late this summer. Chris Cleghorn and Ryan Neil run Sābu Ramen in The Joinery. Ryan is a really gifted chef, and Chris is kind of the business manager of the restaurant entity. They are gonna put in a high-end ramen spot and elevate it dramatically. It'll have prices similar to Nineteen61, and, they can describe the concept better than I can…but it's a highly elevated Japanese cuisine that is almost as if you took a tapas restaurant and put a Japanese spin on it.
Editor’s note: The name of the restaurant will be Hakucho.
TL
The conversation kind of goes like this about growth, especially in a city like ours, “I like the small town feel” or “I like what we had” and then you also have people saying, “I wish we were more aggressive” or “I wish we had this and that.” As you lead Baron Realty, how do you recognize that tension and address it as you help the city grow?
PETCOFF
If it is possible, to a fault, I'm almost too content. If we were growing 40 percent a year, I'd be happy; if we were flat I would find things to celebrate in that. But I am sensitive to the people that say, “I liked Lakeland when we had 90,000 residents instead of the 125,000 today." Yeah, traffic is a byproduct of growth—we're gonna have it. You go into any major metro area and they have traffic. When I hear negative comments I like to kind of balance them because the easiest way to become more content and more satisfied with our city is to hear someone come from out of town. People always come from out of town and ask me, “Do people seriously complain about traffic here? I can get from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes. That's nothing compared to where I came from.” So invite a friend from out of town here, have 'em spend a weekend and they'll tell you all the wonderful things about our community.
“Invite a friend from out of town here, have ‘em spend a weekend and they’ll tell you all the wonderful things about our community.”
Phillip Walker
Vice President of Partnerships and Research for the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce
Served for 12 years as a city commissioner for the City of Lakeland
Phillip Walker has been firmly ingrained in Lakeland so long that when he was a young boy Publix stores had donut shops in them instead of full-service bakeries.
He served as a Lakeland police officer early on in his career and then pivoted to a career in insurance, where he was the principal of a local Allstate for nearly 27 years.
He served as a Lakeland City Commissioner for 12 years and ran an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the Florida House in the 2022 election.
The Kathleen High School graduate rarely meets a stranger and is down to talk about everything from the French classes he took at Kathleen High to the outfit you are wearing to the nuts and bolts of the local economy.
In 2023, the Chamber of Commerce created a position for Walker that leans into his plethora of business and civic experiences, as well as his love for people.
As the Vice President of Partnerships and Research, the 70-year old leads initiatives that help the underserved and minority business communities, while keeping his heart and hands in the development of Lakeland as a whole.
THE LAKELANDER
What do you can currently see as the primary strengths and weaknesses of Lakeland's economy?
WALKER
Well, strengths are we have done very well to have some corporate centers here. How can we forget about Publix? You can't say anything about Lakeland without Publix. Others have done very well, even the medical profession. We're talking about Lakeland Regional Health and Watson Clinic…and we’ve got Orlando Health and Advent Health coming into our community.
For weaknesses, I would say we still have to do our part to make sure we get the talent they need. In our school system…I was [recently] hearing the challenges and even success stories from [Superintendent] Dr. Heid about how well our schools are doing, but we need to make sure we have the talent to make that happen.
I think our trade (schools) are good, as well as our academies…but do we advertise that well? Do people really know that we have these particular academies in our school system to support everybody? Because not everybody’s going to go to college, but there are trades they can pick up and do very well with and make good money; look at electricians and plumbers and air conditioning people.
TL
Much of your life’s work has been advocating for diversity, inclusion and equity. What progress are you most proud to see that has taken place in the city in regards to the work you have been a part of? And then, what challenges are still most prevalent in our communities today?
WALKER
I'm glad to see how we have embraced diversity, equity and inclusion. Some of the, I guess, negative kinds of comments that you hear—how that particular subject has taken a sort of a bad hit—should not be the case. I tell folks, we all play in the sand together, and unless I understand where you come from…at least we have that dialogue to understand one another and how we can make the place where we do live, work and play wholesome and then welcoming. You can't do that without inclusion…and if we’re still going to want to have this separate and that separate, it’s never going to work.
I think we've done our part here. Of course being off the city commission for a little over a year…[we were] making sure that we do that, and we addressed challenges that we saw and made sure when we had problems we could say something.
I think it's important that we have representation that mirrors the community. Unfortunately—please don't take this as a negative when I say this—when I look at my [city] commission, I don't see that, when I look at my county commission I don't see that, when I look at my state representation, I don't see that. Well, what can we do? Do we have people who will fit the mold…or have the things that we need to have to make sure they can serve in these different positions? I think we have that, it's just that sometimes I say, do we really want it?
TL
Many people are talking about how Downtown West is primed for growth. You have talked publicly in the past about growth without gentrification. How do you believe government officials and private individuals and entities can best accomplish this?
WALKER
I would say it’s important to make sure we have conversations. I did say that, I guess, in one part of my closing comments to my former (city commission) colleagues: we don’t want to entrench upon communities that have been there for years. You have folks who live in those homes that have been…the center of that community.
I would say that I thought what was done with Bonnet Springs Park [was great.] I can remember when that community was pretty much one of the black communities….as a young lad I can recall it was called Robinson Corners, and now of course the name is Crescent Heights, but there are still black families there. The [Bonnet Springs investors and developers] did their part to talk to those particular residents…and it brought about a more wholesome relationship, and I think we need to do that with Downtown West. Let’s have some conversations.
TL
What is your advice to young people about getting involved in the community to make a difference?
WALKER
I think it's gonna take young people to do it. First of all… we need to make sure our young people know about this community. If you want to get involved and find out what's going on in Lakeland, I tell folks two calendars you need to go look at: the Chamber calendar and the City of Lakeland calendar. When folks tell me sometimes, especially the younger ones, there is nothing to do, I say, “Where do you live?” Because I think if you check both of those calendars and see what's going on, you find interesting things happening, and young people can get involved because they can join different boards and committees to get involved with the city and what's going on in our community.
- Special Thanks to Bryelle Walters for your contribution
“I think it’s important that we have representation that mirrors our community.”
Joseph Burton
Assistant General Manager at Amazon's Lakeland Location
Serves on Lakeland International Airport Advisory Board
After graduating from Florida Southern College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in 2013, Lakeland native Joseph Burton found considering top MBA programs to be a frustrating undertaking. During college he spent his summers as an intern for locally-headquartered Global Produce Sales where he managed farms and packing houses across the Southeast for the premiere watermelon grower. By the time he graduated he had paired his book smarts with common sense business acumen—and during his summer employment he also met his wife Brianna, who now works as a recruiter at Amazon. But he learned many top-rated business schools were looking for two consecutive years of related experience, which he did not have.
So Burton updated his LinkedIn profile and started to engage in online conversations with industry leaders, including employees at one of the global trailblazers in e-commerce and technology.
Those employees worked for Amazon, and funny enough, one of them was so impressed with his field experience that he referred him to a recruiter. Fast forward to where Burton was sitting in front of a general manager for Amazon in Lexington, Ky. as part of the interview process.
“He was holding my resume in his hands, and he said ‘I see you’re from Lakeland. I imagine you want to go launch the site there?’” the now 33-year-old recalls. “I said, ‘I would love to, but my understanding is the building’s not going to be done for several years,’ and he told me it was actually going to be done in about nine months.”
So in 2014, after extensive training at the Amazon facility in San Antonio, Tex., Burton became an Area Manager for the first-ever Amazon location in Florida, in the same town he attended Cleveland Court Elementary, Southwest Middle School and Lakeland High School.
He has held a total of seven different positions for a company that is so colossal that it is the second-largest private employer in the United States, yet it is also so personal that people often point up in the sky at the white and blue Amazon Air jets—wondering if the goods they ordered online might be a step closer to hitting their doorstep or mailbox.
Joseph is humble about his role as Assistant General Manager for Amazon Air’s Lakeland operation, noting time and again how the company has invested in him.
It’s a full circle experience for Joseph, who as a youth would attend week-long flight and aviation summer camps at Lakeland International Airport, which included a flight around Central Florida that culminated at the airport.
“I’m very much a sponge, and there’s just so much to learn, and I was constantly wanting to learn so it was a perfect fit,” Burton says about his journey with Amazon. “There's so much that needed to be learned at the time as we scaled operations as a company, and we needed people that wanted to dive in and learn the technical leadership and the people leadership pieces.”
THE LAKELANDER
What was it like to realize that you're in your backyard working for a global giant and you're managing a large team of people? Did you just kind of put your head down and learn and just go with it, or were there moments where you're like, ‘Wow, this is pretty incredible?’
BURTON
I think it’s all of the above. I mean, you're supported every step of the way.
Back then and now, I don't want to say they're two different companies, but just the growth, if you look at the number of sites across the U.S. 10 years ago versus today, it's completely different. And a company doesn't scale to that size at that speed without supporting its people.
I had some people that were really invested in my development and my growth, and I had some people that saw where my strengths are and pushed me toward succeeding through those strengths. I'm really grateful to have those people over the years.
TL
How do you, in a company that has everything planned out and strategically organized, sometimes down to the second—take the time to get to know your employees to build relationships that are good, healthy work relationships, so that way you can work well together?
BURTON
Whenever people find out I work for Amazon, what do they typically think of first? People always want to ask about the technology—things that are new to them, foreign to them. But make no mistake about it—it is a people-first company. We have over [1,000] employees out at the airport, and we don't do anything if those folks don't show up for us. We've got a great workforce, we've got a great associate team from all over Central Florida, and there's not a single package that gets moved without 'em. So what I always tell people is, you're gonna win or lose by your team.
I don’t remember where I picked it up from, but it’s called the Ford Principle—getting to know someone, getting to talk to someone, it’s about Family-Occupation-Recreation-Dreams. Those are the things when you’re trying to get to know a new employee. As area managers you may be on the ship dock for nine months, but then maybe for the next 12 months you move to [packaging]. As you get a new team that you need to learn…you need to know their names, you need to know which of their kids play T-ball and have a game coming up this weekend—and then the next time you see them you ask how the game went. You're building relationships, you have to hold yourself to a high bar to get credibility and integrity with them.
TL
Have you been in any of the ‘big blue planes’ so many of us see up in the skies locally?
BURTON
I've been in and out of 'em weekly [when they land at the airport]. It never gets old, and I say that as an observer—standing on the airfield, it never gets old watching the aircraft come in and out.
It's so much different being able to actually stand there on the ground when a 767 is arriving into the gate and you're standing 20-30 feet from it. It just never gets old. It may sound kind of cliche, but engineering marvels...seeing something that big, a big flying hunk of metal through the sky, it's just incredible. We only started flying a little over 120 years ago, and we went to the moon within 70 years after that, and now we regularly use aircraft to get people their packages from Amazon faster.
TL
How many flights does Amazon have coming in and out of the airport regularly, and how does that compare when operations in Lakeland first began?
BURTON
We do 20 flights per day—10 in and 10 out. When we first started we just had one plane come in and go out per day. It was a slower start, but Amazon's strategy has always been to improve speed and selection for its customers.
“People always want to ask about the technology...but make no mistake about it—it is a people-first company.”
Mark Cabrera
CEO of Saddle Creek Logistics Services
Vice chair of board of directors at Lakeland Economic Development Council
Mark Cabrera spends most of his time creating a legacy and building on the legacy of others.
For example, he and his wife are nearly empty nesters after raising their five children—a legacy that will far outlive them both. Also, Mark is deeply aware and appreciative of the legacy of Saddle Creek Logistics Services founder David Lyons, a man he was inspired by as an understudy and who he tries to emulate as the leader of a burgeoning company.
When Mark came on board as Saddle Creek’s CFO in 2001, company revenue was around $80 million. Today, the company that Mark became CEO of in 2019, generates revenue of more than $1 billion per year, and the Lakeland-based corporate headquarters employs nearly 1,100 individuals.
“I always look at my role in two parts—the traditional CEO role, which of course, means building the company and building shareholder value, but I always tag onto that, extending the founder’s legacy,” he says. “It’s pretty humbling when you’re responsible for a lot of people’s wellbeing…but then you realize you have a leadership team who are all really experts in what they do, and they are better than you are in those areas. As [former President Ronald] Reagan would say, you learn to trust, but verify.”
THE LAKELANDER
What are some things that you can share that Saddle Creek is working on, working through, and that people will recognize as opportunities coming here in the future?
CABRERA
I'd love to tell you there's some secret sauce. Really we've had nearly 60 years of steady growth, and a lot of that growth has just been organic. It's the simple basic thing: if we deliver excellent service to our clients we have the opportunity to add locations and add services. That's mostly how we've grown through our history. Then from time to time strategic acquisitions logically add on. One time we bought a secondary packaging company. We bought an e-commerce company in 2010; that's where we learned that business, and it's now 40 percent of what we do. And we bought a company in southern California that got us on the West coast and made us national. Anything that we can kind of bolt on strategically to a business, we'll look at it.
TL
You are a business leader, and you've sat on and sit on many boards and many committees within our community. How do we get better at providing high-paying, high-skilled jobs?
CABRERA
We're up to 1,100 associates that work in Polk County. You're always going to have a nucleus of jobs of warehouse workers, warehouse associates, forklift operators, truck drivers. Where a lot of our growth comes from is really the support jobs that support our national growth. So HR, finance, sales and marketing—and then especially the technical jobs like IT and engineering. Because as a supply chain, the work that we do is actually getting more complex, it requires more robust systems. It requires solutions that actually have to be designed and implemented and then have to be carried out. So that really drives the need for higher-level talent, especially engineering and IT and operations talent, that understands how to operate in that environment. It's a much more complex and different environment than, say, when I started 20-plus years ago.
Many of the jobs within the warehouse also require a higher-level skill set because as you bring on more automation, you're automating some of those lower-level, more physical tasks.
TL
How do you describe to people how Saddle Creek is kind of intimately woven into the fabric of our lives?
CABRERA
A lot of people didn't know about supply chains until the pandemic—and rightly or wrongly, now they do. At a simplistic level, we connect people with products. Whether it's food and beverage, footwear, apparel, health and beauty aids, consumer packaged goods...we're storing it in our warehouses, we're picking orders for retailers and individual consumers. Sometimes it is delivered on our trucks, and sometimes we arrange the transportation— so we're involved in it in all those facets. And then here locally, people probably don't realize that we feed the local grocery distribution network. Lastly, in terms of Lakeland…we have a lot of people that live here, work here and take pride in being involved in the community. Giving back is a big part of our culture and the legacy that David Lyons left
TL
When it comes to new technology, what do you see and what is your position on anything from AI to robotics to other emerging technologies?
CABRERA
I don't know if supply chain is sexy or not, but certainly the level of investment that’s being made in our industry—the number of new robotics and automation entrances into the market—is staggering. We actually now have an Engineering and Innovation team…that focuses entirely on what's out in the market and then helping us place bets on where to get the best results. One of the misconceptions is that people talk about automation as if it's something that's going to fix everything kind of en masse. In baseball parlance, it’s like there's some big home run out there. What we’ve found is it's really about stringing together a lot of singles, and those are all specialized areas where you're trying to solve a problem.
It's autonomous forklifts, autonomous floor scrubbers, robotic arms that unload cases...all those kinds of things that save some manual labor. The upside...there are really two parts to it. There's the increased productivity that you're obviously going for, but a lot of these things make associates' jobs better because you're eliminating tasks that are either repetitive or strenuous…long distance walking and those sorts of things.
The one technology we've deployed a lot of are autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). These are robots that carry products back and forth to an area. Instead of an associate having to walk those distances, they stay in an area and either pick product or replenish, and the robots go back and forth. It's a very simple idea, but it generates a lot of productivity and it makes work more enjoyable for associates.
“I don’t know if supply chain is sexy or not, but certainly the level of investment that’s being made in our industry—the number of new robotic and automation entrances into the market—is staggering.”