Opening Night Social Event Flyer

Opening Night Social Event
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Firehouse Cultural Center
101 1st Ave NE, Ruskin, FL 33570
Doors open: 5:30 p.m.
Program begins: 6:00 p.m.
Cost: $25 donation
Stewards of the Land: A History of Florida’s Largest Local-Government
Environmental Lands Program, Hillsborough County’s Jan K. Platt
Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP)
Panelists
Jan K. Platt, Hillsborough County Commissioner (1978-2002)
Bob Martinez, Tampa Mayor (1979-1986) and Governor of Florida (1987-1991)
Jan Smith, ELAPP Committee Chair
Joel Jackson, retired parks planner for Tampa and Hillsborough County
Gus Muench, longtime ELAPP advocate, fisherman and eco-tour guide
Sally Thompson, longtime ELAPP and sustainability advocate
Rob Heath, retired ELAPP manager (1988-2002)
Moderator
Joe Guidry, retired editor, 40+ years at the Tampa Tribune
About
In 1987, Hillsborough County voters approved a referendum and property tax to implement the
Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP). It was subsequently
reauthorized in 1990 and 2008, each time with sizeable majorities. Similar to and often in
partnership with state-funded programs such as Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever, ELAPP
has protected over 62,000 acres of rare and important habitat in Hillsborough County. Learn
from these community leaders about how we got here, and what we need to do to ensure the
future protection of Florida’s natural heritage.
Open to the public (festival registration not required), but you must RSVP here:
www.floridabirdingandnaturefestival.org
About the panelists and moderator
Jan K. Platt
Jan Kaminis Platt was born in St. Petersburg and raised in
Tampa. At Florida State University, she was elected
President of the Student Senate and Vice President of the
Student Body, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1958. She
attended law school at the University of Florida, where she
was the only woman in the program.
Platt returned to Tampa Bay, where she taught history, was
a field director for the Tampa Girl Scout Council, and
served as volunteer president of the Suncoast Girl Scout
Council. She co-founded the Junior Discussion Group, a unit
of the League of Women Voters, for young women
interested in better government.
Jan K. Platt was elected to Tampa City Council in 1974 and
served on the 1976 Florida Constitutional Revision
Commission. In 1978, she was elected as a Hillsborough County Commissioner and served
continuously until 2002.
An avid fisherman, Platt was a driving force behind the creation of the Tampa Bay Regional
Planning Council’s Agency on Bay Management, the Environmental Land Acquisition and
Protection Program (ELAPP), and Tampa Bay’s selection into the National Estuary Program.
Among her many honors, Jan K. Platt was named a Woman of Distinction by the Suncoast Girl
Scout Council, Humanitarian of the Year by the Florida Head Start Association (2010), and
received the Herman W. Goldner Award for Regional Leadership by the Tampa Bay Regional
Planning Council.
In 2014, Hillsborough County recognized her dedicated service by officially naming ELAPP the
“Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program.”
Bob Martinez
Bob Martinez, former Governor of Florida, is
a senior policy advisor with Holland &
Knight's Public Policy & Regulation Practice
Group.
Mr. Martinez is one of Florida's most
respected leaders, and his distinguished
career in public service spans more than 40
years. Career highlights include serving in the
following positions: Cabinet-level office as the
nation's second Drug Czar under President
George H.W. Bush from 1991-1993, Governor
of Florida from 1987-1991, Mayor of the City
of Tampa from 1979-1986, and Vice Chairman
of the Southwest Water Management District
from 1975-1979.
Mr. Martinez is known for his creation of
effective environmental protection programs
such as Preservation 2000, the largest
conservation land-purchasing initiative in the
nation of its time. He has been instrumental in campaigns that created and continue to support
Hillsborough County’s Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP).
Jan Smith
Jan Tomlinson Smith was born in Pennsylvania and
lived in Michigan before her family moved to
Melbourne Beach, Florida. She earned a Business
Administration degree from the University of South
Florida and then worked at Tampa General Hospital,
where she met her husband, Dr. Earl Smith. When he
established a private pediatric practice, they worked
together for 38 years until retiring in 2011.
Smith, whose Tampa Bay-area community service
began in the 1970s and steadily expanded into the
new millennium, has not slowed down in retirement.
Her record includes appointments by the Hillsborough
County Commission to the Planning Commission,
Charter Review Board, Affordable Housing Steering
Committee, Hillsborough Area Rapid Transit (HART)
Board of Directors, Transportation Task Force,
Economic Development Committee, and Economic Prosperity Stakeholder Committee. She has
also been involved with protecting and promoting Tampa’s historic Ybor City for 20 years.
Smith is currently the Chair of Hillsborough County’s Jan K. Platt Environmental Lands
Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), which reflects her longstanding commitment to
this program since its inception. Likewise, she has been involved with Friends of the
Hillsborough County Parks since 1985. In 2011, she joined The Tampa Bay Conservancy Board of
Directors, and has served as treasurer for three years.
Joel Jackson
Joel Jackson became active in environmental issues in
1969 as a founding member of Save Our Bay, which was
formed to fight dredging and filling of nearly 2,000 acres
of Upper Tampa Bay. In 1970, he became the parks and
recreation planner for the City of Tampa.
Between 1977 and 1983, Jackson managed a bond
program for Hillsborough County that established new
natural resource parks, including Upper Tampa Bay,
Lettuce Lake, and Alderman’s Ford. Around this time, it
became clear to him that public land acquisition was one
of the few ways to ensure the long-term protection of
valuable environmental lands.
In 1986, while again working for the City of Tampa, he
volunteered his experience with state and federal
environmental land acquisition programs to assist the county in drafting guidelines for
Hillsborough County’s Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP).
Jackson retired after serving 17 years with Tampa and 23 years with Hillsborough County. He
continues to be an active member of ELAPP’s General Advisory Committee and its Strategic
Planning Sub-Committee, as well as a longtime member of the Florida Native Plants Society and
Tampa Audubon Society. In 2016, he was recognized with the Florida Native Plant Society’s
award for public service.
Gus Muench
Gus Muench was born and raised
in Tampa, with a childhood lived
like Huckleberry Finn. He worked
32 years with General Telephone
Company, and has advocated for
the Tampa Bay environment his
whole life.
Living almost 50 years on Little
Manatee River, Muench has been
a commercial crab fisherman
since 1976. Recognizing that
healthy waterways require the
protection of coastal, wetland and upland ecosystems, he got involved with the Environmental
Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) in 1986, and he remains active on ELAPP
committees to this day. He won environmental accolades including Audubon’s Polly Redford
Award (1986), the Chevron Conservation Award (1990), and he was inducted into the
Hillsborough High School Hall of Fame.
Muench is also passionate about the region’s natural and cultural history, including the Uzita
people who lived here before the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors. Since 2008, he has been
advocating for the creation of a coastal Uzita Trail and conservation overlay district for public
lands in the south shore area of Tampa Bay.
Sally Thompson
Sally Thompson moved to Winter Park, Florida, from
Baltimore at the age of nine. Two years later her family
moved to Tampa. Growing up, she remembers swimming
in lakes (with alligators) and the many citrus groves.
Florida was a much less populous state then.
Thompson earned her B.A. in English from Hollins
University (Virginia) in 1965, and her Master of Public
Administration degree from the University of South
Florida in 1995.
Returning to Tampa in 1974 after working for several
years in New York City, Thompson promptly became
involved in environmental causes, first with Save Our Bay
and then the Hillsborough Environmental Coalition. Her primary interests were the Tampa Bay
ecosystem and environmental land programs. She served on the committee that developed
criteria for the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) in the mid1980s.
At the City of Tampa, Thompson worked in human resource management and later grants
coordination, retiring in 2000 after 25 years. She taught environmental resource management
at USF until 2007.
Thompson has continuously served on ELAPP committees since its creation. Her other
environmental bona fides include: Governing Board of the Southwest Florida Water
Management District (1990-2001); Chair of the City of Tampa Greenways & Trails Citizens
Advisory Committee; Emeritus Member of the Florida Greenways & Trails Foundation; and
founding and current board member of the Tampa Bay Conservancy.
Rob Heath
A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Rob Heath moved to
Florida in 1978, where he worked as a ranger for the Florida
Park Service. In 1981, he was hired by Hillsborough County
and served as the County Naturalist for the Parks and
Recreation Department, training park rangers to give guided
walks and nature programs, developing natural history
interpretive literature and displays, and operating an awardwinning summer nature program for school-aged children.
From 1988 to 2002, Heath played an important role in the
Hillsborough County Environmental Lands Acquisition and
Protection Program (ELAPP), conducting environmental site
assessments and supervising county staff responsible for
management of the natural lands acquired through ELAPP.
In February of 2002, Heath retired from Hillsborough County in order to start the Wildlife
Fellowship, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental stewardship. He has
recently worked as a seasonal warden and bird monitor for Audubon Florida’s Coastal Island
Sanctuaries, a senior ecologist for Wildlands Conservation, Inc., and serves on the board of
directors for Tampa Bay Conservancy.
Joe Guidry (moderator)
Joe Guidry, a Tampa native, worked for The
Tampa Tribune Company for more than 40 years.
He joined The Tampa Tribune Editorial
Department in 1984, later became Deputy
Editorial Page editor and took over as Opinion
Page Editor in 2008, a position he held until the
Tribune ceased publication in May 2016.
Environmental stewardship was a priority
throughout Guidry’s editorial career. During the
1980s, he undertook a “Saving the Bay” series,
writing more than 50 editorials on the
importance of cleaning and protecting Tampa
Bay, advocating for such measures as the Surface
Water Management Improvement (SWIM)
legislation and the selection of Tampa Bay for the National Estuary Program. He raised alarms
over proposals to build a marina and an electric plant on pristine sections of the bay.
Guidry vigorously championed land preservation efforts throughout the years, including the
Hillsborough County Environmental Land Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP),
Preservation 2000, Florida Forever, and the Florida Land and Water Legacy Amendment. The
University of South Florida graduate consistently defended pollution controls and responsible
planning and emphasized the economic payoff of resource protection. His writings have won a
number of awards, including the national Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial
Writing, the Al Burt Award for journalism that promoted conservation and responsible growth,
and the Terrell Sessums Award for leadership in safeguarding Tampa Bay.
Guidry has been an active supporter of numerous local non-profit and charitable institutions,
including the Boy Scouts, Tampa Bay History Center, Children’s Cancer Research Group and
Tampa Catholic High School. He is a recipient this year of the Distinguished Alumnus Award
from the University of South Florida.