Florida Trend Magazine has named Selby Gardens President and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki to the Florida 500, a list of Florida’s most influential business leaders.
The editors of Florida Trend selected the 500 executives after conducting hundreds of interviews and months of research, culminating in a highly selective biographical guide to the leaders of Florida.
Since joining Sarasota’s Selby Gardens in 2015, Rominiecki has been a visionary, bringing 20 years of experience at major New York City cultural institutions. After arriving, she repositioned the institution as The Living Museum, enacting a new operating model that has yielded increases of 128% in membership and 135% in overall earned revenues.
Rominiecki has also overseen the creation, fundraising and Phase One construction of a three-phase Master Site Plan for the Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus, for which more than $57 million has been raised.
By the end of 2023, with Rominiecki at the helm, Selby Gardens will complete construction of Phase One, including the world’s first net-positive botanical garden complex, generating more energy than it consumes.
In 2020, under Rominiecki’s leadership, Selby adopted Historic Spanish Point in the Osprey area of Sarasota County as a companion campus to its flagship Sarasota location.
Find the complete Florida 500 list at https://floridatrend500.com.
Bowie joins Visit Sarasota board
Visit Sarasota County has added Susie Bowie, president and CEO of the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation, to its board of directors.
Bowie took the position heading the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation in March 2023, after seven years as executive director of Manatee Community Foundation.
She is a graduate of Leadership Florida and vice president of the Charitable Gift Planners of Southwest Florida.
Bowie graduated with honors from the University of Florida in 1998 with a bachelor’s in environmental science and spent 11 years in leadership positions at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.
Visit Sarasota County leads and supports the tourism industry in Sarasota County by providing marketing programs and promotions to ensure the continued growth of tourism and travel from visitors around the world.
Lawyer earns board certification
Attorney Douglas E. Walker, of Sarasota’s Williams Parker law firm, has earned the Florida Bar Board Certification in Construction Law.
The Florida Bar thoroughly evaluated Walker for credibility and expertise in construction law, and professionalism and ethics in the practice of law. He focuses on construction, design and public contract law.
Walker’s 30-plus years of experience in the construction industry began with a Bachelor of Science in Building Construction from the University of Florida’s M.E. Rinker School of Building Construction. That was followed by six years of construction operations experience with a Fortune 100 construction and engineering firm.
He then expanded his industry knowledge and perspective by earning a master’s in Engineering Construction Management and a J.D., making him a proud triple-Gator.
His legal experience includes 19 years as assistant general counsel for the same Fortune 100 construction and civil engineering company where he started his career 30 years ago.
Sales coordinator at Music Compound
The Music Compound recently hired Jonathan Simos as sales, marketing and outreach coordinator. Simos will provide personalized customer service to potential members, oversee school promotions, and research and coordinate new opportunities for collaboration and exposure.Simos has experience in the hospitality industry, working for top brands including Bottega Louie in Los Angeles, California, the St. Regis in Miami and Ritz-Carlton Sarasota.
Then he moved into the fitness industry, earning his Master Trainer designation as well as numerous other certifications and credentials.
The Music Compound − with locations in Sarasota (1751 Cattlemen Road) and Manatee (4740 S.R. 64 E.) counties − provides an environment to inspire and educate children and adults in pursuit of their love of music.
SMH recognizes two top physicians
Sarasota Memorial Hospital honored two physicians in October for outstanding service and announced its 2023-2024 chiefs of staff for the SMH-Sarasota and SMH-Venice campuses.
Rickey Wiseman, MD, was awarded Sarasota Memorial’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award and Matthew Waldron, MD, was named 2023 Physician of the Year. After input from the medical staff, a committee of physician leaders recognized Wiseman and Waldron at the SMH-Sarasota annual medical staff meeting Oct. 17.
Wiseman received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award for decades of dedicated service to Sarasota Memorial and the community.
A longtime internal medicine specialist in the community, Dr. Wiseman has spent the past 45 years combining his passion for medicine, compassion for people and strong faith while caring for patients in our community.
After graduating with his medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1978 and completing his residency at the University of Virginia, he established a private practice in Sarasota in 1981 and later joined Intercoastal Medical Group until his retirement in 2020.
Wiseman has volunteered his time caring for low-income and uninsured patients at Sarasota Memorial’s Community Specialty Clinic since its inception 30 years ago, while also caring for patients in a busy private practice for decades.
In his retirement, he continues to serve as medical director and as a volunteer physician at the clinic.
Waldron, a cardiac anesthesiologist, was awarded Sarasota Memorial’s 2023 Physician of the Year. Dr. Waldron joined SMH’s medical staff in 2022, serving a vital role his first year as the health system opened its own anesthesiology practice.
Although a relative newcomer to Sarasota, Waldron’s advocacy and unwavering dedication to patients and his ability to lead, unify and inspire his peers helped Sarasota Memorial create a new anesthesia practice that combined longtime anesthesiology professionals in the community with new ones recruited by SMH, creating the largest medical division within SMH’s First Physicians Group.
Before transitioning to the FPG practice, Waldron joined Sarasota Anesthesiologists in May 2022, after serving seven years as a cardiac anesthesiologist at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, Mid America Heart Institute and assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
He earned his medical degree at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 2010 and completed his anesthesiology residency at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida in 2014 and a fellowship in cardiothoracic anesthesiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in 2015.
In related news, the medical staffs of SMH-Sarasota and SMH-Venice selected their chiefs of staff for 2023-2024.
Sarah Temple, MD, was named chief of staff at SMH-Sarasota, a campus of 1,800-plus medical staff members and advanced practice providers. She succeeds Jonathan Hoffberger, DO, whose one-year term as chief ends this month.
Scott Perrin, MD, was named chief of staff for the SMH-Venice campus, serving as the top representative for that hospital’s 1,200-plus medical staff members and advanced practice providers. He succeeds Christopher Jefferson, MD, who has served as chief since the hospital opened in 2021.
