Florida Trend

The Florida Trend 350: Transportation

CSX Corp. (Public No. 9) provides rail and intermodal transport services to 23 eastern states over a 21,000-mile rail network and last year played a pivotal role in the effort to bring high-speed rail to Florida.

The Florida Trend 350: Security

Boca Raton-based ADT Worldwide, a division of Tyco International, provides electronic security systems and services to more than 5 million residential and 2 million commercial customers around the world.

Of Counsel: Recovery

Executive director, Florida Lawyers Assistance, a non-profit agency formed in 1986 in response to a Florida Supreme Court order that a program be created to assist Florida Bar members dealing with substance abuse and mental health issues.

The Florida Trend 350: Engineering and Construction

Paulsen was recently elected to the American Council of Engineering Companies Executive Committee. Since 1956, Naples-based WllsonMiller (not ranked) has been shaping communities in Florida and others parts of the Southeast through its professional planning, design and engineering services.

The Florida Trend 350: Heavy Hitters

Just one-third of the 150 public companies on our list, 53, reported revenue gains.

The Florida Trend 350: Retail

Ed Crenshaw, grand-son of revered founder "Mr. George" Jenkins, took over as CEO in 2008 of the Lakeland-based grocer. and current CEO Keith Koenig, Tamarac-based City Furniture (Private No. 104) is a leader in blended global supply chain management and broke ground this year on what will be the first LEED-certified furniture showroom in the nation in Boca Raton, complete with solar harvesting and LED track lighting.

The Florida Trend 350: Real Estate

The Graham Cos. (Private No. 170) remains Miami Lakes' largest landowner with holdings that include the 200-acre Don Shula's Hotel & Golf Club, a 300-room hotel, a golf course, an Athletic Club facility, 1,500 apartments and more than two million square feet of office, retail and industrial space.

The Florida Trend 350: Law Firms

Since the early days when Chesterfield Smith ran the firm, Holland & Knight (Private No. 41) has wielded influence throughout the state.

The Florida Trend 350: Financial Services

Executive Chairman Wllllam P. Foley II's title insurance company Fidelity National Financial (Public No. 14) has been spawning jobs since moving to Jacksonville from California in 2001 First, it spun off banking services company Fidelity National Information Services (Public No. 18), of which Foley also is chairman.

The Florida Trend 350: Defense & Space

A major employer of top engineering graduates from UCF, UF and other state universities, Harris designs, builds and sells a variety of communications and IT equipment, ranging from military radios and satellite gear to maritime technology, air-traffic control, Census IT and public safety communications equipment.

The Florida Trend 350: Natural Resources & Agriculture

Looking out over the St. Johns River from his high-rise office on North Laura Street in Jacksonville, Lee Thomas, chairman, president and CEO of Rayonier (Public No. 42), presides over a global business that encompasses around 2.4 million acres of timberland, including 425,000 acres in Florida, a major manufacturing operation and a real estate subsidiary.

Icon: Jan Garavaglia

[...] I always do self-evaluate, and that's one thing that the job has taught me. Because I may die tomorrow, and would I be happy with the way my life is lived? [...] it's OK that I haven't learned to paint yet.

The Florida Trend 350: Banking

Though none is based in Florida, all four members of "the League of Trillionaires," as Miami-based banking authority Ken Thomas calls them, now are in Florida thanks to the recent additions of Wells Fargo (through its takeover of Wachovia) and JPMorgan Chase (via WaMu), joining Citi and Bank of America.

Medical Modeling

The program will be housed at the Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which opens in 2012 and is the largest project in the medical city at Lake Nona at 1.2 million square feet.

Peachy Keen

Borders settled on peaches and became among the first farmers in the state to grow several new varieties developed for the state's climate by the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

'Talent Pipeline'

Escambia's push to reinvent teaching and learning gained momentum three years ago when the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce helped organize a business, education and workforce coalition, the Northwest Florida Next Generation Learning Community, teaming up with neighboring Santa Rosa County--which will have 22 academies this fall--and enrolling in the Ford Motor Co. Fund's Partnership for Advanced Studies.

The Florida Trend 350: Computers

The day Apple shipped its first iPads, Citrix was already touting its app designed to turn the tablet into a "virtual office."

The Florida Trend 350: Insurance

J. Hyatt Brown, 72, helped lead Florida as Speaker of the state House and, since leaving the Legislature in 1980, has led Daytona Beach-based insurance brokerage Brown & Brown Insurance (Public No. 47) into becoming the largest in Florida, sixth-largest nationally.

Research & Innovation

Florida's universities get revenue from some 360 licensing deals. Since 2000, Florida universities have spun off 196 companies. > In 2007, 30% of degrees awarded by Florida institutions were in science and engineering (the national average is 32.1%).

Credit Lifeline

Association Financial was founded by two pairs of brothers: CEO Kenneth Arnold, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Arnold, Chief Financial Officer Alex Moskowitz and Chief Information Officer Ram Moskowitz.

The Florida Trend 350: Utilities

The utility is building a 75-megawatt solar thermal hybrid plant that integrates solar power with natural gas; it also purchases power from a number of biomass power facilities.

The Florida Trend 350: Services

Through innovative use of GPS, IT and other creative approaches, Miramar-based KIRA (Private No. 199), under president and owner Carlos Garcia, a Havana native, I has turned itself into a high-tech, low-cost provider of facilities management Result: A growth engine with 1,000 employees at military bases throughout the world and at government water plants and private industry sites.

Elite Company

Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn; Brown University; Medical College of Pennsylvania; New York Medical College; SUNY Upstate Medical Center; University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine; Texas A&M University College of Medicine; West Virginia University Interests:

The Florida Trend 350: Hospitality

OSI Restaurant Partners (Private No. 10), the Tampa-based parent company of Outback Steakhouse and other restaurant chains, is a big civic player in the Tampa Bay area via its sponsorship of charity and sporting events like the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am, which has raised more than $3.4 million over six years for area charities.

Research Stars

A professor and chief of epidemiology and biostatistics for the USF College of Medicine's department of pediatrics, he has been largely responsible for making USF a hub for epidemiological research in rare diseases and juvenile diabetes. His team established an international data coordinating center that is expected to record and track more than 1 million samples over 15 years as part of studies to identify environmental triggers of Type 1 diabetes, a study known as TEDDY (The Environmental ...

Both Sides Now

In March, Adage Power, a joint venture between North Carolina-based Duke Energy and a French engineering firm, pulled the plug on its plans to build a $250-million biomass plant in Gadsden County after a group of local residents objected. Florida is way behind a lot of other progressive states," she says, "and if we're going to have a competitive renewable energy sector, most people are understanding they need to facilitate it now and let Florida and Florida businesses develop this sector.