Florida Chamber Regional Chair Michael Minton Talks Opportunity

“Free enterprise to me means that you have the opportunity to realize the American dream and do it in a way that you don’t have government creating roadblocks in your way to be able to do that.”

– Michael Minton, Immediate past president of Dean, Mead, Minton & Zwemer
Florida Chamber Regional Board Chair, Palm Beach/Treasure Coast

As Florida Chamber Regional Board Chair, Michael Minton has a unique look at the issues his region faces.

Issues like water:

Water issues relate to the ability to meet the needs of our community and meet the needs of other parts of the community as far as having adequate water supply. For our region, it’s the impact that discharges of fresh water to the lagoon [and] effects on the s-drain environment of the Indian River Lagoon and the St Lucie Rivers. One of the aspect we’ve been closely involved within the water issues in finding ways to keep that water from being discharged and maintain it in the system so it’s available to provide water supply elsewhere in the state.

Diversifying our state’s economy, both with agriculture:

Hand in hand with the water issues, as we try to attract a more diverse work force and a diverse investment community are the opportunities for diversified value added business for our agribusiness industry…. The difficulties that are being experienced out in California with the water shortage creates huge opportunities for agriculture in our state to diversify its production and the potential for value added product for processing fruits and vegetables other than just citrus is a great opportunity for our state, so we see that a as a real growth potential.

And with a high-wage tech sector:

The effort that was undertaken to diversify our economy into the biotech sector we believe, still stands to pay significant dividends to our state we just need to stay the course and make sure we do what we can as a community to support the efforts that were undertaken to bring in that vital industry because it creates so many other opportunities. You look at what’s going on in central Florida with the prospect of being able to develop a whole corridor of smart sensor production down in Osceola County…The future of that development project is tremendous to our state.

And for Minton, attracting businesses goes hand in hand with opportunities and free-enterprise principles.

Florida has a very pro-business environment and we have an upward ascending growth pattern so there is a lot of opportunity in Florida… There is still so much land in Florida that is available for other uses and activities so it’s a very inviting state for businesses and people to travel to and to relocate their business activities.

Free enterprise to me means that you have the opportunity to realize the American dream and do it in a way that you don’t have government creating roadblocks in your way to be able to do that. We have the most wonderful country in the world and the greatest opportunities in the world but we keep finding ways to stifle that entrepreneurial spirit. I think the Florida Chamber has done a great job of taking the lead of finding where those roadblock are and knocking those roadblocks out of the way of the entrepreneur and creating the opportunity so that they can achieve and realize their dream.