Corporate Report

Corporate Report

by Sean Roth | Real Estate Editor

New Coach House motorhome gets 20 mpg

Nokomis-based Coach House Inc., has introduced the new Platinum II downsized Class C motorhome. The Platinum II is the first Coach House RV to be built using a Sprinter 3500 cutaway chassis powered by a Mercedes turbo-diesel engine.

Coach House President David Gerzeny said in a press release the Platinum II's engine has electronically controlled five-speed automatic transmission and can get up to 20 mpg.

The four Platinum II models will start at $121,000 each.

Coach House's Ruben Gerzeny and his sons, David and Steve, have been designing, engineering and manufacturing recreational vehicles in Southwest Florida since 1985.

Coach House, Inc., employs more than 80 engineers, designers, technicians, mechanics, painters, installers, cabinetmakers and upholsterers at its Venice manufacturing facility.

Odyssey Marine

gets N.C. shipwreck

Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. has obtained rights to a shipwreck site and the recovery of a ship's artifacts at a location about 12 miles off the coast of North Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2005, BDJ Discovery Group filed the original arrest action against an unidentified shipwrecked vessel in the Atlantic Ocean 12 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

BDJ, the company that originally discovered evidence of the site, brought the project to Odyssey in 2007 and an agreement was reached for Odyssey to take over all aspects of the project. BDJ has assigned all of its rights to the artifacts and the wreck to Odyssey in return for up to 15% of any proceeds from artifact sales after archaeological excavation, conservation, marketing and certain other expenses.

"As other groups assess the real costs and challenges of shipwreck projects, including archaeological recovery, conservation, legal and marketing expenses, we're being called more often on projects like these," Greg Stemm, Odyssey CEO, said in a press release. "We have the experience, technical expertise and infrastructure required to effectively handle all aspects of virtually any shipwreck project that comes our way."

Odyssey has had surveying and inspecting operations on the site since August 2007 and is currently planning the next stages of survey and archaeological investigation of the site.

Among other objects, a small number of gold and silver artifacts have been recovered from the "Firefly" site, but the identity of the shipwreck from which the artifacts originated has not yet been confirmed.

Odyssey Marine Exploration searches for shipwrecks and handles the archaeological recovery of artifacts from those shipwrecks.

SeaBridge Freight

chooses Port Manatee

SeaBridge Freight has selected Palmetto's Port Manatee for its container-on-barge, trans-Gulf service to the Port of Brownsville, Texas.

Scheduled to start in late April, SeaBridge will offer port-to-port container-on-barge service between Florida and Texas. The new service will target cargo traffic throughout the Southeastern United States, Texas and Mexico. The new service is billed as a way to eliminate the international complexities of trading with Mexico by creating a domestic service between Brownsville and Port Manatee. The service will also make use of existing rail and highway infrastructure.

The service will start with a calling in Port Manatee every 10 days, but SeaBridge hopes to increase that frequency to a calling every five days. The service is being offered to freight forwarders, third-party logistics providers, trucking carriers and intermodal rail providers.

SeaBridge officials report they selected Port Manatee because of its location, infrastructure, access to target markets and room for growth as the service expands.

SeaBridge intends to make Port Manatee its headquarters for the new operation and will focus on a wide variety of containerized and over-sized, over-weight cargos, including steel coils, tile, automobiles, car tires, auto batteries, consumer goods, U.S. Government freight, aluminum ingots, resins, consumer goods, heavy equipment and manufacturing assemblies.

Tampa software firm chosen by Iowa physician group

Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based MercyCare Community Physicians has selected the integrated Intergy by Sage Software Healthcare Inc. of Tampa for its practice management system and Intergy EHR by Sage for its electronic health records.

The systems will support 74 MercyCare providers plus an additional 20 providers through its managed services organization in 20 sites. MercyCare Community Physicians is associated with the 445-bed regional hospital Mercy Medical Center.

The Intergy implementation will eliminate duplicate data entry and enable electronic laboratory and radiology orders and results.

Physicians at MCCP will also be able to import into a patient's electronic record physician rounding and operative notes from the hospital's system.

Sage Software Healthcare is a division of Tampa-based Sage Software Inc., the North American business of The Sage Group plc, a leading global provider of business management software.

Flanders' Bartow plant

to rise from ashes

Flanders Corp., a St. Petersburg-based air-filtration products manufacturer, announced plans to rebuild its Bartow facility, which was destroyed by a fire in July. The new manufacturing plant will be 265,000 square feet. Construction is scheduled to begin this month, and it will take seven to 10 months to complete.

"Bartow was a key facility for the corporation prior to the fire, and we are pleased to announce that it will be rebuilt," Harry Smith, chief operating officer, said in a press release.

Brown & Brown

buys Subway accounts

Brown & Brown of Connecticut Inc. purchased the book of Subway restaurant franchisee insurance accounts from Franchise Insurance Agency Inc. in Columbus, Ohio.

Tampa- and Daytona Beach-based Brown & Brown Inc. and its subsidiaries offer insurance and reinsurance products and services, as well as risk management, third-party administration, managed health care and Medicare set-aside services and programs.

Raymond James

chooses BlueThread

Raymond James Financial Inc. has hired Ann Arbor, Mich.-based BlueThread Technologies Inc., a provider of Microsoft SharePoint-based Enterprise Content Management (organizational process software) products to the financial services industry, for a key project to enhance several paper-based processes, including opening new accounts.

Raymond James plans to deploy almost 10,000 seats of BlueThread's SmartDesk, an application that uses Microsoft's SharePoint Solution and K2's Business Process Management technology. The system will manage data, paper-based content and business processes across the company's 2,200 investment offices.

Mark Abbott, Raymond James' senior vice president for IT, said in a press release: "We needed a way to accelerate these processes by digitizing paper documents at their source and merging their data into a totally digital process. After full deployment, we expect significant increases in efficiency and cost savings. Our branches will be able to handle transactions in a fraction of the time."

Sarasota's Cap Creative

launches event division

Sarasota marketing/PR firm CAP Creative has launched a new event division called CAPtivate. CAPtivate will handle all event planning, production and management, from theme development, permitting and staffing to collateral production, talent contracting and site cleanup.

Company President Roxanne Joffe and her partner, Sam Stern, were retained by pop artist Peter Max, the state of Vermont and AOL/Time-Warner to produce and manage an outdoor concert series that featured Sheryl Crow, BB King, Ray Charles, Ringo Starr, John Hiatt, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Buddy Guy.

The new division recently produced the National Medicaid/Medicare Conference at the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota.

MotorSports

promotes new COO

Fort Myers-based MotorSports Solutions, a motorcycle dealership holding company, has promoted Glo Cuiffi to chief operating officer.

Scott Fischer, chief executive officer of MotorSports Solutions, said it made sense to promote from within.

"As I assessed our situation, it was perfectly clear that Glo has all the attributes and abilities needed to run our company on a day-to-day basis," Fischer said in a press release. "She has worked closely with me for years and knows what's needed to drive the systems and procedures that make our stores operate efficiently and profitably."

Cuiffi began her career with the company at Harley-Davidson of Fort Myers in 2001. She recently received her bachelor's degree from Penn State University. Cuiffi has worked in numerous positions, both at the dealership level and at MotorSports Solutions, over the past seven years. Her most recent title was director of communications.

MotorSports Solutions is the management company that oversees the operations for seven motorcycle dealerships in four states.

Sirion drug under review by FDA

Sirion Therapeutics Inc., a Tampa-based eye-disease biopharmaceutical company, announced its new drug application for Durezol has been accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and granted priority review.

Sirion Therapeutics is seeking approval from the FDA for its investigational compound Durezol (difluprednate ophthalmic emulsion), a twice-daily topical steroid, as a treatment for post-operative ocular inflammation.

Priority review is granted by the FDA to those drugs that have the potential to provide a significant improvement over most products that are already on the market. This designation results in a review period of six months from the date of receipt of the application. The FDA has issued an action date of June 26 under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.

Post-operative inflammation is a common reaction following eye surgeries and it can interfere with a patient's visual rehabilitation or lead to further complications and longer-term problems.