One of Tampa’s real business treasures is the University of Tampa Board of Fellows. This group of business leaders conducts social and networking events that provide programs like no other. Once a year they hold the Fellows Forum and this year approximately 700 attended a morning meeting to hear three very dynamic business leaders. All of their events are well organized and can be counted on to run on schedule. This year’s Forum was presented by UBS and featured Peter Beck, the Managing Director of the Beck Group, Tom James, Chairman and CEO of Raymond James Financial, and Robert Fornaro, President and CEO of Airtran Airways. Each speaker gave a 10 minute presentation that was followed by questions and answers.

Dr. Ron Vaughn, President of the University of Tampa,and Dr. Frank Ghannadian indicated the funds raised from the event were to support scholarships at the John Sykes College of Business. UBS Managing Director, John Matthews, gave a welcome from UBS.

Peter Beck identified the Beck Group as being a 95 year old company with 780 million in AEC (architectural, engineering, and construction) projects in 2006. His acknowledgement that 40% of the costs and 20% of the time of most projects are wasted pointed to a dysfunctional process in construction projects. An integration/sharing of knowledge was helping to solve those problems. Expressing a need to achieve a buy in by all involved, he stated the need to create incentives for all involved to invest in the completion of the project in order to improve efficiency and final results. Beck called his company a lagging indicator of the economic future and identified a large difference in economic opinion between main street and wall street. His company has had their best year ever, while he expressed a mild optimism, he did so with caution..

Robert Fornaro has a 10 year background with Airtran. The company currently has 139 planes and a background of 9 years of being profitable. Important changes that the company has made have included significantly replacing older aircraft, creating more direct routes, upgrading the friendliness of service, and providing additional customer benefits such as more business class seating, xm radio and more. 70% of Airtran tickets are sold online, making the internet the most significant change in the airline business in years. His concern over the significant increase in fuel prices was reflected in the fact that 40% of expenses are the price of fuel. Fornaro ridiculed the previous forecasts that oil prices were not expected to exceed $45 a barrel, while today’s price is over $100. He expressed concern about the future of the economy, the impact of mergers, and fuel prices leading to cutbacks in passengers. Looking to the future, he sees the addition of internet connectivity on all planes as the next major trend.

Tom James took over the reins of the company at the age of 27 as his father dedicated his time to training of financial assistants. He credited his conservative background for keeping the company away from high risk mortgages. The goal of the company is to provide a place to work, make money, and feel proud about the contribution they are making to society and the community. When Tom James became President, the company had approximately 2 million in sales and now a total of 3.1 billion in sales as of last year. He is proud of his 5000 financial assistants and expressed their reason for success was because they were enjoying what they were doing. James comments about the Florida insurance caught many by surprise. He clearly indicated that rates should rise by over 30% to cover the real costs of the risks involved.

Concerning the future as a result of the upcoming elections, Fornaro saw no fundamental differences affecting the merger and acquisition side of airlines and thought markets would remain competitive. Beck saw a bigger issue in the attitude of losing control of our destiny citing the assigned control of policy as relinquished to the Federal Reserve as bneing a more significant trend.

Fornaro indicated that all airlines are becoming more aware of environmental issues and fuel savings. He noted that less engines were now being used to taxi, more electric use while at the gate. Beck indicated that environmental issues in construction could be discussed for days. He referred to a greater awareness of site location of a building as being a less complex, but resulting in significant savings in the construction and operation of a building.

The University of Tampa, Board of Fellows will be holding additional Business Network Symposiums in the coming months that will be providing additional substantive programs of interest to the business community. You can get more information about them here.

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