The tattoo industry has long thrived in Pensacola where a perfect combination of military members, locals, and tourists have kept books full at shops throughout town for decades. 

“I think it’s just a really good, supportive community,” says Carrie Daniels, Fortune Tattoo shop owner. “Not only for tattooers but just artists in general.”

But the industry has seen much change since the days when the sounds of coil machines drowned out drunken walk-in requests and Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy designs flooded the walls of every shop in town. 

“The days are gone of picking something off the wall,” says Gabe Smith, better known in Pensacola as Famous Gabe, owner of Electric Robot tattoo shop.

“Tattooing had this family tree,” he says. “And then the internet came out, and now the industry is diluted. People don’t know their lineage anymore; they don’t respect that lineage.”

Smith has been tattooing in Pensacola for 30 years. His long gray beard, shaved head, and fully tatted arms tell the story of an old-school tattooer. But even he has been forced to accept the change and pivot.

“You have to embrace the technology,” he says. “You can do that and still adhere to tradition.”

Too, he says, the internet has provided a more level playing field as trends, innovations, and technological advancements are shared instantly via online articles and social media platforms.

“It used to be you had to look at a magazine for something, and that’s your reference,” says Carrie Daniels, owner of Fortune Tattoo. “Now, you can just pull it up on your phone and automatically find whatever you want.”

New tattoo pen technology has taken over for many tattooers. At Fortune, Daniels says she’s the last artist yet to make the switch. Like Smith, she holds onto aspects of simpler tattooing times. 

“You still have people who stay tried and true to original equipment,” she says, “and that’s pretty cool.” 

Still, Daniels notes, there are plenty of industry norms worth leaving in the past.

When I apprenticed, it seemed like no one wanted to give me any information,” she recalls of her time as a young mentee in Jacksonville. “You had to figure it out on your own. But you had to put in all the physical work just to be there.”

A woman entering the industry in the early 2000s and working in all-male shops, Daniels ran into challenges. 

“At the time, it was not welcoming for women; it was very hard to get into,” she says. “You definitely had to find your place. You put your head down and grind.”  

Today she owns a shop with a majority of women tattooers.   

“I just wanted a comfortable and fun place for artists and clientele,” she says of opening Fortune Tattoo. “Because I think, a lot of times, people are intimidated and scared to come into a tattoo shop.”

The Western Rose tattoo shop entered the scene in 2021 with similar intentions of breaking cycles.

“We avoid a lot of the negative side, the toxic side of tattooing, because of this space that we’ve built together,” says Victoria Higgins, one of four Western Rose artists. 

The shop is run as a cooperative, made up of Higgins, Ali Roudabush, Reagan Mauldin, and Dave Ham. The four artists split costs evenly based on occupied square footage. 

“As opposed to someone else being in charge of everyone else’s artwork and making a profit off of other artists, no artist is profiting off of another one here,” Ham explains. 

A growing industry shift, the cooperative approach helps prevent an imbalance in power structures and overhead expenses. 

“I think the toxicity of tattoo culture is changing, which is awesome,” Mauldin says. 

Mauldin, Higgins, Ham, and Roudabush found each other at a time when they were all ready for change within the industry after working at other shops and in other career fields that proved unhealthy environments. 

“When I first started, it was very male-dominated with very toxic male egos, and you were just kind of told what to do,” says Mauldin, who’s been tattooing for over seven years. “You were supposed to be seen and not heard, and you work your a– off for a percentage that you deserved more of. And now, I work in a co-op with my best friends, where they respect me and they listen to me, and with clients that are the same.”

The Western Rose team has curated a safe, welcoming environment for clients. 

“It’s completely shifted into the healthiest work environment I’ve ever been in,” Mauldin says. 

The unassuming cottage on South De Villiers Street greets patrons with its plant-filled porch, and inclusive signage welcomes with phrases like “The future is queer.” Inside, beyond the equipment, tools, and safety features, there’s nothing medical or transactional about the space. The air is calm, the music is chill, the greenery is abundant, and the walls and shelves are adorned with eclectic decor. 

Despite negative past experiences, the group says Pensacola has given them a space they belong in as creatives. 

“The creative scene here is very community based,” Higgins says.

“Pensacola is a good place to be a tattooer just because of the military base, and the downtown crowd is very ‘locals support locals,’” Ham says. 

The local market scene thrives in Pensacola where creatives of all walks come out in droves. In August 2024, The Western Rose hosted a vendor market and tattooing convention called Mystic Rodeo. 

The event was organized as a fundraiser for Roudabush who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2023. With 20 vendors and 10 tattoo artists, the market welcomed the community to enjoy a day of art, live music, and flash tattooing in an effort to support Roudabush on her treatment journey. 

“It was just a really good example of Pensacola showing up for a local person,” says Ham. “Also, the art there was really incredible.”

Mystic Rodeo raised $11,000 for Roudabush. The group hopes to make Mystic Rodeo an annual fundraiser event to benefit area organizations and nonprofits. 

While many are shifting industry culture to focus on community, decades of bad habits still linger for some. And apprenticeships, as Daniels and Mauldin noted, can prove difficult for new tattooers entering the scene.  

“Because there is no curriculum or system, you can get abused real quick, and you can be taken advantage of,” says Mauldin. “And I think that happens more often than not until the mentor decides, ‘Okay, you’re worth your salt; now I’ll give you real information.’”

“There’s a responsibility for someone who wants to get in the tattoo industry to find the mentor who they think is going to teach them correctly and not abuse their time or them,” says Ham. “It’s really important to have a good relationship with your mentor.”

“And nobody should ever pay for their apprenticeship,” Higgins adds.

The group at The Western Rose hopes to instill a new era of tattoo culture in the community. 

“We all came from kind of messed up situations,” Mauldin says, “and now we’re in this environment that is healthy, and we’re open to learning, growing, and communicating.”

The new $40 million biomedically-based research complex constructed by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) will be more than a striking addition to the Pensacola skyline.

It will accelerate the pace of discovery that will drive innovations in maximizing the health span for everyone, from elite military operators and veterans to those with neurodegenerative diseases, musculoskeletal problems, and chronic metabolic conditions.

The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex is another step in the evolution of the vision that has been the bedrock of IHMC since its founding by Dr. Ken Ford, the Institute’s chief executive officer.

“Pushing the boundaries of science to maximize the performance and resilience of human beings has long been a foundational tenet at IHMC,” Ford said. “In our health span, resilience and performance research thrust, the vision has always been to work from the molecular level to the whole human. This facility brings that to life.”

Dr. Morley Stone, chief strategic partnership officer, noted that the leading-edge research complex allows IHMC’s interdisciplinary team of researchers to truly realize that vision.

“The healthcare system as it is set up now puts people on a trajectory to decline over decades,” Stone said. “We want to lead the science that drives people to extend the period of a person’s life over which they are high functioning and healthy.”

The unique facility puts Pensacola and Northwest Florida at the center of a human and biological sciences economic ecosystem that did not exist before this $40 million research facility was built. It also serves as a draw for top research talent to the area from all over the world.

“The ability to move from whole human physiology and performance to the molecular level in one facility — there’s nothing else like it in the southeast that I can think of,” Stone said.

“The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex will be an economic and intellectual beacon for the entire Northwest Florida region,” Dr. Marcas Bamman said, the

senior research scientist and director of Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research at IHMC.

The science conducted here will be an economic engine, drawing in new funding for federal and industry-sponsored research. Partners in the project have included Space Florida and Triumph Gulf Coast, the nonprofit corporation funded by a legal settlement with British Petroleum following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Funding provided by these agencies helped seed and support the complex.

The Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex stands apart among biomedical science hubs due to the collaborative, cross-discipline spirit that has been a hallmark of IHMC since its beginning. Researchers working in the new research complex are an arm’s length away from experts in AI, cognitive psychology, computational modeling, data visualization, exoskeletons, engineering and more.

“It’s an accelerant for the speed of discovery,” Stone said.

The three-story, 40,000-square-foot facility was built by Brasfield & Gorrie and designed by DAG Architects partnered with Atlanta-headquartered Cooper Carry. The complex is designed to fuel the pace of discovery. The first floor is built around human participant testing and intervention, featuring rehabilitation facilities, biomedical sampling tools and performance testing laboratories.

“The first floor focuses on clinical and applied science,” Bamman said. “The third floor contains leading-edge wet laboratories for cellular and molecular science, which enable us to extend and better understand the effects we are having on people on the first floor. We now have the unique capacity—leveraging a range of scientists and technology—to deeply study and improve strategies that enhance the health span, resilience and performance for all.”

“As the biological sciences have become intertwined with information and computer sciences, IHMC is uniquely positioned to accelerate that trend and excel while doing it,” Stone said.

“Every institution doing this work is struggling with how to generate meaning from that information,” Stone said. “Going back to our legacy, being able to tap into artificial intelligence and machine learning capability that was the foundation of IHMC is an invaluable resource for being able to make meaning out of that information that’s generated.”

A regional economic hub, a draw of international experts

The new Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex is not just a magnet for talent. It is a magnet for dollars that come into the community that do more than recirculate around the community.

“In this case, we’re bringing in millions of dollars of new research money into the economy that our researchers use to buy houses, eat at restaurants and buy cars. That type of impact is hard to match,” Stone said.

While the population at large will ultimately benefit from what IHMC researchers learn about aging, degenerative and chronic metabolic conditions and what interventions might help ameliorate these, military operators are a specific target audience of the research done at IHMC.

“And frankly,” Stone noted, “it’s just part of the moral obligation that we have to our service members to make sure that not only they leave in the best possible shape they can, but the years after they leave are as productive and high functioning as possible. That’s the moral obligation.”

Thanks to the Healthspan, Resilience, and Performance Research Complex, IHMC is uniquely positioned to fulfill this role.

IHMC is a not-for-profit research institute of the Florida University System where researchers pioneer science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human capabilities. IHMC researchers and staff collaborate extensively with the government, industry and academia to help develop breakthrough technologies. IHMC research partners have included DARPA, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, IBM, Microsoft, Honda, Boeing, Lockheed and many others.

An athlete at any level experiences a special kind of exhilaration when he steps into a batter’s box, toes the starting line for a running race or takes his place on a soccer field with the opening kickoff moments away. Such moments are gravid with possibility.

This may be the day that the underdog prevails, a pitcher hurls a no-hitter or a back-of-the-pack runner makes a late charge and finishes first.

For spectators, sporting events present opportunities to watch competitors strive for excellence within prescribed boundaries and reasonable blocks of time; their appeal dates to the first Olympiad and beyond.

Communities within Northwest Florida, heavily dependent upon tourism, have taken steps to gather visitors by investing in sports venues, employing new technologies to enhance the spectator experience and strengthening the ties between teams and the fans who support them. – Steve Bornhoft, Executive Editor, 850 Business Magazine

It is one of the most spectacular settings in all of minor league baseball and a major component in the revitalization of Downtown Pensacola.

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos, a Double-A minor league affiliate of the Miami Marlins, play their home games at Admiral Fetterman Field, a 5,038-seat stadium that faces Pensacola Bay.

Jonathan Griffith, the president of Studer Family of Companies, an owner of the Wahoos, said baseball is central to what happens at the stadium, but the stadium is part of a larger mission.

“The ball club is more than the baseball,” Griffith said. “Improving the quality of life in our community is truly our mission.”

Quint Studer is an entrepreneur, businessman, author and visionary who came to Pensacola in the late 1990s and succeeded very well as the founder of a health care consulting company. He and his wife, Rishy, soon became known for their philanthropic efforts throughout their adopted community — supporting health care providers, nonprofits, research and scholarship programs, as well as making a $2.25 million donation to help build Pensacola’s Community Maritime Park.

That $54-million, city-owned project includes commercial buildings, a public park, an amphitheater and the $24 million Blue Wahoos stadium, where the team has played since 2012.

“Baseball was a way to get people to want to live here and work here, to have entertainment for the families here and to rejuvenate the downtown area,” Griffith said. “The goal was to improve the quality of life in our community. We had so many people leaving here for jobs in places like Atlanta and New Orleans, so the concept was: What can we have that will make you want to live in this town? What will make you want to come to Pensacola, and how do we get people to stay? The baseball team was kind of a tool for that.”

Griffith said that the Blue Wahoos franchise is profitable but stressed that the Studers, themselves, don’t make money from the franchise. “They’ve never taken a check from here,” he said. “They reinvest every dollar that they get from the ball club back into the community.”

The Blue Wahoos Stadium operates year-round and hosts over 250 events annually, including youth and community athletics, fundraisers for local nonprofits, school field trips and many types of social events, including parties, weddings and graduations. Some of its operations benefit local businesses, such as when the stadium hosts a wintertime Division 3 college baseball tournament.

“We have nine teams with an average of 40 players here for a week and a half,” Griffith said. “That’s a lot of beds. Taxes are being paid, food eaten. We’re not charging anything; we host them. But by them all coming down here, now they’re fans of our community, and the parents tell me they want to come back here for vacation. So we’re doing this for the community. This is not a thing that we do to make money. We account for about $200,000 a year just in hotel stays for the Blue Wahoos games, alone.”

The Wahoos’ stadium has 18 billboards for rent, as well as company and organization signage opportunities everywhere you look: on the scoreboards, the dugouts, the on-deck circles, the foul lines, even on bathroom mirrors, napkin dispensers and trash cans. But its theme nights are the Wahoos’ biggest draw. Whether it’s Grilled Cheese Day, Star Wars Night, World Oceans Night, Junk Food Day or School of Rock Night, the fans come en masse to enjoy the fun and the spectacle. And they even get to watch a baseball game.

The stadium employs roughly 40 full-time people and, throughout the year, another 400-500 part-timers.

“We’re a lot of people’s first job, and we’re a lot of people’s last job,” Griffith said. “We employ people with disabilities. One of our guys in a wheelchair never had a job until he got here. One of the things he told me is that we changed his life because he feels normal here. He gets to work; he gets to interact with fans. We have truly improved his quality of life by being able to have a job.”

For Griffith and all involved with the Wahoos, providing a superior customer experience is a top priority.

“Our big thing is training and customer service,” Griffith said. “We put so much effort into that — making sure that our customer service is top-notch. And not only do we say it, we measure it as well. We survey every single game before the seventh inning; it’s something every full-time manager has to do to make sure we’re on point.

“This past year, we had a net promoter score of 90.2. Our big goal is that when you come to a ballgame here, you might not know who won the game, but you will talk about the entertainment. That’s what we’re all about, that family entertainment. We do a lot of fun activities. We’re interactive to get fans involved in the game. The more you can get a family involved in the game, the more they feel part of the Wahoos.”

New promotions were on tap for the current season.

“On Doggone Tuesday, dogs will be allowed at the ballpark, and you also get a hotdog, chips and a drink. We’re also going to have a $25 soda and a $25 popcorn. The benefit is that you can use that cup and that popcorn bucket for the rest of the year and get free refills all year long. Somebody that’s loyal to us, season ticket holders that go to 50 games a year, we’re always looking how we can thank them and reward them.”

Some events at the ballpark are intended to cause fans to cheer for more than the Wahoos.

“We do a thing with Ascension Sacred Heart, which is the local hospital here,” Griffith said. “We call it Home Run for Life, where we celebrate, once a month, a miraculous thing that the hospital has done — a cancer patient who’s gone into remission or somebody who recovered from a car accident. They’re able to come here, and we bring the entire staff that worked with that patient, and we tell their story. They run around the bases and high-five all the players. It’s so impactful for that family and our fans. There’s not a dry eye in the ballpark when that happens.”

The team also hosts youngsters with terminal cancer.

“We try to find those people that we can help, to give them a bright day and not think about whatever troubles they are having,” Griffith said. “We have pictures of families who were here for the last great memory they had of their child’s life. Because we’re here, because Quint and Rishy made this investment in the community, they’re able to have that time with their child.”

For Griffith, the score of the game is always secondary.

“We’re about making those family memories. So, the Wahoos could lose the game, 20-0, or we could win a close game. But you don’t even care.”

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Dr. Tim Smith had a big job, but he was ready for a new adventure. Working in the offices of Orange County District Schools — the eighth-largest school district in the country and the fourth largest in Florida — he was responsible for supervising 20 Orlando-area high schools.

Even as busy as he was, he felt a “tug,” he said and traced it to Escambia County.

Smith wasn’t ready to retire after 30 years working in Orange County, but he was ready to move from Central Florida to its northwest corner.

“I was looking for a leadership opportunity where I could make a difference,” Smith explained. “I had experienced a principalship and worked in a district office, and I felt a desire to lead on a wider scale.”

In September 2020, Smith was sworn in as Escambia County’s first appointed superintendent of schools.

“One of the things that intrigued me about Escambia County is the diversity, especially the economic diversity,” he said. “Escambia has a significant number of students who are in poverty. And one of the great difficulties in public education throughout the United States has been having kids in poverty perform well in school and have great learning experiences. But one of the things we’re charged to do is to reach every one of our kids and provide a great opportunity for them.”

As Escambia’s superintendent, Smith sees to the administration of 35 elementary schools, nine middle schools and seven high schools, as well as a number of specialized centers.

As it turned out, Smith didn’t have much time to pursue his charge full-bore after coming aboard — COVID-19 was working from another syllabus.

“One of the biggest challenges with COVID is that it slows things down because you have to scale back just to have things manageable,” he explained. “In August, September and into October of 2021, we had a major COVID spike. We had gone through the summer, and COVID numbers were down from the prior year. We were very hopeful that it was in the rearview mirror. Then it came back with a vengeance just as the first week of school started for us.

“So, you had students who were missing school, or you had students in school, but their teachers might have been missing school,” Smith continued. “You add to that substitutes not coming in the same numbers as they had previously. What that all equates to is lost instructional time.

Then in January, we had a shorter spike when things slowed up again. It was not nearly as long, and kids weren’t out as much. But they were out, and it was disruptive for about three weeks.”

This past school year, just as Smith was getting the system up to speed, another issue cropped up that threatened to end his tenure as superintendent. The catalyst was a particular test question given to middle and high school students pertaining to the district’s Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, a manual that outlines district policies on student discipline and behavior. According to Smith, the test had long been in place at the high school level.

The controversial test question concerned a fictional 17-year-old girl named Suzie and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Roger, to whom she had sent nude photos of herself in an ill-considered attempt to please him. After the pair broke up, Roger began circulating the pictures throughout the school, provoking so much derision and harassment toward Suzie that she dropped out and eventually committed suicide. The scenario was written to caution students against unacceptable behaviors while making them aware of some of the potentially extreme consequences of their actions.

For some parents, however, the story contained inappropriate language and situations and had no place in a school setting. Social media lit up with commentary on the issue, and while some in the community saw nothing wrong with the question, others were asking for Smith’s head and led the School Board to add a discussion about Smith’s possible termination at its September meeting.

Ultimately, Smith’s contract was not terminated, and in the aftermath, he says that even though it was a very small minority that found the test question egregious, he decided not to repeat the activity.

“Clearly, there was some wording or language that could have been worded differently or crafted differently,” he said. “I feel bad that people were upset. I wish I could go back and change that. The goal was to educate kids about their rights, rules and responsibilities. But it’s not really a necessary piece for us. I don’t think we lose anything by pulling it out, and I think it’s something we would have done anyway. There are other steps to go over the rules that can be accomplished without doing the activity like we did.”

Smith’s response to the firestorm typifies his leadership style and his ability to withstand the slings and arrows hurled his way.

“One of the things I try to prioritize from the standpoint of leadership is being united,” he said. “If we’re going to be united in helping every student to succeed, I need to lead in a way that builds unity. It’s OK in my role as the chief administrator of the entire school district for me to take criticism and for people to be upset with me — that’s just part of the territory.”

Now that things seemingly have calmed down, Smith is focused on dealing with a more fundamental problem.

“Our single greatest challenge right now is our labor shortage,” he said.

In addition to not having enough support personnel and substitutes, Smith is dealing with a twofold challenge regarding classroom teachers.

“We’ve had a number of teachers over the past couple of years leave teaching, and the other piece is we don’t have as many young people going into colleges with education programs and getting trained,” Smith said. “When you put the two together, that is a very difficult situation. Ten years ago, when you had a vacancy, you’d get a number of applicants. Some of our schools now, especially in our high-needs areas, they don’t get any applicants for vacancies. So that is our single greatest challenge.”

Setbacks and distractions notwith-standing, Smith remains undaunted in his desire to help all students succeed.

“Our kids need us as educators to continue working for them,” he said. “That’s what I plan on doing tomorrow morning — waking up and going at it. There certainly are challenges in the field of education, but what we do is we dig deeper; we persevere. That’s what we want to do in Escambia. We have so many awesome people who care so deeply in this community. They’re all in. They want to see our school system do well. And that’s my job — to lead and bring people together so we can work on the betterment of our kids so that they
can learn.”

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Renewing Acquaintance

→ Many of us have had teachers in our lives who profoundly influenced us. We think of them from time to time and may wonder if they ever think of us. Did we leave an impression on them, or were we merely names on classroom rosters? I was reminded, just seconds into my conversation with Tim Smith, that they do, in fact, remember:

Me: I just wanted to say before we begin that you and I once met because both my daughters graduated from Winter Park High School.

Smith: You know, when your name appeared on the email, the first thought that came into my head was Zoey.

Me: That’s right!

Smith: She was a valedictorian at Winter Park. You have two daughters, don’t you? 

Me: Yes, my younger daughter was Emma. She graduated two years later.

Smith: Well, please tell them both I said “Hi.” (I spend several minutes filling Smith in on the last 10 years or so in my daughters’ lives.)

Smith: Their old principal is proud of both of your daughters. It warms my heart to hear how they’re doing.

— Al Krulick

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With 13 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren vying for his attention, Eugene Franklin would seem to be covered up. Nonetheless, he is resolved to continue serving as an evangelist, educator, activist and community leader.

“I do all these things because it just feels right,” he said.

Growing up poor in New Orleans, Franklin, of Pensacola, has spent a lifetime achieving the American Dream, and along the way, working to make that dream possible for others.

“I want everybody to have a piece of America,” he said. “My goal has been bringing it to the table. I love this state, I love Pensacola and I want to give people an opportunity to develop and become the best they can be.”

Franklin, now in his 70s, spent 27 years in the United States Navy, both as an enlisted man and an officer. While traveling the world, he developed an appreciation for people and how they interacted in different cultural settings. Those experiences, combined with his religious faith, led him to a civilian life based on service to others.

One of his earliest ventures was helping Black residents in Pensacola buy their own homes.

“When I got out of the military and started working in the church, I heard about people with 18% interest rates on their mortgages,” he recalled. “So I formed Franklin Mortgage and Investment Co. with the goal of helping people keep their homes and get out of high-rate mortgages. It really was more of a ministry where we talked them through the process and then asked them to teach others.”

As time went on, in addition to his ministerial work as an associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Warrington in Pensacola, a 2,200-member congregation, Franklin began serving on many community and nonprofit boards of directors. While on the board of the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce, he helped found the Gulf Coast African American Chamber.

That organization was instrumental in revitalizing the historic Belmont DeVillers neighborhood. “I helped them from about 1997 through about 2004,” Franklin said.

In 1999, Franklin joined the board of the National Black Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

“They asked me to help organize and support chambers across the state, and out of that grew the Florida Black Chamber of Commerce, which I helped found,” Franklin said. “The work is about legislation, about issues and sharing knowledge to help communities redevelop their business structure. We practice what is called cultural economics. We help businesses understand their history and then support local communities.”

Franklin also helped establish the National Cultural Heritage Initiative, which spurred the development of a tourism market that serves international travelers and Americans of African descent, and the Pan African Cultural Heritage Initiative. The latter organization, Franklin said, believes that “if you look at people, not by race, but by their culture, and you appreciate within their sphere of influence how they interact with each other and develop, you can get a better understanding of how to rebuild communities.”

Subsequently, Franklin got involved in bringing about the Pan African Heritage Cultural Institute, “where we try hard to teach people how to rebuild their own communities by allowing them to develop them in the way that they feel comfortable. Whatever their needs are, what they want for their community, we try to facilitate to support their culture and their history.”

The National Cultural Heritage Tourism Center, yet another entity that Franklin helped foster, was instrumental in the redevelopment of Belmont DeVillers.

“We partnered with the Pensacola Chamber, provided them with historical information, and organized and promoted people who were working in the community in their cultural environment,” Franklin said. “It allowed people to come here and experience the culture — taste the food, hear the music. It’s a simple process, but it allows for the development of communities, and it has been a boon for Pensacola and the redevelopment of our downtown. It brings back properties that have been written off as of no use. When people come back and build these clusters, people come in, redevelop the community and preserve its history, which is the most important part of cultural economics.”

Today, Franklin continues serving on boards and working to support neighborhoods in Pensacola and beyond.

“I’ve probably served on every major board in Pensacola,” he said. “Currently, I’m the chair of Pensacola Habitat for Humanity, which connects to my work in community development and also my ministry. I’m also a longtime and founding member of the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition.”

IHMC conducts research as part of the State University System of Florida and has locations in Pensacola and Ocala. It is focused on developing science and technology aimed at leveraging and extending human cognition, perception, locomotion, performance and resilience.

In 2022, over 2.4 million passengers flew through Pensacola International Airport. This makes Pensacola International Airport (PNS) the largest Gulf Coast airport from Tampa to New Orleans. In addition, ongoing economic development initiatives will also bring 1,300 new aviation and aerospace jobs to the airport.

The continued growth of Gulf Coast tourism means an increased need for space at PNS. To meet this demand, airport officials are finalizing plans and funding to modernize and expand the facility. These improvements include an expanded security area, a second concourse with an additional five gates and additional parking options. Plans also call for upgrades to the existing terminal, expanded concessions area and improved utility infrastructure for the entire airport.

Once funded and completed, the effort will increase the airport’s flight capacity and improve the passenger experience, said Matt Coughlin, Airport Director at Pensacola International Airport.

“We know from our passenger surveys that offering more flight options and amenities is important, and our goal is to modernize and expand the airport to meet that need in a modern, efficient and welcoming way,” said Coughlin.

Air travel is not the only growth industry at Pensacola International Airport. It is also home to a growing aerospace maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry.

Project Titan, the $210 million MRO facility expansion at the airport, recently hit a tremendous milestone with the completion of a 180,000-square-foot hangar at the airport.

This transformational project is funded by multiple grants, including Triumph Gulf Coast, Governor’s Job Growth Grant Fund, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and the Florida Department of Transportation, in partnership with the City of Pensacola, Escambia County and VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering, Inc.

Coughlin said that the combination of airport expansion and job growth makes PNS a significant contributor to the Northwest Florida economy.

“Here at Pensacola International, we’re a gateway for our community, but we’re also part of this community. We’re grateful to welcome travelers to the area and provide economic opportunity for our friends and neighbors on the Gulf Coast.”

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Pensacola International Airport

FlyPensacola.com

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