Lewis family wins $1,000 from Connerton
Scott Lewis, right, receives a $1,000 prize from Stew Gibbons, after he and his wife Erica won the $1,000 drawing as part of New Town of Connerton’s Grand Tour of Homes contest. Connerton visitors were able to enter a drawing at Club Connerton and the four builders’ models — from Ryland Homes, M/I Homes, Taylor Morrison and Homes by WestBay — giving each visitor five chances to win.
Realtors take home Connerton prize
Beth Hibben of Exit Realty Bayshore and Linda Roy of Charles Rutenberg Realty, were $1,000 winners as part of the Grand Tour for Realtors drawing at Connerton.
Hibben resides in Lutz, while Roy makes her home in Land O’ Lakes. Both have sold homes in Connerton in the past.
Both Realtors also have military ties. Hibben is a volunteer agent at MacDill Air Force Base, while Roy has both a husband and son who are retired from the U.S. Air Force.
All Realtors had an opportunity to enter their names in the drawing by visiting Club Connerton and models from four builders — Ryland Homes, M/I Homes, Taylor Morrison, and Homes by WestBay.
Connerton, located on U.S. 41 north of Land O’ Lakes, has had more than 70 sales in the past six months.
Tampa Bay area leads in job creation
Job creation is up statewide, and a lot of that has to do with the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater region, which led all metro areas in job creation over 2013 with 39,300 jobs added.
That resulted in a 1.9 percentage point decline in the unemployment rate for the region, bringing the rate to 6.2 compared to 8.1 percent the year before.
The top jobs in the region included professional and business services with an additional 12,000 jobs; education and health services with 9,700 jobs; trade, transportation and utilities with 7,100 jobs; and construction with 6,400 jobs.
The area also led in online job demand, as well as those in the high-paying areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey shows Tampa Bay area employers are expected to continue hiring at an active pace, with 21 percent of companies interviewed saying they plan to hire more employees.
Statewide, the unemployment rate dropped from 6.7 percent to 6.4 percent. The state has created more than 446,000 private sector jobs since December 2010, according to the governor’s office.
Brenneman retires from tax collector’s office
December capped the end of a 30-year career for Denise “Dee” Brenneman with the Pasco County Tax Collector’s Office, not only serving customers as a member of the service staff, but also as a trainer who helped employees learn the often complex tasks of running a tax collector’s office.
“It is with both regret and joy that we see Dee retire from our office,” said Mike Fasano, Pasco’s tax collector, in a release. “We regret that she will no longer be a part of our staff, serving the taxpayers as well as she has done for the past three decades. However, we do feel joy for her as she moves into this new stage of her life.”
During a farewell ceremony on Dec. 20, Brenneman was presented with a plaque commemorating her career with the office.
Another honor for New Identities Hair Studios
New Identities Hair Studios of Tampa — with locations in both New Tampa and Riverview — was selected as one of the Salon Today 200 top 200 salons in the United States.
The annual listing honors the top salons and spas, as judged by the editors of Salon Today magazine in New York. Winners are chosen from thousands of applicants nationwide, according to a release.
This is the fourth consecutive year New Identities has won this award.
New Identities is located in Tampa Palms, 15307 Amberly Drive in Tampa, as well as in South Shore at 10639 Big Bend Road in Riverview.
For more information, visit NewIdentitiesSalon.com.
Florida leads way in aviation
A new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers has ranked Florida first in overall U.S. aviation manufacturing attractiveness.
That joined other rankings of ninth for the state’s industry and sixth for cost in the first ranking of its kind in the nation.
The PwC ranking used a weighted average of variables in the report, which includes costs, workforce, and the number of aerospace companies. Texas was ranked second in the report, and Washington was third.
Florida’s manufacturing sector has 17,500 companies employing 311,300 workers around the state, according to the governor’s office. Manufacturing accounted for 93 percent of Florida’s exports in 2012, and the state ranks first in the nation in manufacturing export intensity — the percentage of total manufactured goods that are exported.
For every dollar invested in manufacturing goods, it creates another $1.43 of activity in other sectors, according to the governor’s office.
