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“Towards Precision Medicine Therapies and Biomarkers for Neurodegenerative Diseases”Dr. Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner, Professor and Enterprise Chair of Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neuroscience, explains the very latest research and treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases before an April 2, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Dr. Ertekin-Taner gave the club some shocking figures on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease:$305 billion spent on the diseases600,000 cases in Florida alone12.5% of Florida residents over 65 suffer, the second highest in the country18 billion hours of caretaker timeAt Mayo Florida, she has more than 200 investigators working in her lab and supervises more than 250-scientists and trainees at the Florida campus. “Our collective mission is to find cures and diagnostics for currently incurable and undiagnosable neurologic illnesses, like dementias, like Alzheimer's disease,” she said.  “Dementia is the umbrella term, it means a person is having problems in their thinking, and it's interfering with their day-to-day life.”She pointed out that while Alzheimer’s was first identified more than 100-years ago, it has only recently become recognized clinically.  It was thought to be a normal part of aging, but now we know it is not. Dr. Ertekin-Taner and her lab are looking for cures not only for Alzheimer’s but also Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a disease that progresses faster and at a younger age than Alzheimer’s.The investigators use genetics to get information about possible risk factors, but it does not give specific information.“Basically, think of it like the general address.  There is a fire so the firefighters are called, and we say there's a fire in this general region.  That's the kind of information that these kinds of studies give us.  But they don't tell us exactly which house is on fire.  And they don’t tell us what caused the fire.”While diagnosis has gotten better, there are still few cures.“The answer again, lies in in the economy.  The cost of putting a single drug on the market is on average over a billion dollars.  So pharmaceutical companies cannot commit unless those drug targets are de-risked for them.  And the groups that are going to really identify those drug targets and de-risk it for big pharmaceutical companies are academic groups.  Places like Mayo Clinic and other places.”Dr. Ertekin-Taner said Alzheimer’s, PSP, and the other forms of dementia differ from person to person.  While Alzheimer’s is now treated as a single disease, she says it should be treated similarly to cancer with specific therapies for specific patients.  Doctors need to apply precision medicine, which is diagnosing and treating the right patient with the right treatment at the right time. Genes are not all researchers look to.“There's also a big emphasis now on environment, the exposed zone.  Where you were born, what you eat, what are your other risk factors, and education?  What are the things that enrich your brain, and what are those that take away from your brain?  Their relationship with genes matters.  And this combination either puts you at risk for diseases...  (for the rest of the Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) A TeleDirections podcast 

“The Radical Consequences of a Digital Economy” Bob Rice, Managing Partner of New Jersey-based Tangent Capital Partners, shares the revolutionary implications of Artificial Intelligence on global production, wages, competition, investments, and education before a March 21, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Bob Rice told the Club that the current digital revolution is making radical changes in the economy which will have radical societal consequences.  The changes are occurring at a rate of speed that is hard, even for him, to comprehend.He pointed out that the first digital camera was invented less than 50-years ago. With the popularity of the Internet and the Personal Computer, anyone can now transmit a photograph to half the world’s population instantly.  “The latest iteration is Artificial Intelligence or AI, created by machine, and it’s just getting started.  The advances and the consequences are mind-blowing and we have to be ready,” Rice said.He then showed three brief videos that were created by computers solely with human text commands.“They literally started with a blank screen with no pixels at all on the screen,” Rice said of the AI process.  “Tyler Perry, the big movie guy in Atlanta, was shown this a month ago.  He walked out and told The Hollywood Reporter ‘I'm putting my $800 million studio expansion on hold.  Jobs are going to be lost.’”He calls both the advances and the consequences “shocking.”  Mr. Rice said we are seeing a “revolutionary revolution,” and he calls it that because it’s not happening in just one domain of human existence.  It’s affected things such as the war in Ukraine, entertainment, and also medicine.“Some of the medical advances that are coming out of this are absolutely mind blowing.  The ability to create brand new antibodies that are proteins, specifically for your body, is happening right now.”It’s a revolution that everyone will have access to. “You don't need to be a specialist with 20-years of training to use this tool.  You need to be able to speak or write something, and it will take care of it and do what you want it to do.”He said that the Meta (formerly Facebook) open-source AI has been downloaded about 150-million times.Mr. Rice also discussed human productivity and said the invention that most improved the world was the washing machine.“Suddenly, electric washing machines freed up essentially half of humanity from six hours of drudgery every single day.  And half of humanity was unleashed into things that were more economically productive,” he said, alluding that AI holds the same potential.  (for the rest of the Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) A TeleDirections podcast

“The Challenges of Leadership in Our Times” Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discusses the growing challenges and turmoil facing the United States before a February 6, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Leon Panetta briefly told the Club about his background including reminiscences of Floridians he had worked with in Congress in the late 1970’s and 80’s, Senator Lawton Chiles and Congressman Claude Pepper.  He recounted how his parents were immigrants from Italy in the 1930s and how they believed they could give their children a better life in the United States.  His father instilled in him the idea of service.“I really felt it was important to give something back to the country.  And frankly, what I'm trying to do here with the Panetta Institute is trying to develop a new generation of leaders for our country. And man, do we need a new a younger generation of leaders in this country,” he said.  “The rewards in public service are not money or power, or having a name on the door.  The purpose of public service is to improve the life of people in this country.  And I felt that I could help improve the lives of the people.”The former military Intelligence officer pointed to how recruitment across the military services is down.  “The reward in public service is a reward that goes to the heart of what our democracy is all about, which is that all of us owe a duty to country. But one of the things I'm sensing in young people is that they don't have that same drive that same sense of duty to country.”Mr. Panetta deplores the lack of public service in young people today, and throughout his discussion, he suggested ways to get them more interested and working on improving lives.“Looking to the future, what we really need to do with young people is establish a national service system that requires young people to serve this country, in some capacity, whether it's in education or conservation, or health care, or the military.  It would be a hell of a lot better for them to pay for college, working for this country than simply borrowing the money to go to college like they do now.”  That suggestion drew a big round of applause from the audience.He added, “If we don't build a good future generation of leaders, we will continue to have problems with our democracy.”  (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) 

“Driving Florida’s Sports Economy” Angela Adams Suggs, President and CEO of the Florida Sports Foundation shares the growing $70 billion economic impact of Florida’s sports industry before a November 7, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Angela Adams Suggs told the Club that Florida is where the world comes to play.“Florida's economic impact is $70 billion dollars plus annually through amateur, recreational, professional and leisure sport,” she said.While major professional sports teams are important with three NFL teams, two NHL teams, two NBA teams, and two MLS teams, most of that number comes from non-major league activities, such as:Jump rope competitionsHorseshoe eventsSoftball tournamentsDance competitionsPickleball tournamentsShuffleboard tournamentsIn addition, Orlando will be hosting thousands of volleyball players for a tournament in July 2024.She added, “More than sixteen-million people come to eleven-hundred golf courses.  Twelve percent of the United States golf economy is right here in the state of Florida.”Plus, the state’s thousand miles of coastline, more than twelve-thousand miles of rivers and streams, and eight-thousand lakes attract fishermen year-round.Fifteen major league baseball teams hold their spring training in Florida’s Grapefruit League.  Suggs said many of them have renewed contracts, and many of the stadiums and facilities have recently undergone renovations.  The state hosts the Governor’s Baseball Dinner annually at various spring training sites.In all, sporting activities provide nearly a million jobs statewide.  “We need traffic control.  We need for people to come out and keep these parks clean.  We need ticket takers.  We need folks that are going to come in and print up all of the great signage that you see.  For our road races, you need people that are going to put barricades out.  You need people on our softball diamonds that are going to drag the fields,” Suggs said.While hurricane season means the Summer Olympics probably will not be hosted in the state, there are openings in other areas.“While we may not host the Games in Florida, we definitely are primed and ready to create opportunities for preparation to have a huge impact through the games,” she said.  She pointed out that a lot of nations have their Olympic teams train in various Florida communities....  (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) 

“Energy of the Future” Armando Pimentel, President and CEO of Florida Power and Light Company, discusses the challenges of providing customers reliable, affordable power with less emissions before an October 5, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Florida’s economy is growing significantly, and Florida Power and Light President and CEO Armando Pimentel told the Club that whatever happens in the Florida economy affects its largest utility.  The company serves more than 12-million people – over half the population of Florida – making it the biggest electric utility in the nation, too. Mr. Pimentel said the company is working to solve the riddle of how to provide customers reliable power that is affordable.  He said generating it with less emissions is hard to do.“We have one of the lowest bills in the nation, roughly 25% to 30% lower on a national average than everyone else again.  And that's because we provide clean, affordable and reliable power,” he said.One of the ways FPL will accomplish that is by the use of solar power.  He said that solar energy is now cheaper than natural gas over a 30-year investment.  By early next year the company’s 66 solar projects will expand to more than 100.“It makes sense for our customers to reduce the amount of natural gas that we're burning at Florida Power and Light and increase the amount of energy that we're getting from solar.  Texas and Oklahoma take their gas somewhere else, and we get free energy from the sun here in Florida.“He says the federal Inflation Reduction Act provided production tax credits that save money for customers.To back up the solar and wind generation, its affiliated company NextEra Energy Resources also has more battery storage than anyone in the nation.  But resources are not limited to renewable energy.  The company also drills for oil and natural gas and owns pipelines.  Over the past 20-years, they have torn down old, inefficient natural gas plants and replaced them with modern ones that have saved $15-billion in fuel costs.  They are also experimenting with using solar power to separate hydrogen gas from water to use as a fuel in what are now natural gas plants.Mr. Pimentel said battery technology is critical to renewables and that reduction in cost will lead to more electric vehicles.  “Battery technology is going to get very cheap, very, very cheap.  And once it does, it's no longer going to be economical to buy gasoline powered cars.”Mr. Pimentel said the company has increased customer reliability by replacing 94% of old transmission line structures with concrete and steel ones which are much more resistant to hurricanes and other storms.  He said that during Hurricane Idalia less than 0.3% of their solar panels were affected.FP&L also operates an innovation hub called 35 Mules to give entrepreneurs, many of them with energy or power projects, an opportunity to grow their ideas.  The program helps build jobs across Florida and makes it an even better to grow and innovate.  FP&L receives hundreds of applications a year and chooses only a few for the program.“We provide them not only senior leadership, we provide them a little bit of money,  guide them in the right direction to make sure that they can understand how to raise money for their venture and allow them to think much broader in terms of bringing a product out to the market. It's been very successful.“He concluded by...

“The Economics of Culture” Bill Yeargin, President and CEO of Correct Craft, shares the lessons he’s learned running a successful Florida business and how corporate culture impacts the bottom line and the lives of employees, before a September 12, 2023 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)Since 1925 Correct Craft has operated as the world’s leader in tournament inboard, freshwater fish and utility and recreational boats, as well as marine propulsion and watersports parks.  The company is headquartered in Florida but has manufacturing plants across the country, and it operates in more that 70-countries worldwide.Bill Yeargin has served as CEO since 2006 – he was the fifth CEO in five years.  He realized the company needed a culture of service.“One of the things that we needed was a culture, and a culture of service, a culture of something bigger than us,” said Yeargin. He promoted a culture of making life better.  “When you have employees that are engaged, employees that are part of something that's bigger than themselves, they perform really well.”“You can’t think of culture as an expense.  You have to think of culture as an investment,” said the CEO.  “There’s no investment you can make, that’s better for your organization, that’s got a higher return than investing in culture.”  He said Correct Craft has grown from a $40 million company in 2009 to more than $1 billion last year.  Yeargin said part of the culture is becoming a learner.  He said most people conversely are knowers – people who use data only to confirm what they already know.“If you’re a learner, you get an endorphin rush when somebody changes your mind,” said Yeargin.  He said he wants to be the least judgmental guy anyone meets.He said the way we frame things in our minds make a big difference in how successful we are.  We should see obstacles, or challenges, as opportunities and the way to our success.“And so when we have a big challenge, we say the obstacle is the way. We’re going to figure out a way to turn this to our advantage.”Yeargin and part of his team recently spent a week in Silicon Valley.  Their concentration was on the huge increase in computational power seen in the past few decades, in items such as the smart phone – and its implications for change and transformational growth.“That technological change is transforming business models and transforming the world.  Whatever you’re doing now, if you’re doing the same thing in ten years, you’re likely to be out of business,” he told the Club.Yeargin emphasized that looking ahead is part of his company’s culture.  He points to the need to drive culture and says it is simple if these four steps are followed.Identify what is important in your organizationCreate a clear way to present itCommunicate over and overModel itAs for the last point, Yeargin said leaders have to follow the cultural steps themselves.“As CEO of Correct Craft. I talk about this stuff all the time.  But if people see me talking one way and acting another, they're always going to make their determination of what your values are based on what they see you do, not what they hear you say.  Always.  So you have to model it,” he said.....