New position: President, Tucker/Hall, Tampa. Previous position: Chief operating officer, Tucker/Hall, Tampa
By FRED W. WRIGHT JR.
Published February 23, 2004
When he is not climbing a volcano or jumping out of an airplane or diving with sharks, Bill Carlson is running Tucker/Hall Inc., the Tampa public affairs and public relations firm.
Carlson joined the agency in 1994 and has served as senior vice president and then chief operating officer before being promoted to president in December.
Carlson said he would be "spending time on growth strategies." With clients in Latin America since 1993, Carlson said, Tucker/Hall wants to expand in that market.
His new role will require more travel, which suits Carlson, who enjoys adventure travel as part of his annual vacations. "In the next six months, I'll be on the road about 30 percent of the time in the U.S. and Latin America," he said.
Latin America is a major focus, he said, because of cultural and geographic links that businesses and families in the Tampa Bay area have with that part of the world. "People elsewhere in the country look to Florida, and increasingly to Tampa Bay, as a jumping-off place for Latin America," he said, even more so than Miami.
Prior to joining Tucker/Hall, Carlson worked in Singapore for four years with a market consulting company. Before that, in St. Petersburg, Carlson worked for a promotions company, first as an intern, then in a full-time position.
As a native of Sebring, Carlson is a fifth-generation Floridian. He earned a bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of Tampa in 1988. He then completed graduate work for an MBA degree at the National University in Singapore as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. While he was unable to actually earn the MBA because he was a foreigner in Singapore, Carlson said it was "an invaluable experience because at that time, Asia looked like it was going to dominate the world market." He then got a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1999.
Carlson says he was inspired to go into advertising and marketing by the 1960s TV sitcom Bewitched. The male lead, Darrin Stevens, "was in advertising. I thought that was kind of cool. It influenced me," he said. "It thought it was great people could have a job in a field that was creative."
Carlson said he sees marketing and advertising as an opportunity "to really shape the direction of organizations (knowing you) can make an organization very successful or make it fail or save an organization if it's in trouble."
Giving back to the community is also a motivation for Carlson. "I have a passion for Florida. Because I grew up in Florida, I care about seeing Florida succeed and grow."
Consequently, Carlson said he has agreed to be chairman of a new International Services Task Force being formed by the Tampa Chamber of Commerce. In addition, he is on the board of a number of organizations, including the Florida Medical Manufacturer's Consortium and the Live Arts Peninsular Foundation, and he is on the steering committee of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100.
Carlson, 36, and his wife, Stacy, have an 18-month-old son, Trey, and live in Tampa.
When his schedule allows, Carlson said he likes "to go places that most people wouldn't go to," alone or with his family. He has climbed a volcano in Indonesia, visited Nepal during the 1990 revolution, toured Cambodia during uprisings in the mid 1990s, visited Peru while Shining Path rebels held hostages in the Japanese embassy in Lima and went scuba diving with 200 sharks in the Bahamas.
Carlson says these adventure travel experiences help him deal with situations that make him uncomfortable. For example, Carlson said he is afraid of heights, "so I climbed the volcano and jumped out of a plane to challenge myself. I'm still afraid of heights but at least I know I can do it.
"I like to face dangers and challenges," he said. "Surviving great challenges helps me think work challenges aren't very big."
