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Genshaft keeps torrid pace for the bay area
By Robert Trigaux
Published January 28, 2007
When Judy Genshaft was first under consideration seven years ago as the next president of the University of South Florida, she was known as the "Eveready battery." Lithium battery is more like it. Genshaft, 59, maintains a torrid pace promoting USF as an influential "metropolitan" university and an economic development engine for the Tampa Bay area. Such personal intensity and a strong involvement in economic development groups (she chairs the Tampa Bay Partnership this year) are key reasons why Genshaft was named more often than anyone else but Raymond James CEO Tom James as a top business leader in the St. Petersburg Times annual survey of executives. In an interview Friday, Genshaft stressed her mission is unchanged. USF wants to foster economic development and advance its academics and research capabilities. There's tradition here. Public universities once catered to local economies with agricultural and mechanical training. "The goal was to build the economy of the time," she said. It's no different today. Her goals include pushing for more comprehensive transportation plans, encouraging Tampa Bay's political clout in Tallahassee to unite for regional gains and starting a task force to make Tampa Bay a model of the "healthiest community" in the country. There's plenty left in this battery.
[Last modified January 27, 2007, 22:23:22]
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