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Talk of the Bay: What will life be like without the shuttle?

Florida's Space Coast is bracing for a tsunami. That's tsunami of the economic variety.

By Times Staff
Published August 20, 2007

What will life be like without the shuttle?

Florida's Space Coast is bracing for a tsunami. That's tsunami of the economic variety. The communities in and around the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral expect to lose 3,000 to 5,000 jobs when the space shuttle program shuts down in 2010. Space Florida, the agency charged with nurturing the state's aerospace industry, will address the future of flight at Wednesday's Florida Space Leadership Forum at the cape. On the bright side, Lockheed Martin agreed last year to assemble and test the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, the successor to the shuttle, in Florida.

Feel less guilty about that jet ride

Avantair, a Clearwater aircraft timeshare company, is letting its aircraft share owners fly the greener skies. The firm, which employs about 300 people, is buying carbon offsets from TerraPass, a San Francisco company that invests the money in renewable energy sources. The "TerraPasses" are meant to cancel out the carbon dioxide produced by all that jetting around the country. Avantair's about 300 "aircraft share owners" essentially buy a portion of a plane's time, from 50 hours on up, says spokeswoman Heather Dynes. The TerraPass Web site calculates the tons of carbon dioxide emitted by your travel. For $9.95, it offers to offset 2,500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

His home office is no longer at home

Bob Glickman says his home office makes work a nightmare. He routinely restrains his 87-pound dog with one hand while sending e-mails with the other, and jokes that he tried to convince clients on a conference call that the crying baby sound in the background was a cool new cell phone ring. Glickman runs Glickman Productions, an event planning company, from his home in Orlando. Or he used to, anyway. He's the winner of the "Home Office From Hell" contest by Offices2Share.com, and the prize is a yearlong lease at a "real" office. (He says he's thrilled because his neighbors were starting to talk: "How can they afford that house without ever going to work?")

Workers here are getting training

Florida is good at developing its workers, according to a new poll by Expansion Management magazine. It ranked our state No. 3, behind Georgia and Alabama, for quality of its work force training programs. That's a noticeable jump from last year when the state ranked No. 10. The magazine specifically praised three grant programs: Quick Response Training, Incumbent Worker Training and Employed Working Training. The first two are administered by Workforce Florida in Tallahassee, the third by regional work force boards. All three programs provide grants to help businesses upgrade the skills of their workers. Together, the programs have awarded $85-million to train more than 158,000 workers since 2000.

[Last modified August 17, 2007, 20:28:49]