A short video edited by Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times to accompany this story.
Author Archives: Justine88
Tampa Bay Times: What’s next for Tampa International Airport and CEO Joe Lopano?
By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times.
Joe Lopano has checked off nearly every item on his to-do list.
Since taking over as chief executive of the Tampa International Airport in 2011, he and his team have landed more than a dozen new flights, including a handful of high-profile international routes to Frankfurt, Panama City and most recently to Havana, Cuba. Lopano has also spearheaded the single largest renovation — a $1 billion overhaul — at the airport since the terminal was built in 1971.
The question now is what’s next, for the Tampa airport and for Lopano?
Read more in the Tampa Bay Times here.
Tampa Bay Times: Virtual reality headsets and video games could be the hottest gifts this holiday season
By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times. July 6, 2016.
For the first time, Alex Yparraguirre felt like he was actually in a video game.
He could look up, down and behind him and still be sitting in the passenger seat of a getaway car in the London Heist Getaway game for Playstation 4’s new virtual reality system. Using motion sensing controllers, he could reach out to grab a gun or take hold of the car’s steering wheel. He could punch with his hand to break the glass windows.
One five-minute demo of the new Playstation virtual reality system, which will be released Oct. 13, wasn’t enough to satisfy his curiosity. So Yparraguirre, 28, got in line to try it again at the GameStop store on Causeway Boulevard in Brandon.
After all, he drove all the way from Fort Myers just for this.
Read more in the Tampa Bay Times here.
Tampa Bay Times longform: Adventures in plane spotting in the post-9/11, social media age
By Justine Griffin, Tampa Bay Times. For Floridian Magazine, June 29, 2016.
Travelers stream from the covered asphalt lots to the main terminal, fussing with their luggage and monitoring check-in times on their iPhones, hardly noticing the two men.
The pair of millennials don’t seem to have a destination.
The taller one wears a crisp Chicago Bulls ball cap and a grey hoodie over his cargo shorts. The shorter one has on his usual worn blue Tampa Bay Lightning T-shirt with Steve Stamkos’ name and number on the back, a cheap pair of plastic sunglasses jutting out from the pocket of his dark shorts, and everyday Chuck Taylors on his feet.
They’re racing around Tampa International Airport, bouncing from the long-term to the short-term to the economy parking garages in between the two major runways, conscious of the security personnel who occasionally pass through the rows of cars.
The shorter one, Adam Juriga, squints at the Flight Radar app on his phone, looking at the flights headed inbound in the next hour. He and Wes Bencon Rodriguez dart back and forth from the east to the west ends of the rooftop deck, watching the planes taxi at the main terminal and keeping an eye on the time.
Eventually the men reach into their cars and take out bulky Nikon 3200 DSLR cameras with long lenses.
Adam checks the weather again. He’s checked it every day for the past week. It will be sunny and clear for the next eight hours. Perfect for photographing airplanes.
“Don’t waste your battery on Southwest,” Adam says over the dull drone of faraway jet engines.
Southwest Airlines is Tampa’s largest domestic carrier, so dozens of Southwest planes stream in and out all day. They all look the same. Adam leans over the concrete wall, seven stories up, waiting for a more interesting flight to appear on his iPhone screen.
Wes keeps snapping photos anyway. He’s found something near the hangars in the distance, not on the runway.
Silently, they each hope they’ll have the better shot and the rare-enough plane that will impress judges and bring international recognition.
The only obstacle in their way is each other.
✈ Read more in the Tampa Bay Times here.
Tampa Bay Times: Meet James Nozar, Jeff Vinikns right hand man to transform Tampa
The first time James Nozar came to Tampa nearly a decade ago, he didn’t think much of it.
Downtown wasn’t very pedestrian-friendly. He saw only sprawling suburban communities. He didn’t ever envision living here.
But when he got a phone call last year about a CEO job that would give him the reins to transform the entire city of Tampa, he reconsidered.
Nozar, 37, was hired in February to be the CEO of Strategic Property Partners, the real estate company backed by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment. He’s charged with taking Vinik’s lofty $2 billion plans to transform 40 acres of downtown Tampa’s urban core and making it come to life.
“It’s so rare to see development projects of this scale. From the size of it to the ownership and the financial backing,” Nozar said in an interview at the SPP offices in Channelside Bay Plaza with theTampa Bay Times recently. “When I told my former boss about it, he said this is once in a lifetime.”
Read more in the Tampa Bay Times here.