t's safe to say that few people on the planet shoulder as much responsibility as Anthony Savarese when it comes to managing mission-critical facilities.
      As managing director of corporate services for New York-based Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., Savarese oversees a real estate portfolio that provides the operational support for a company that settled $923 trillion in securities transactions last year.
      That's why DTCC's decision May 24, 2004, to locate a $34-million, 500-job operations center in Tampa is so significant -- not just for Florida, but for a security-conscious financial services industry still coming to grips with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the widespread power blackouts of 2003.
      "Our major criteria were decentralizing the operations of DTCC, establishing a new location in a structure separate from New York City, dispersal of our staff several hundred miles from New York, and finding a site located on a completely separate power grid and telecommunications grid," Savarese says in an interview. "The blackout of 2003 showed us that we needed to be on a completely separate power grid from New York."
      Those criteria and others led Savarese's site selection team to consider 25 cities in the Southeast -- a list that would ultimately be pared to three: Atlanta, Jacksonville and Tampa.
      That Florida would provide two of the three finalists is further evidence that the Sunshine State is remaking its economy from one long dependent on tourism and retirement into one that provides a safe haven for highly secure business operations.

DTCC's choice of Tampa for its $32-million operations center was the culmination of a process that considered 25 different Southeast U.S. cities.

      From homeland defense contractors and NASA suppliers to bio-terrorism experts and military training and simulation, the companies coming to Florida aren't growing here just because of the sunshine. They're prospering in the land of beaches and Mickey Mouse because of a concerted state strategy to recruit and financially support mission-critical operations.
      The "Security State" may not sound as appealing as the Sunshine State, but this economic transformation comes as welcome news to Florida's governing bodies at the state and local level. This transformation is also what's fueling a job-generating juggernaut that's blowing away the rest of the country.
      From June 2003 to June 2004, Florida created more new jobs, 177,700, than any other state. Florida has the fourth largest labor force in the country and the 25th lowest jobless rate.
      A healthy percentage of this work force is considered high-tech. The defense industry and homeland security account for $44 billion a year in commerce in Florida. With 17,330 technology companies employing 271,177 workers, Florida ranks fourth in the U.S. in high-tech labor.
      Florida ranks third in high-tech exports, at $8.1 billion, and 11th in biotechnology business.
      Venture capitalists are taking notice. A recent study showed that venture capital investment in Florida was up 52 percent in the first quarter of 2004 over the same period last year. Florida catapulted from 20th to 12th this year among states that received venture funding.
      Florida's standing as a preferred business location was bolstered in March when Inc. magazine ranked six Florida metro areas among the best 25 American cities for doing business: West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach (No. 5); Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood-Pompano Beach (No. 7); Jacksonville (No. 8); Orlando (No. 11); Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (No. 14); and Miami-Hialeah (No. 22).
      When Entrepreneur.com rated the best large cities in the South for entrepreneurs, each of the Florida markets above placed in the top 10.
     

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