Friends,
Happy New Year! This year marks the fifth year of FPL's renewed commitment to economic development and is already off to a great start. Florida's best-in-class economic developers are consistently leading the way. Congratulations to Florida's Rocket Man, Frank DiBello, President & CEO of Space Florida, on being named "Floridian of the Year" by Florida Trend magazine.
Just as each of you periodically evaluates the economic impact of your organization to your community, we wanted to quantify the full impact of our efforts, considering the multiplier of the investments and the full benefit of the companies we've helped attract to Florida. And the results are astounding. Using a third-party consultant and an independent economist to verify the data, FPL's investments in economic development have exceeded $50 billion in financial benefit statewide and helped create or retain more than 142,000 jobs. We're so proud of this effort that ensures economic stability within our state and for the communities FPL serves.
Even as we celebrate our success, we have no intention of slowing down. Our team continually looks for ways to support your efforts, and there are several new initiatives and resources available to you this year.
First, IMPLAN economic modeling data will now be available in the
PoweringFlorida® Resource Center under a new module called Economic Impact. You'll be able to use the economic impact data to demonstrate the full value of a company's location decision for your community and demonstrate return on investment if financial incentives are involved in making the deal. We'll offer webinars and in-person training to ensure you're able to use the new tool to its full potential.
Lastly, we consistently receive feedback that you'd like to know more about the basics of energy so that you're more knowledgeable when speaking with prospective companies. Save the date for a free Energy 101 course in March tailored to Florida's economic development community and select site selection consultants. The site selection professionals invited are new to the industry and will benefit from the content as well as forging relationships with Florida's economic development community early in their career. An invitation with more details will be sent out within the next week.
And this is just the beginning. From the entire team at FPL, we look forward to supporting your community's efforts this year.
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