• Jacksonville-based Advanced Disposal Services Inc., whose CEO is Charlie Appleby, will be the largest privately owned environmental services business in the United States as a result of a deal announced Thursday. It will have operations in 20 states and annual revenues of about $1.4 billion, a fleet of more than 3,000 trucks, 47 landfills, 92 transfer stations and 5,450 employees. Star Atlantic Waste Holdings II, L.P., a Highstar Capital portfolio company, announced it reached an agreement to buy Veolia ES Solid Waste Inc. from Veolia Environmental Services North America Corp. Star Atlantic will combine its existing investments in Advanced Disposal Services and Interstate Waste Services Inc. with the acquired Veolia operations. The combined business will operate as Advanced Disposal. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close this fall.
• Florida State University’s Seven Days of Opening Nights, the performing arts festival that takes place each February in Tallahassee, named Christopher Heacox as its new director. Since 2009, Heacox has been executive director of the 120-year-old Friday Musicale festival in Jacksonville. Heacox is a Florida State graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in jazz and contemporary media from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York. He was selected after a national search for the position. He previously served as the managing director of the Porter Center for the Performing Arts in Brevard, N.C., as well as the executive director of Jacksonville’s Riverside Fine Arts Association.
• JASMYN, the Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network, scheduled this year’s “Annual Coming Out Day Breakfast,” a fundraising event that attracts corporate LGBT affinity groups and supporters, for 7:30-9:30 a.m. Oct. 10 at the University of North Florida University Center. Sharon Lettman-Hicks, executive director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, will provide the keynote address. For information visit www.jasmyn.org.
• Registration is open for the JAX Chamber 2012 Leadership Trip to Cincinnati, scheduled Oct. 23-25. Florida Blue is the presenting sponsor. Visit www.myjaxchamber.com.
• The nonprofit Girls Inc. of Jacksonville announced four directors: Marco Bongiovanni, a contractor and real estate investor; lawyer Katie Dearing; Kara Riley, COO of The Alfred I. DuPont Testamentary Trust; and Thelecia Wilson, former director of academic advising with Edward Waters College. Girls Inc. also announced Ben Hippeli, regional sales manager of Association Capital Resources, as an intern through the HandsOn Jacksonville Blueprint for Leadership program.
• The Jacksonville Transportation Authority announced it will move ahead with partial design and planning for widening improvements along Butler Boulevard from Philips Highway to Interstate 95. The JTA applied for $17.6 million from a U.S. Department of Transportation competitive grant program, known as TIGER grants, but was not successful in securing the federal funds. “While it was disappointing that JTA did not receive any funding from this round of TIGER grants, we can’t sit back and wait,” said JTA Executive Director and CEO Michael Blaylock. JTA said $2.8 million of federal Interstate Maintenance Discretionary funding was received from two previous grant requests. The funding is being used for the partial design and acquisition of part of the required right-of-way. JTA is designing the project to allow construction as funding becomes available. JTA staff will evaluate more funding options.