• Marcus Stroud, a former Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle who left for the Buffalo Bills in 2008, sold his Highland Glen home May 30 for $650,000 to Benjamin and Roxanne Epstein. Stroud just announced he will retire as a Jaguar. A first-round draft pick from Georgia in 2001, Stroud spent seven years in Jacksonville. He joins former players Tony Boselli, Fred Taylor, Paul Spicer and Donovin Darius as players retiring from the team. Property records show Stroud bought the house in 2007 for $1.65 million. Highland Glen is south of Beach Boulevard between Kernan and Hodges boulevards.
• St. Vincent’s HealthCare has launched an occupational health program called St. Vincent’s First Care, formerly known as CompCare. It is designed to offer Northeast Florida companies prompt access to employee physicals, drug screenings, lab tests and assessment of employee injuries. It operates at 5600 Spring Park Road and will add more centers soon. Dr. Robert Chapa is the medical director.
• The Nassau County Economic Development Board announced the launch of Nassau Tomorrow, a five-year strategic action plan to create 3,800 new jobs in targeted industries, such as advanced manufacturing.
• Bud Para, JEA chief public affairs officer, was given the American Public Power Association’s Alan H. Richardson Statesmanship Award, which recognizes public-power leaders who work “successfully and tirelessly” on the association’s behalf forging consensus on national issues that achieve public power’s goals. Para joined the group as a JEA engineer in 1980.
• Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, JAX Chamber Chair Tom Van Berkel and Jacksonville Aviation Authority CEO Steve Grossman will lead a delegation of Jacksonville civic and business leaders to the 2012 Farnborough International Air Show from July 9-15 in England to meet with more than 12 global aviation and aerospace companies, as well as United Kingdom-based companies, to promote business and economic development in Northeast Florida.
• Duval County Public Schools will host its annual Summer Urban Institute Forum on Monday and Tuesday at the Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership. Pedro Antonio Noguera, a professor of education at New York University and executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, will speak Monday at lunch and the evening forum. Anthony Smith, assistant superintendent for Cincinnati Public Schools and principal of Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School, will speak at the Tuesday luncheon. Michael Turner, an educator with Cincinnati Public Schools for more than 25 years and the senior institute manager at the Taft High School, also will speak at lunch Tuesday.
• Hester Group an-nounced that Ronald Carrington joins as the director of federal projects and Cory Echols joins as a business analyst supporting Project New Ground, a long-term ash cleanup project that resulted from an agreement between the City and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.