When Daniel Davis interviewed for the job as JAX Chamber’s president and CEO, he told a panel of 10 business leaders they would talk to out-of-town candidates who were more qualified.
But then he pointed out the window to cars crossing the Main Street Bridge. Each was a special person to him and they were going to someplace in his hometown that he loved.
“If you hire someone from outside, you’re going to have to teach them to love these people and to love Jacksonville,” he said.
They hired him.
Davis, a former NEFBA executive director, returned to an association he loved in July, as a speaker at the Sales and Marketing Council’s breakfast meeting.
He echoed a prediction he made before the group last year — that Jacksonville’s future was bright. In five years, it would look like a totally different place, Davis said.
He cited bringing advanced manufacturing company GE Oil & Gas to Cecil Commerce Center and MD Anderson’s cancer treatment program to Baptist Health as big accomplishments for the year.
The proposed Shipyards and Healthy Town projects Downtown could begin construction by 2016, he said.
And, look for the Port of Jacksonville to become a key distributer, especially for the Caribbean, in the emerging natural gas industry.