Frank McKinney - Making it Big

This article was very interesting because it struck me as something that doesn't seem like it is possible for a kid as young as McKinney was when he arrived in Miami. If I only had $50 dollars and no help from anyone else I would have no idea how to make a living. Instead of spending that $50, he saved it and got more money by finding a job. I thought it was very smart of him to use his special skills to his advantage by giving out tennis lessons to condominium complexes. It also surprised me how big of a work ethic he had because flipping houses is not an easy job. He had to know which house he could buy, how he would refurbish it to make a profit, and then he would need to know the current housing market and who wants a house. If I heard his story when he was 18 and just getting to Miami, I would have thought it was impossible for him to grow to be one of the best in the business in buying high-end run-down beachfront properties and turning them into expensive mansions. It seemed very risky to go into this field because, as the article says, the real estate business is tied so closely to fluctuations in the economy. If any of the houses that he bought had failed and he could not resell them, he would have been right back to phase one when he first got to Florida. I thought it was very inspiring to see that even though he had no money and no help from anyone, he still kept his morals and held true to the beliefs he had before he left his hometown.

The Civic Center Will Get a New Name

After reading this article, the first thing that struck me was the cost of refurbishing the Civic Center. The total price will be $33 million, scheduled to be finished in 2014. When the Cross Insurance Center was given its name, the deal was $3 million for 15 years. Even though the Cross Insurance center holds only 5,800 seats to the Civic Center's 8,000, they are going to be in some serious debt after the new construction. The same firm that was hired to secure the naming rights for Cross Insurance has been hired to market for a new name of the Civic Center. The Civic Center Board chairman Neal Pratt has said he chose Front Row Marketing Services because of their reputation in creating effective partnership packages, as well as their ability to create effective business relationships. To me this means that the Civic Center will be looking into a long term naming deal. I think the name of the Civic Center will be something local, even though they hired an out of state firm. I believe it will be named after a bank in southern Maine, or a large company like Unum.