To trace the super-sizing of the NFL athlete, I built a comprehensive database of professional football rosters. Though the report focuses on the modern NFL, the database stretches back to the formation of the American Professional Football Conference in 1920. The database was built by digitally scanning thousands of pages of paper records stored in Canton, Ohio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

STORY AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Main story: Heavy pressure; NFL players struggle with weight game
Sidebar: Pressure to grow burdened Aaron Gibson
Sidebar: NFL monitors weight gain
Interactive: Historical data chart
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (2.0 MB, 4 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘HEAVY PRESSURE’
Honorable mention, project reporting, 2006 Associated Press Sports Editors contest
Second place, enterprise, 2006 Florida Sports Writers Association contest

The fourth and final installment of the Mapping the Boom series on South Florida’s real estate boom. Without a doubt, the best of the bunch. The hot spot map on the cover of the 56-page special section was created in the spatial statistics program CrimeStat, and took nearly nine hours to process on my old PC. (I later repeated the procedure on my current twin dual-core 64-bit 3.7 GHz Xeon workstation and was done in 26 minutes. Not a bad case for the productivity gains possible with upgraded hardware.)

STORY, MAP AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Mapping the Boom 4 main page
Palm Beach County interactive map
Martin County interactive map
St. Lucie County interactive map
Hot-spot neighborhoods interactive map
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (11.9 MB, 20 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘MAPPING THE BOOM’
First place, best newspaper real estate section, National Association of Real Estate Editors
First place, real estate reporting, SPJ Sunshine State Awards
First place, special sections, Florida Press Club
First place, special sections, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors

The third installment of the Mapping the Boom series on South Florida’s real estate boom, updated through the third quarter of 2005. The focus of this 32-page section was on pre-retirees and splitters, Baby Boomers who are buying now in preparation for retirement. The dwindling supply of affordable homes also was covered.

DOWNLOAD THE PRINT SECTION
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (6.6 MB, 11 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘MAPPING THE BOOM’
First place, best newspaper real estate section, National Association of Real Estate Editors
First place, real estate reporting, SPJ Sunshine State Awards
First place, special sections, Florida Press Club
First place, special sections, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors

The second installment of the Mapping the Boom series, with South Florida real estate data updated through the first half of 2005. This 48-page section focused on some of the side-effects of the housing boom, including investor activity, high turnover and part-time residents. I made interactive maps showing sales activity rates and full-time residency status, but they’re not online anymore.

DOWNLOAD THE PRINT SECTION
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (14.7 MB, 16 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘MAPPING THE BOOM’
First place, best newspaper real estate section, National Association of Real Estate Editors
First place, real estate reporting, SPJ Sunshine State Awards
First place, special sections, Florida Press Club
First place, special sections, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors

I built custom base maps and analyzed nearly 500,000 home sales to produce this report on the South Florida real estate boom. The results were published in a 48-page (with ads) special section. I also made a series of interactive maps for the web, but they aren’t online anymore.

DOWNLOAD THE PRINT SECTION
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (21.0 MB, 19 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘MAPPING THE BOOM’
First place, best newspaper real estate section, National Association of Real Estate Editors
First place, real estate reporting, SPJ Sunshine State Awards
First place, special sections, Florida Press Club
First place, special sections, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors

My colleague Kathleen Chapman and I built a one-of-a-kind, 17,000-record employee database for this investigation of hiring practices in Florida’s mostly outsourced and privatized juvenile justice system. That data allowed us to do what the state could not: Identify at least 200 employees hired by juvenile justice centers even though they had already been fired from similar jobs elsewhere for violence, misconduct or incompetence. The resulting stories prompted state leaders to follow our lead and build their own statewide employee-tracking database, and crack down on companies that refused to share information.

STORY AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Main story: Revolving door for fired workers
Sidebar: Records crackdown would reveal problem workers
Sidebar: What we found and how we did it
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (1.3 MB, 3 pages)

RECOGNITION FOR ‘REVOLVING DOOR’
Finalist, Freedom of Information Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors
Runner-up, single story, Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism

To find out how well Florida retains its college graduates, I compiled information on more than 500,000 graduates of both public and private institutions. For every person who received a degree between 1990 and 2000, I obtained their hometown city, state and ZIP code; current city, state and ZIP code; and degree year, major and level. I also analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Education and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine where Florida ranked in the production of key majors and degree types.

STORY AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Main story: Florida lacks jobs for trained researchers
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (5.4 MB, 2 pages)

By WILLIAM M. HARTNETT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Florida never had a chance.

After receiving a Ph.D. in virology from the University of Florida in 1995, Dan Hassett knew choosing the right post-doctoral program would be key to his career in biomedical research.

“People who end up becoming professors at good universities, they probably post-doced at places like Harvard, Yale, Stanford or UCLA,” Hassett said.

The Scripps Research Institute was on that short list, and soon he was on his way to California.

“In Florida, people like me, after grad school, have to move away,” said Hassett, now a 39-year-old assistant professor in Scripps’ department of neuropharmacology.

Such words echo sourly in the ears of those charged with steering the state’s economy away from its reliance on tourism, retirees, agriculture and sheer population growth. Hassett is just the sort of younger, well-educated worker that cities and states across the country are fighting to attract.

But even Florida’s warm weather, miles of beaches and low tax burden can’t lure such workers if there aren’t enough jobs in their field. And with a half-billion dollars riding on Scripps’ Florida expansion, state and local officials have shown they are willing to wager enormous pots of money on economic development. Officials hope Scripps will draw a throng of biotechnology companies to Palm Beach County, creating thousands of high-paying jobs and a strong demand for graduates with advanced science degrees.

A Palm Beach Post study, however, shows that Florida’s heady economic ambitions far outstrip its educational realities.

“We made a promise that our colleges will be able to deliver the kind of product that Scripps and its spinoffs need,” said Rep. David Mealor, R-Lake Mary, chairman of the House subcommittee on higher education and a professor and vice president at the University of Central Florida. “If we fail to deliver on that promise, I don’t think we’ll have maximized the investment that we made.”

Making the sort of sweeping new investment in higher education that Mealor favors would be a monumental effort. Consider that Florida ranked . . .

• 45th among states in the number of bachelor’s and graduate degrees granted per worker by all of its colleges and universities in 2001-2002, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
• 46th in the total amount of federal science and engineering research money received per capita by its colleges and universities in 2001, according to the National Science Foundation.
• 38th in the percentage of working-age residents in 2000 who had attended at least four years of college, a slide of 19 spots from its place in 1940, according to the Census Bureau.

But perhaps the most basic challenge to building an educational foundation capable of supporting a 21st century economy is simply this: Florida distantly trails most states in the production of science, engineering and technical graduates per worker.

The relatively few scientists and engineers the state does produce are far more likely than their peers in fields such as business or teaching to leave for other parts of the country or globe, The Post’s study shows.

“Keeping these kinds of students in Florida is a priority,” said Frank Ryll, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. “We need more opportunities for value-added jobs, and more grads with advanced degrees to fill those jobs.”

Last October, the chamber’s research division released the final chapters of its statewide economic development plan, with a warning that Florida’s workers, schools and research capacity are “not keeping pace with the changing demands of the global economy and (are) slipping behind its competition.”

On a per capita basis among its labor force, for example, Florida in 2001-2002 ranked 49th in the number of bachelor and graduate degrees granted in physical science, which includes such fields as chemistry and physics, according to The Post’s analysis of federal data. The state also ranked 48th in both mathematics and biomedical science.

To find out what becomes of Florida’s college graduates once they enter the workforce, The Post compiled degree and address information on each of the more than 500,000 people who received a degree from selected public and private schools between 1990 and 2000.

Overall, three out of every four graduates still live in Florida.

But more than half of Florida graduates who received a master’s degree or doctorate in the physical sciences and nearly half of those with a graduate degree in the biomedical sciences have left the state.

Graduates with the most advanced degrees also are more likely to have left Florida. The majority of people who received doctoral degrees live outside of Florida, two and a half times the rate of those with just a bachelor’s degree.

Some started their careers in Florida but eventually left, lured away by professional goals the state could not meet. Others, like Hassett, were lured to Florida from other states by academics, only to be driven away once they graduated by the scarcity of opportunities in their fields.

Hassett had never even visited Florida when he was applying to graduate schools in 1990. The Pennsylvanian had done his undergraduate studies at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, but was impressed with the professors and quality of research at the University of Florida’s College of Pharmacy.

Now that he is firmly established in a highly specialized scientific field, Hassett “would love to come back to Florida” for a junior faculty position at one of its universities. Such jobs are rare in any state, however, and don’t often come open, Hassett said.

Top-notch private research and development positions also are rare in Florida.

Eric Chang left his home in Connecticut in the early 1990s and came to the University of Miami because, at the time, it had one of the few undergraduate biomedical engineering programs in the country.

He received a bachelor’s degree 1995, and went to work for Cordis, a Miami Lakes-based medical devices company and subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

In 2000, while still working for Cordis, Chang received a master’s degree in industrial engineering from UM. But by August 2003 Chang’s ambitions had outgrown what the company and others in South Florida could offer, and he moved to Bloomington, Ind., for a job with industry-leading Boston Scientific.

“I wanted to stay in research and development, and I wanted to work for a larger company in medical device design,” Chang said. “Those opportunities are very limited in South Florida.”

Chang was at least able to find a job in Florida’s biomedical industry. Robb Pagarigan, who received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Palm Beach Atlantic University in 1997, spent a year looking for such work in Florida, only to give up and move to California. Within a week, he found a job with a biotech company in San Diego.

“I would have loved to have stayed there (in Florida),” said Pagarigan, a research assistant with Scripps.

Florida has made some progress in increasing its own college-educated workforce. The number of bachelor and graduate degrees granted by the state’s four-year schools, both public and private, increased 13 percent between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

But during the same period, the increase in the number of science and technical degrees was drastically outpaced by the increase in business degrees. Biomedical science degrees were up 6 percent, for example, while the number of business degrees increased 24 percent.

Despite the clamor for more science, engineering and computer graduates, Florida colleges in 2001-2002 granted nearly 10 business degrees for every one in the biological sciences, and nine for every one in computer science.

“It is incumbent upon this state to make sure we do a better job in that area,” said Mealor, the state legislator, of science and engineering education.

FLORIDA’S COLLEGE GRADUATES: HOW WE DID THE STUDY
To find out how well Florida retains its college graduates, The Palm Beach Post compiled information on more than 500,000 graduates of both public and private institutions. For every person who received a degree between 1990 and 2000, The Post obtained:

• Hometown city, state and ZIP code
• Current city, state and ZIP code
• Degree year, major and level

The Post did not collect any personally identifiable information, such as name or age. A standard federal coding system was used to group graduates from different schools into comparable majors.

Nine public and two private schools provided complete information: Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Florida State University, the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, the University of North Florida, the University of South Florida, the University of West Florida, the University of Miami and Rollins College.

Florida Gulf Coast University, which opened in 1997, provided partial data, as did the Florida Institute of Technology. New College of Florida was part of USF during the study’s timeframe, and its graduates are included in the data.

Copyright 2004 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
March 21, 2004 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. 1F
LENGTH: 1730 words

Higher education is billed as America’s great equalizer, but the economic rewards of a college degree are significantly smaller for minorities than for whites, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of data recently released by the Census Bureau.

At every level of education - from high school dropouts to people with Ph.D.s - blacks and Hispanics on average make significantly less money than non-Hispanic whites.

Even when the effects of age, occupation and ability to speak English are taken into account, whites consistently have higher incomes. And though the payoff of a four-year or advanced college degree is considerable regardless of race or ethnicity, the country’s largest income disparities occur among those who are most educated.

For every dollar made on average by whites with a professional degree - which includes doctors, dentists and lawyers - their black peers make an average of just 66 cents, and their Hispanic counterparts make just 63 cents.

In Florida, the average income of whites with a bachelor’s degree actually tops that of blacks with a doctorate degree, $68,000 to $65,000.

The Post’s analysis did reveal some encouraging signs. At the very highest levels of educational attainment among the youngest workers, blacks and Hispanics have greatly narrowed the gap with their white peers.

But those narrow educational and age groups in which something close to parity has been achieved represent a tiny sliver of the total population. For the vast majority, the gap persists.

None of which comes as a surprise to Evett Simmons, a partner with the law firm Ruden, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell. Financial success in many fields are dependent on personal connections, she said, which puts minorities at a competitive disadvantage.

“If you are part of a group that for so many years did not have economic empowerment, and those people are your primary circle from whom you receive employment,” then economic inequities are sure to result, said Simmons, who is black.

MORE ROLE MODELS NEEDED

And those disparities add up. A Census Bureau report released last summer estimated that the average lifetime earnings of blacks with an advanced degree are $600,000 less than those of whites with an equivalent education. Hispanics lagged by $500,000.

Among the many factors behind the country’s persistent earnings gap is the simple, if often overlooked, fact that most of the laws that mandated equal access to education and the workplace are relatively new, said University of Florida economist David Denslow.

“The oldest blacks would have gone to segregated schools, and in some cases those schools ran only half as long as white schools,” Denslow said.

Compounding the educational disadvantages of segregation-era blacks were the additional hurdles they faced in the workplace, he said.

“They faced more severe segregation early in their careers, received less on-the-job training” and therefore had less experience with which to seek advancement.

Eula R. Clarke, a black attorney in Stuart and the daughter of a Belle Glade cane-cutter who immigrated from Jamaica, said the scarcity of professional minority role models also has traditionally played a role in depressing the ambitions of black children.

“Because of segregation, there hasn’t been that opportunity to have 100 years” of career-oriented history among blacks, she said.

But Clarke, who also has master’s degree in urban planning, said that young minority students today are more ambitious because of the increasing number of professionals they see in their families and neighborhoods.

“I have two boys, and one is at a pre-law program at high school and the other one wants to go to England to study to be a lawyer,” Clarke said. “They also have an aunt and an uncle who are lawyers. You have young people who can actually dream. It doesn’t seem so strange to them.”

There are some indications that racial and ethnic earning gaps are closing, at least among the youngest and best-educated.

Nationally, Hispanics on average actually top whites by a small margin among people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have a doctorate degree. Blacks in that same education and age group average 96 cents for every dollar made by their white peers.

A decade ago, blacks in those categories averaged just 79 cents for every dollar made by whites, and Hispanics averaged just 82 cents.

People with Ph.D.s represent a tiny fraction of the total population, however. Just 1 in 100 whites, 1 in 238 blacks and 1 in 278 Hispanics have a doctorate degree.

In less rarified academic air, the progress is not as dramatic. Among 25- to 34-year-old blacks with a bachelor’s degree, the average income is 83 cents for every dollar of their white peers, compared with 81 cents a decade ago. For Hispanics in the same age and education group, the average income is 88 cents for every dollar made by whites, up only very slightly from a decade earlier.

The question remains, however, of whether the gains made by minority graduates today will hold up for the duration of their careers. Rather than signaling a fundamental shift toward equality, in other words, the fact that the racial earning gap is smallest among the youngest workers and widest among the oldest could simply mean that minorities get left behind as the years, and promotions, pass them by.

Denslow, however, is optimistic that true progress is being made.

“My prediction is that if you look 20 or 30 years down the road, black college graduates who are now 30 will be doing as well when they’re 50 or 60 as white college graduates of the same age,” he said.

Of course, discrimination persists. Simmons said that when she owned her own independent firm in Port St. Lucie, “we had people come in this office and walk right back out because the attorneys were black.”

Simmons said that the issue of her skin color has come up with clients on occasion, even with black clients.

“They felt like if they had a white attorney they would be more successful,” Simmons said.

GAPS MAY CLOSE OVER TIME

Such attitudes appear to have a significant effect on the pocketbook. Among lawyers of all ages in Florida, blacks make just 56 cents for every dollar made by whites, and Hispanics just 72 cents.

But if parental opinions about the importance of a college education are a reliable barometer of future progress, than it appears minorities, particularly Hispanics, will continue to close the gaps in earnings and opportunities.

A 2000 survey conducted by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research group, found that among parents of high school students, 65 percent of Hispanics, 47 percent of blacks and only 33 percent of whites listed a college education as the one factor that can most help a child succeed.

Though the strong emphasis on college among Hispanics encourages researchers looking to the future, a more basic factor appears to play a key role in affecting the income of Hispanics today: the ability to speak English.

Even in ethnically diverse Florida, English skills have a considerable impact on earnings. Overall, for example, the average income among Hispanics with a professional degree is more than $86,000.

But Hispanics of the same education level who do not speak English well or at all average less than $40,000, while those who speak English well, very well or exclusively average nearly $100,000.

ABOUT THE ANALYSIS
This story is based on a Palm Beach Post study of Census Bureau data obtained primarily through the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.

National-level calculations were based on the responses of 2.8 million people who completed the census long form. State-level calculations were based on the responses of nearly 800,000 Floridians. Except where noted, income figures are from 1999 and have been adjusted to current dollars.

The Post included in its study only people age 25 or older who usually worked 30 or more hours a week for at least 39 weeks in 1999. For more charts and figures, go to PalmBeachPost.com.

EDUCATION’S UNEQUAL PAYOFF
Across all levels of education, blacks and Hispanics earn less than whites. But the disparity is most pronounced at the highest levels. Average pay, nationwide, by profession and age group:

LAWYERS
age 25 to 34
White - $83,865
Black - $68,126
Hispanic - $77,986

age 45 to 54
White - $161,061
Black - $92,212
Hispanic - $143,341

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS
age 25 to 34
White - $88,593
Black - $66,797
Hispanic - $73,016

age 45 to 54
White - $232,876
Black - $121,859
Hispanic - $175,637

POLICE AND SHERIFF’S PATROL OFFICERS
age 25 to 34
White - $45,922
Black - $43,972
Hispanic - $49,780

age 45 to 54
White - $60,294
Black - $60,177
Hispanic - $52,922

REGISTERED NURSES
age 25 to 34
White - $43,146
Black - $41,799
Hispanic - $43,777

age 45 to 54
White - $53,658
Black - $57,340
Hispanic - $52,231

Source: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series
Data analysis: William M. Hartnett

Copyright 2003 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
October 20, 2003 Monday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION, Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1706 words

LANTANA - Carlos Cavanagh has a professional interest in the war in Iraq.

His company, Control Logistics of Lantana, makes most of the windows used on Army helicopters.

“When they land and throw up all that sand, I wonder how long my work is going to last,” Cavanagh says.

Control Logistics is one of more than 100 companies in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties that performed work for the U.S. Department of Defense during the federal government’s 2001-02 budget year. Their take: $535 million.

The vast majority of that - about $496 million - went to United Technologies Corp., whose Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney subsidiaries operate in northwestern Palm Beach County. Most of their defense work, however, has shifted north to the parent’s Connecticut headquarters as part of an efficiency move two years ago.

The others are a smattering of companies that make parts, do research, provide food and lodging, maintain airplanes and boats or provide sundry services, everything from pest control (Tomassello Inc.) to guard services (Wackenhut Corp.).

For some, defense work is their lifeblood. For others, it’s a sideline that brings in a little extra income to bolster the regular revenue stream.

Whether the war in Iraq, which appears to be waning, will prove a bonanza for any of them is uncertain at this point.

“We haven’t seen a spike in orders,” Cavanagh says. “They must have done their planning correctly.”

Patten Inflatables of Lake Worth says about 70 percent of its business is defense-related. “We are the major supplier of life rafts for all military aircraft,” said Stephen Patten, who runs the business with his brother, Robert.

Stephen Patten recently completed a two-year contract to provide the Air Force with 11,000 one-man inflatable rafts.

The company, which employs about 141, is the third-largest defense contractor in the region, handling nearly $3 million in sales with the department during the past year. It’s also one of the oldest. Founder Fred Patten, who developed the inflatable life raft for aviators before World War II, moved his company to Lake Worth from Massachusetts in the 1950s. Fred Patten, at 91, is still active in the business.

So far, Stephen Patten hasn’t seen any of the rafts in use during the war.

The aptly named Predator Systems of Boca Raton handled about $135,000 worth of work for the Defense Department in 2002, including a $25,000 contract to make valves for the M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer - a cannon built onto a tank-like vehicle.

Predator Systems parts can be found in the Abrams M1A tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the F-16 fighter jet and other weapons.

For Abel Unlimited, a distributor in West Palm Beach, defense contracting represents an occasional opportunity. It sold the Defense Department $38,000 worth of gloves.

“We try to do any work we can,” President Marvin Maltz says.

Delray Beach-based Office Depot Inc. sold $88,000 worth of furniture and supplies to the Defense Department - hardly a staggering number for the company, which generated about $12 billion in sales worldwide last year.

“It’s just one of many channels the company has,” says Office Depot spokesman Brian Levine. “It’s not really a big deal.”

West Palm Beach-based Slim-Fast Foods sells its diet products through base commissaries, the military versions of supermarkets. Defense Department revenue for the company, owned by Dutch giant Unilever, totaled $1.4 million.

Sportexe, a Lake Worth-based U.S. subsidiary of Canada’s Triexe Management, sold about $80,000 worth of recreational goods, including playground equipment.

Defense business is as old as the republic itself. Patriot and entrepreneur Paul Revere made gunpowder and cannons for the Continental Army. He also sold copper to the fledgling Navy.

E.I. du Pont began his family’s chemical empire in 1802 by opening a gunpowder mill on the banks of the Brandywine River in Delaware. By the War of 1812, du Pont became the leading supplier of gunpowder to the United States.

Two hundred years later, defense still means opportunity for the enterprising business executive.

The Air Force paid Dean Baldwin Painting, based in West Palm Beach, about $2.4 million to strip and paint its C-130 cargo planes at a company facility in Roswell, N.M. The contract is a five-year deal that calls for Dean Baldwin to handle work that the Air Force’s maintenance depot at Ogden, Utah, can’t handle.

The deal has helped the company grow into a $9 million company that employs 180, including six locally.

“This contract was a small-business set-aside,” Chief Executive Officer Barbara Baldwin says. “It created quite a few extra jobs. It sure helped us stabilize our business.”

The war could bring her more business, considering all the use and abuse the planes are getting in Iraq’s sandy environs, Baldwin says.

Worldwide, the Defense Department spent $168.4 billion on contracts in the 2002 budget year. Domestically, it spent $158 billion. Those numbers include contracts with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Among the states, Florida ranked fourth, handling $6.7 billion worth of contracts in 2002, trailing California ($21 billion), Virginia ($17.8 billion) and Texas ($13.2 billion). Those numbers exclude contracts with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Lockheed Martin was Florida’s largest contractor, taking in $973 million, including about $800,000 for work performed at its Perry Technologies subsidiary in Riviera Beach.

Though Lockheed historically is better known for developing airplanes - it made the P-38 Lightning fighter in World War II - its work at Perry is underwater. It builds and tests a device called the remote mine hunter vehicle as part of a $130 million Navy contract.

The device will handle underwater surveillance, including finding mines and submarines, Lockheed spokesman Fred Henney said. Eventually, it could be developed into a weapon system.

The mine hunter system will be deployed on five destroyers, the first of which will be the USS Pinckney, scheduled to be commissioned next year. The vehicles will be assembled in Riviera Beach using parts made by a variety of contractors, including Raytheon and Cummins.

“Hopefully, we will be able to get it on ship and out to sea next year,” Henney said.

The future for United Technologies is less bright, as far as local defense work is concerned. Pratt’s Palm Beach County facility will do some jet engine testing along with its civilian work.

Sikorsky will do some military flight testing locally, including the Comanche, the Army’s first stealth helicopter, “but it is very small,” spokeswoman Sheena Steiner says.

CONTRACTS BIG AND SMALL
The bulk of the $535 million that area defense contractors took in during fiscal year 2001-02 - about $496 million - went to United Technologies Corp.’s Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney units. The remainder of the top 10, who do everything from making parts to providing food and lodging - accounted for about $18 million.

United Technologies - $496.3 million
Turbocombustor Technology - $4.1 million
Patten Co. - $3.0 million
Dean Baldwin Painting - $2.4 million
Port Consolidated - $1.6 million
Galaxy Aviation of Palm Beach - $1.6 million
Control Logistics - $1.6 million
Slim-Fast Foods Co. - $1.4 million
Graflex - $1.3 million
Florida Atlantic University - $910,000

NATION’S TOP SHARE OF DEFENSE DOLLARS …
Last year the Department of Defense spent about $158 billion in the United States on contracts. These states received the largest share during the 2001-2002 fiscal year.

1. California - $21.0 billion
2. Virginia - $17.8 billion
3. Texas - $13.2 billion
4. Florida - $6.7 billion
5. Arizona - $6.6 billion
6. Maryland - $6.3 billion
7. Connecticut - $5.6 billion
8. Missouri - $5.5 billion
9. Georgia - $5.5 billion
10. Massachusetts - $4.8 billion

… AND FLORIDA’S SHARE OF CONTRACT SPENDING
Last year the Department of Defense spent about $6.7 billion in Florida on contracts for work performed in all but three counties. Here’s the top 10 counties’ share of the defense dollar for the 2002 fiscal year.

1. Orange - $1.90 billion
2. Brevard - $1.08 billion
3. Pinellas - $657 million
4. Okaloosa - $649 million
5. Palm Beach - $519 million
6. Duval - $467 million
7. Hillsborough - $304 million
8. Miami-Dade - $178 million
9. Volusia - $144 million
10. Escambia - $128 million
All others - $670 million

Source: Post analysis of federal data

Copyright 2003 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
April 21, 2003 Monday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: INSIDE LOCAL BUSINESS, Pg. 1D
LENGTH: 1542 words

STORY LINKS
Main story: Study: FCAT more a measure of wealth than performance
Sidebar: Analysis measures score-wealth relationship
Sidebar: Humble roots and a thirst for learning
Sidebar: Talent, expectations push school to top

RECOGNITION FOR ‘FCAT ANALYSIS’
Winner, news feature of issue package, National Awards for Education Reporting