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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nGoodman, 64, is promising government officials that he can \u201cspark a revitalization\u201d of private enterprise in rural Central Florida. He has requested $40 million in taxpayer funds to build and operate five 20,000 square-foot business incubators \u2013 where fledgling companies can pay a fee for office space and management training \u2013 in small towns in Polk County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe sit with those entrepreneurs and we try to make their dreams into reality,\u201d Goodman told the Haines City Commission during a Sept. 23 board meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goodman\u2019s pitch was successful in Haines City, where the commission voted to provide $900,000 to his non-profit, Central Florida Incubator. The money is contingent on Goodman obtaining millions more in public funding to actually build the incubator in the town of about 26,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearby Lake Wales and Auburndale, which have populations of about 16,000 each, voted yes to essentially the same deal. With land included, a total of more than $3 million in public money has been pledged to Goodman\u2019s project in those towns. Goodman, who is also planning incubators in Winter Haven and at Lakeland Lindner International Airport, has also said he intends to request millions of dollars from the State of Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haines City Commissioner Anne Huffman said she knew nothing about Goodman when he pitched his plan to her city and has lingering doubts about the project, specifically about whether the county, which already has a 40,000 square-foot privately built incubator in Lakeland, can sustain five more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur towns are only 12 to 15 miles away from each other,\u201d she said during a phone interview. \u201cWe’re going to be feeding off the same people. It’s not enough to sustain one of them, let alone five of them. \u2026Was it going to be like “Field of Dreams,” where you build it and they would come?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she asked a similar question of Goodman during the Sept. 23 meeting, he assured her he knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have quite a track record,\u201d Goodman told Huffman. \u201cI was the chancellor for USF Polytechnic… so I have a very good feel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goodman, who didn\u2019t respond to numerous messages requesting comment, was chancellor of the USF Poly campus in Lakeland, but he didn\u2019t mention to the commissioners that it ended badly. He was removed from his post in 2011 amid controversy, dogged by numerous allegations of mismanagement and misspending of university dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t mention his more recent five-year stint in Collier County either. It was in Collier where Goodman raised more than $5 million in taxpayers\u2019 money to build two incubators in Naples and Immokalee. Goodman resigned his position there in 2018, shortly after an audit conducted by the Collier County Clerk of Court alleged that he\u2019d again mismanaged and misspent public funds. That audit went so far as to allege \u201cmisrepresentations, general malfeasance and possible fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While no formal charges of wrongdoing have ever been levied against Goodman, it\u2019s a track record that might raise questions about his current push in Central Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goodman, though, has a very powerful friend at his side: J.D. Alexander, the former state senator and wealthy grandson of the late cattle and citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin, whose name dons the University of Florida football stadium and the main road leading to Florida Gulf Coast University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alexander, who has large land holdings in the area, is among a group of investors promising $500,000 a year to the project, Goodman told commissioners. Goodman\u2019s non-profit is operating out of Alexander\u2019s office space in downtown Lake Wales, and Alexander\u2019s wife, Cindy, is a member of the CFI board of directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question is whether Goodman\u2019s promise will pay off or end in further public controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ousted From USF Post <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Goodman left a professor\u2019s job in California in 2006 to become CEO of the USF Lakeland campus, he immediately embarked on a tour of Central Florida to tout a $100 million campus overhaul and urge those he met to \u201cdream no small dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hailed as a \u201cvisionary,\u201d Goodman also pushed the concept of business incubators and would open two on the campus, which was renamed USF Polytechnic in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first sign of trouble came in 2010, when USF investigated a complaint that Goodman had directed USF Poly to enter into a contract with a friend\u2019s firm that also employed a business owned by Goodman\u2019s son, Steven. The investigation found USF Poly had given Steven\u2019s business a $3,000 contract and that Goodman\u2019s other son Robert was working directly for USF Poly, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDr. Goodman should receive appropriate counseling and implement corrective action for the violation of the Florida Code of Ethics,\u201d wrote USF\u2019s chief compliance officer at the time. \u201cThere is credible evidence to suggest that the hiring and purchasing practices employed by the campus have created an atmosphere of perceived nepotism and cronyism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later Goodman, became embroiled in conflict when he publicly backed a plan to break off the campus from USF and make it Florida\u2019s 12th standalone university. The idea was championed by Alexander, then a powerful Republican state senator, and the two men joined forces to push for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexander and Goodman faced widespread opposition. USF officials questioned the feasibility of spinning off the small campus, which had an enrollment of just 1,300 students, into a full-fledged university. State Democrats called it an \u201cappalling and wasteful power play,\u201d and even some Republicans, including then-state Sen. Mike Fasano, joined in the criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goodman publicly compared the plan to the building of Disney World and said an independent Florida Polytechnic University could boast 16,000 students in ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Tampa Bay Times<\/em> meanwhile reported that Goodman had authorized elaborate spending at the campus, including $500,000 toward a promotional video and public relations campaign touting the proposed new university and $10,000 on life-sized Star Wars, E.T., and Star Trek statues, one of them a seven-foot stormtrooper adorning Goodman\u2019s office. The subject of Goodman\u2019s son\u2019s employment at Florida Poly \u2013 as a \u201ccommunity liaison\u201d for one of USF Poly\u2019s economic incubators at a salary of $50,000 \u2013 also made the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In November 2011, the campus\u2019 Faculty Senate handed Goodman a vote of no confidence. The following month Goodman was removed from his job and placed on a year of paid \u201cprofessional development\u201d leave with his $254,000 salary intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No explicit reason was given for Goodman\u2019s ouster, but Alexander, who refused to comment for this article, claimed at the time that it was unfair and driven by the opposition to their new university plan. Whatever the truth, an ensuing university review USF Poly found 11 violations of USF regulations and accounting principles during Goodman\u2019s tenure as chancellor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That report alleged that Goodman had authorized spending $30,000 for an adult-sized slide between floors at the incubator and artwork, some $400,000 for a high-tech video and audio wall, and nearly $5,000 for a Coca-Cola fountain. The Times<\/em> reported that some staffers complained that Goodman, who has an affable public presence, created a hostile work environment for those who questioned his spending, complete with threats and yelling. One employee described the campus as \u201cMarshall Goodman\u2019s own playground,\u201d according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the USF report was made public, Fasano issued a statement to the Times <\/em>demanding USF dump Goodman altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fact that [Goodman] is lurking in the shadows \u2026 is troubling,\u201d Fasano said in the April 26 statement. \u201cUnless the Board of Governors makes a clean sweep and permanently cuts ties with this individual, the reputation of the University of South Florida will suffer, and Florida Polytechnic will forever have a pall cast over it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goodman resigned from the university in July 2012. His successor, David Touchton, cited lack of results when he later shut down both university incubators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I closed them down because they weren’t working and they were using too many resources for very little return,” Touchton told the Lakeland Ledger<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite all the contention, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill in April 2002 to make Florida Polytechnic University a reality. The campus was named for Alexander and his wife Cindy, who currently serves on the board of FPU\u2019s foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FPU today boasts just 1,550 students, a far cry from Goodman\u2019s prediction, and there has been a so far unsuccessful legislative push to consolidate the college with the University of Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Collier County Allegations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The year following his departure from USF, Goodman stood before the Collier County Commission looking for a chance to start over in public life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe there is a fabulous opportunity for Collier to carve out an important niche in Florida\u2019s economic landscape,\u201d he told the commission in December 2013. \u201cThere\u2019s no question in my mind Collier County can be Florida\u2019s [economic development] hub.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon Goodman\u2019s nonprofit at the time, Economic Incubators, Inc. (EII), was entrusted with more than $5 million in county and state dollars to develop and run two business accelerators, which were aimed at more mature businesses in Naples and Immokalee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n