PART 1  -  Florida’s first Black lieutenant governor talks about her first six months, as well as education, disproportionate Black pain, and family with Florida’s statewide Black weekly newspaper.

TO SEE VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW, CLICK HERE.

TO READ PART 2, CLICK HERE.

BY JENISE G. MORGAN

FLORIDA COURIER

Florida Courier Senior Editor Jenise G. Morgan interviewed Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll at the NBC-6 studio complex in Miramar last week. (CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER)

Since becoming Florida’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll has been influential in resolving hot issues that directly affect the state’s Black residents. However, many residents have little or no knowledge of the first Black lieutenant governor’s impact over the past six months, especially the political muscle she has had to flex to prevent Florida’s historically Black institutions from taking tough financial hits during the 2011 legislative session that cut billions from the state budget.

Carroll has spent much of the past six months in meetings with business leaders and community organizations, and, as she puts it, "making new connections and putting out some fires."

One issue that inflamed the Black community was Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to eliminate funding this year for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), but Carroll intervened.

And just this week, the state decided not to close Miami’s historically Black Central and Edison high schools. A state education committee’s decision to close the schools and convert them to charter schools had outraged residents, especially those in South Florida’s Haitian-American community. Again, Carroll stepped in.

Advocate for Black Florida

The 51-year-old Trinidad-born Carroll, who moved to the United States in 1986 and eventually became a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, spent 2003 to 2010 in Tallahassee as a Republican state legislator representing the Jacksonville area.

She has these words for Black Floridians who want to know what she’s done for them lately:

"What I want them to know is that they’ve had an advocate with me being in this position," she told the Florida Courier in an exclusive interview last week. "I go back to the (2011) budget – when we had one historically Black college that was funded (Edward Waters College) that was sent from the budget to the Legislature.

"All four (EWC, Bethune-Cookman University, Florida A&M University, Florida Memorial University) received funding because of my involvement in making sure that those colleges and universities were not on the (governor’s) veto list with regards to the monies – $8.77 million went to our HBCUs, and many of the programs across the state of Florida that impact our minority communities were saved from being vetoed."

On chopping block

Among the programs Carroll said she helped to save from being axed was funding for a Florida A&M pharmacy school in Crestview, a city in Florida’s Panhandle.

"And with that pharmacy school going in, it’s going to afford a pharmaceutical company to come into the area that will partner with the students at FAMU and the pharmacy school, again creating the jobs and creating the climate there where you’ll have sustainable job growth and opportunities for our citizens to have good, quality salaries," Carroll explained.

And on Tuesday, commissioners with the Florida Board of Education voted to allow Miami Central High, Edison Senior High and Holmes Elementary in Miami-Dade to stay open another year. The board had planned to close the South Florida schools and convert them into charter schools.

"I received a call from...Miami-Dade schools, Superintendent (Alberto) Carvalho telling me about the issue with Edison and Central possibly not receiving a waiver and being closed down. So what are the options?

"Well, you have no charter school or no private entity that has stepped into an urban area high school and changed things around. So we can’t just displace those students and say, ‘You’re going to go somewhere; it’s up to the school board.’

"But what’s most important is that under Superintendent Carvalho, he’s made changes that have resulted in improvements to those schools that were ‘F’ schools throughout all these years, and they went from an ‘F’ school to a ‘C’ school within a year and a half to two years."

Pushed hard

Because of the measures taken to turn the Miami schools around, Carroll advocated for more time.

"I stepped in and contacted the board members and let the governor know that this was a position that we need to take, to make sure that we support the schools in staying open, and he’s agreed that those waivers (to stay open) should be granted," she explained.

Carroll believes her experience as a former state legislator, business executive, entrepreneur and military veteran has uniquely equipped her for the current position.

"It’s great, because this is an opportunity that very few people in their lifetime will ever get, so I take my job very seriously, and I take the knowledge and the experience that I have and that I’ve had through the legislative process and through my time in the military and being the executive director of Florida’s Department of Veterans Affairs," she related.

Carroll says that what she brings to the job is "helping with enhancing growth opportunities for jobs in the state of Florida...and making it a better business landscape to enhance those opportunities for years to come, and partnering with community organizations and getting out there and letting the citizens know who I am and what I’m about and our passion – the governor and I – for making sure that this state is in a better condition than when we took it over."

Passionate about military, space industry

She adds that Scott has "enabled me to do those things that I’m passionate about – the military, defense contracts, the space industry, import/export. And he know that that’s something I like to do and he’s allowed me to do it at whatever reign I want to do it.’’

Charles Bolden

One of the things she decided to do was to convince NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to establish the nonprofit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) as the management entity for the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab. In a letter dated June 24 to Bolden, she said just that.

This month, NASA selected CASIS to develop and manage the U.S. portion of the ISS that will be operated as a national lab. It comes with a contract worth up to $15 million annually.

That’s great news for Carroll and especially those thousands of Floridians affected by the retirement this month of the space shuttle program. The contract will mean the salvaging of high-paying jobs to some Kennedy Space Center workers. The Space Center contributed about $4 billion a year to the state’s economy.

Carroll said her talks with Bolden about job creation for the Space Coast came months ago at a meeting in Washington, D.C.

"We got a chance to meet. We talked about NASA, we talked about the Kennedy Space Center and the impact that the shuttle program going away would have for the area, and he agreed to help me in moving forward projects to Kennedy Space Center, where we could have those displaced workers moved into employment if they choose to – because we’re going to have some that retire,‘’ Carroll explained.

Others coming

She related how some Space Center engineers and scientists already have lined up jobs with defense contractors in others areas, including Pensacola. Carroll is confident about the Space Coast’s ability to shore up more high-paying companies to the area and noted that technology company Sierra Nevada and the aerospace giant Boeing are corporations that already are expanding operations there.

Carroll further explained that jobs created wouldn’t just be for the scientists and engineers, which has been a concern for those workers and businesses that have depended on the space shuttle program.

"You have those ancillary jobs that will continue support for Space Coast workers," she said.

STEM students

Concerned about Florida’s next generation being prepared to compete in a high-tech world, Carroll highlighted the importance of students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The lieutenant governor has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of New Mexico, and an MBA from St. Leo University.

"It’s important for us to let our youngsters know how important it is for them to be involved in science, math, engineering. The things we take for granted today – our cell phones, the application that we’re putting in our iPads and things like that. All of that deals with information technology, deals with science, deals with the math, the engineering aspect of it, and our youngsters need to be a part of that," she remarked.

"That’s the wave of the future. That’s a 21st-century job, so no longer can you go to school and get a basket weaving degree because it’s just not going to lead to a quality job for you to have a good, sustainable income; so you need to go into a job market that’s going to create an opportunity for you to have greater successes."

But she quickly adds: "If you want. There are some people who are just comfortable doing a 9-to-5 and making six bucks or seven bucks an hour and they’re fine with that. I’m good with that, but I want opportunities to be created for those that want to make $80,000 a year coming out of college to be able to do that."

Next week: More on job creation, redistricting, family.

TO SEE VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW, CLICK HERE.