A Look at Creating Regional Solutions: 3 Promising Practices in Northwest Florida

The story of American Magic is one that showcases how prestigious high-performance sports teams can transform local communities in Florida.

The professional sailing team for the New York City Yacht Club, American Magic came to Pensacola in 2018. For Tyson Lamond, its Chief Operating Officer, it was northwest Florida’s attractiveness as an ideal location to live and work that convinced the team to relocate from their operations port in Newport, Rhode Island. As Lamond recounts, it was ultimately Pensacola’s “welcoming community” and “untapped port potential” that made them “fall in love with the city.” And since that love for Pensacola has grown into robust relationships with the local community.

Lamond says that American Magic is there to stay, and the key to staying is ensuring a sustainable workforce. Consequently, American Magic has struck relationships with the region’s largest higher education institutions, including the University of West Florida (UWF) and Pensacola State College (PSC), and one of Florida’s top community organizations, the Children’s Home Society.

As Lamond recounts, it was with PSC that American Magic established its first relationship. After connecting with PSC President, Dr. C. Edward Meadows, the idea was to tap PSC engineering students for interns in Computer Numerical Control (CNC in the sailing world) and composite cutting. It was an immediate success.

In 2025, Lamond and the American Magic team were thrilled to offer PSC graduate Braydon Sult, a full-time position following his six-week internship, noting that Sult not only had the skills, but he had an “amazing attitude” that gelled well with the team. Since Mr. Sult, four others have participated in the program with all being hired full-time, totaling five overall.

For American Magic, the right communication skills are vital, stresses Lamond. “Kids struggle with being able to talk to people,” he notes, and as part of their program, he and the American Magic team “assess how [interns] deal with conflict.” Importantly, Lamond underscores that interns “need to be coachable to get better” and they also need to be “open to candid feedback.”

This commitment to coaching and fostering strong interpersonal skills is what brought American Magic to partner with the Children’s Home Society of Greater Pensacola. One of our Florida Chamber Foundation’s Future of Work Advisory Board Members, the Children’s Home Society (CHS), tackles generational childhood by implementing “cradle-to-career” pathways for children and families across Florida. Since beginning their partnership, American Magic has welcomed four teens from CHS Greater Pensacola as interns, helping them to simultaneously obtain their GED. “These are all people who deserve a chance so badly,” Lamond emphasizes, and it was wanting to give back to the region they love that galvanized American Magic to develop the community partnerships they cultivated.

Leah Harrison, Executive Director of the Emerald Coast & Greater Pensacola division of the CHS, could not speak more highly about their partnership with American Magic. “Seeing what the team at American Magic is doing,” she explains, “they are really providing these kids with a hope they did not have before, exposing them to an industry they probably did not know about before.” But more importantly, Harrison notes, the four teen interns that American Magic has welcomed from the YouthWorks program of the Greater Pensacola CHS have left feeling “excited and included…that they are smart and that they have a lot to give.”

“American Magic is bringing this youth in and saying, ‘we want you here,’”

– Leah Harrison, Executive Director of the Emerald Coast & Greater Pensacola division of the Children’s Home Society (CHS)

American Magic is therefore much more than a shipbuilder in the growing maritime industrial base across Florida. It is a champion of what we at the Florida Chamber Foundation call “soft skills,” or employability skills. And it is this that has brought American Magic to build what Lamond describes as “an absolutely perfect relationship” with the region’s most-attended university: the University of West Florida.

Having partnered with the UWF Talent Catalyst since the Spring of 2025, American Magic is one of the program’s longest partners. Lamond and the American Magic team targeted four specific areas: Information Technology & Design, Modeling, Hydraulics, and Electronics. As of August 2026, American Magic has hired eight students through the program with four transitioning to full-time employment following graduation this past May, and the remaining four beginning work this coming fall.

The UWF Talent Catalyst partnership offers American Magic more than access to student talent. The program combines three elements that distinguish its model. One being paid, part-time professional positions, designed to provide students with meaningful, long-term experience through graduation. Second, an industry mentor from the employer who is not the student’s direct supervisor. And third, a professional development course focused on the essential workplace skills employers consistently identify as critical to success.

Laura Swann, Director of UWF’s Office of Workforce Development, explains that these three elements have been central to the program since it launched in Fall 2024. Through the professional development course, students strengthen skills such as communication, teamwork, professionalism, time management, critical thinking, problem-solving, and conflict resolution while developing emotional intelligence and earning the Florida Ready to Work Soft Skills credential. The Florida Chamber Foundation’s first Florida Workforce Needs Study in 2020 informed the push to incorporate virtual Florida Ready to Work certificates into Florida law in 2023, this being the same year that Swann’s colleague, Dr. Sherry Hartnett, founded UWF’s Office of Workforce Development.

The mentoring relationship that the UWF Talent Catalyst fosters provides another important layer of support. Each student is paired with someone from the company other than the student’s supervisor, creating a trusted space for professional guidance and reflection. “The mentee drives the mentoring relationship,” Swann explains, identifying the goals, questions, and challenges they want to explore with their mentor. Students also participate in a learning community that allows them to build relationships with peers and to navigate similar transitions into the professional workplace.

This integrated model benefits not only American Magic, but UWF Talent Catalyst’s 24 business partners and the students who participate in the program. By combining sustained paid experience, industry mentoring, and intentional professional development, the program helps students build both the technical experience and professional skills needed to succeed after graduation.