Baptist Clay opens new surgery center

December 14, 2018     0    14

“As patients are wheeled from the recovery spaces and head back and forth to the operating suites, they won’t have to experience that light sensation you’ve all seen in the movies,” Roark said. “Those are the types of details we’ve looked at to the enhance the patient experience.” Mark Poon, Baptist Clay Outpatient Surgery manager, said the center was built specifically to serve the county. “There’s a lot of patients and they don’t want to drive across the bridge,” Poon said. “This is the place where we wanted to have a healing environment in the county. [Referring to the private rooms] Families don’t have to take the day off, they can stay in surgery center.” Baptist Health CEO Hugh Greene said his upcoming retirement gave him a chance to reflect on the beginning of Baptist Health in the county five years ago. “When I drive up here, I remembered when we were first looking at this property. We had community meetings and some citizens were concerned about noise from a helipad and visual distractions of the lights,” Greene said. “It was kind of ...

Coding takes center stage during Computer Science Week

December 14, 2018     0    15

“That’s a large hole in the workforce that could be filled by our students one day, which are so incredibly bright,” Murphy said. Superintendent Addison Davis said the Hour of Code, which most of the Clay County School District took part in, is a way to expose students to all the facets within technology while keeping it fun and exciting. “The Hour of Code is a way for us to find and implement fun and creativity in our classrooms,” Davis said. “We know that computer science is so important and within our classrooms today, we want to be able to expose all learners to the problem solving, the communications, the critical thinking, and the collaboration involved in order to fall in love with kinesthetic, full hands-on project-based learning activities, and this is the way that’ll do it for our county.” At LAJH, eighth grade students put Davis to work in the computer science lab. Sitting within the computer science lab was a large and shiny first place trophy that the LAJH robotics team earned in the past two years’ Technology Student ...

JinkoSolar to Open Jacksonville Factory in February

December 14, 2018     0    25

Earlier this year, JinkoSolar received a state and city incentives package totaling $4.2 million. In exchange, the manufacturer has vowed to create jobs and spend $50.5 million on equipment and improvements at the site.  That incentives package includes a $5,000-per-job tax refund for up to 200 jobs for five years, with the city paying 20 percent of the refund, as well as up to a $3.2 million property tax break over the next 10 years. Average salary for the new jobs is expected to be $45,562. Cockroft said that, when deciding where to locate the new factory, JinkoSolar had considered seven or eight different locations. The company ultimately settled on Jacksonville because of its availability of land, its access to several transit lines and because of the region's high-quality employees, such as military retirees. JinkoSolar will hold an opening ceremony for the new facility sometime in February.

Camp Blanding Commander Speaks to Clay Leaders

December 3, 2018     0    52

More information on Aviation and Defense in Clay here! “The economic value to Clay County Businesses is tremendous” said JJ Harris, ED President. We are proud of our partnership with Camp Blanding and what the future holds for years to come for our County. Colonel Frank Zenko assumed command of Camp Blanding Joint Training Center (CBJTC) in July 2018. CBJTC is a premier training venue providing resources to enhance joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multi-national training in support of the nation, state and local communities. He previously served as the Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics for the Florida Army National Guard. COL Zenko was commissioned from Marion Military Institute in 1988 and joined the Florida Army National Guard in Tallahassee, FL while pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Florida State University. His career commenced with the completion of Ordnance Officer Basic Course and subsequent assignment as a platoon leader in the 708th Maintenance Company, Quincy, FL.  

Jacksonville's Port Leads State in Container Traffic After Record Year

November 19, 2018     0    78

Read more about the First Coast Expressway and Clay's logistical advantages here.   Tenants at the Talleyrand, Dames Point and Blount Island terminals moved about 1.27 million cargo container units across the docks in the 2017-18 fiscal year, compared to just over 1 million in the prior year. “It’s tremendous growth,” said Doug Wheeler, president and CEO of the Florida Ports Council, which represents the state’s 15 seaports. “To be honest with you, this is a story that we’re hearing at pretty much all of our seaports right now.” In Jacksonville, the pursuit of cargo containers is the driving force behind the costly deepening of the St. Johns River so it can accommodate bigger vessels carrying containers from Asia. But for the 2018 fiscal year, the biggest gain in cargo was for the Puerto Rico trade route, whose ships do not need the river to be deeper than its current 40 feet. Tenants at JaxPort terminals shipped 737,157 container units on the Puerto Rico trade route, which was a 37-percent increase from the prior year, according to JaxPort. A portion of that gain comes ...