Charlie Lewis was walking into a restaurant with his family when he got the text.
The message was from Sheena Fowler, then vice president of innovation at the Orlando Economic Partnership. Fowler was meeting at Armando’s in Winter Park with Red 6 Inc. executives, including CEO Daniel Robinson, to convince the California-based tech firm to move to Orlando.
She asked Lewis, founder of Orlando-based tech recruiting firm BlueWave Resource Partners and a prolific organizer within the local tech community, to “just happen to be at Armando’s for a drink” at the same time, Lewis said. “I told my wife, ‘Sorry, but I have to go.’ ”
Lewis hopped into his golf cart and drove to Armando’s, which happened to have an open table. There, Lewis had a so-called chance encounter with Fowler and the Red 6 executives, talking for 20 minutes about the advantages of Orlando’s tech talent pool.
Lewis was just one of the members of the local tech community who met with Red 6 executives earlier this year in a bid to steer the company to Orlando. Red 6 in July announced it will move its headquarters to Miami and open its technology hub in Orlando, creating at least 100 jobs between the two cities.
Meeting in Vancouver
Of course, the push to lure Red 6 and high-wage jobs to Orlando began two years before and 5,000 miles from the meeting at Armando’s.
When Fowler attended the VR/AR Global Summit in Vancouver in 2019, she walked into a presentation by the CEO of a company she had never heard of. However, she was intrigued by Robinson and Red 6, which developed an augmented-reality training system for fighter jet pilots.
After the presentation, Fowler approached Robinson. “I told him if you don't think you're expanding to Orlando, let me be the first to say that it will be in your future,” said Fowler, who on Aug. 9 was announced as chief of staff for Red 6’s Orlando operations.
The two stayed in touch, and Red 6 executives earlier this year visited Orlando. That’s when they met with a host of public officials, industry leaders and other technology executives. That included Jason Eichenholz, co-founder and chief technology officer of Orlando-based Luminar Technologies Inc.
Eichenholz met Red 6 executives in downtown Orlando and shared successes, challenges and lessons learned from Luminar (Nasdaq: LAZR), which boasts a market capitalization of $6.2 billion and employs more than 250 people in Orlando. He also highlighted Orlando’s potential beyond the highly-visible tourism industry, Eichenholz told Orlando Inno. “There’s a perception about Orlando that it is difficult for some people to see as a high-tech location, but it’s my belief that in several key areas you can have an unfair advantage if your company is here.”
Recruiting to a $6B industry
One of those areas where Eichenholz believes firms can have an unfair advantage is modeling, simulation and training. It is a $6 billion industry in Central Florida, which often is considered the global hub for the industry focused on high-tech training technologies for the military, health care and other sectors.
The nation’s Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines simulation operations are based in Central Florida Research Park, a fact that likely attracted Red 6 as well, George Cheros, CEO of the Orlando-based National Center for Simulation, previously said. Cheros was another local executive who met with Red 6 leaders.
While local efforts scored jobs and high-tech work for the region, they did not land the entire company. Red 6’s headquarters will move from Santa Monica, California, to Miami, not Orlando. That is so Red 6 can tap into the concentration of venture capital in South Florida while using the technical talent in Orlando, Fowler said.
It is too early to determine how many jobs will be created in each market, Fowler said. However, the jobs are important because tech positions typically mean high wages.
For example, technology sector jobs in Orlando pay an average annual salary of $89,180, according to a report by Los Angeles-based commercial real estate brokerage CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE: CBRE). That’s more than the metro area’s average annual salary of $48,530, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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