October 5, 2016

Tampa, Fla. (October 5, 2016) – Tampa Bay BCA (TBBCA) will recognize businesses and individuals for their extraordinary contributions to arts and culture in the Tampa Bay area on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 at the annual TBBCA Impact Awards. This year’s Honorees are internationally renowned artist Janet Echelman; Mark T. Mahaffey, Chairman of the Board at The Mahaffey Company; Smith & Associates and the company’s President and CEO Robert “Bob” Glaser; and Dr. Kent Lydecker, former Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.
Premier Eye Care is the Title Sponsor of the 2016 Impact Awards. Premier is a national leader in providing quality, innovative and affordable solutions for managed medical and routine eye care. Strategic Property Partners, which is the real estate development joint venture between Jeff Vinik and Cascade Investment, and the Tampa Bay Lightning are Chair’s Circle Sponsors of the event.
“TBBCA is grateful for the support of Title Sponsor Premier Eye Care, and Chair’s Circle Sponsors Strategic Property Partners and the Tampa Bay Lightning, as we prepare to celebrate the extraordinary contributions of individuals and businesses to arts and culture in the Tampa Bay area,” said TBBCA Executive Director Susana Weymouth. “Their vision and leadership, and that of our Impact Awards honorees, has a profound impact on our community.”
Honoree Janet Echelman is a Tampa native and an internationally award-winning artist who creates monumental aerial sculptures that transform with wind and light. Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create artworks that have become focal points in over 37 cities on four continents.
Echelman has received numerous honors, including a Rotary Scholarship, Guggenheim Fellowship, the Harvard University Loeb Fellowship, a Fulbright Lectureship, Aspen Institute Crown Fellowship, and the Smithsonian’s American Ingenuity Award recognizing her as one of “the greatest innovators in America today.” Echelman’s 2011 TED talk “Taking Imagination Seriously” has more than 1.5 million views and has been translated into 34 languages.
TBBCA is honoring Mark T. Mahaffey with the Patron of Culture & the Arts Impact Award. In the 1980s, Mark and his wife Marianne Mahaffey, and his parents, Tom and Jane Mahaffey, donated $1 million toward the renovation of what was then known as the Bayfront Center entertainment complex, renamed for his family the Mahaffey Theater. Mark and Marianne Mahaffey are known for their philanthropy and passion for arts and culture.
Mahaffey is the chairman of the board at The Mahaffey Company, a family business that develops, builds, owns and manages rental apartment communities in Central and west-central Florida. He is the chair of the Board of Trustees for The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, a director at Sabal Trust Company and Sabal Investment Management Company, and a board trustee of Elon University. He also serves on the boards of All Children’s Hospital, the St. Petersburg Environmental Commission, the St. Petersburg Festival of States, and St. Leo University.
This year TBBCA is recognizing Smith & Associates Real Estate with the Business Impact Award. The company’s President and CEO Robert “Bob” Glaser has created a corporate culture amongst his over 225 agents, so that with success in turn Smith & Associates generously gives back to the community.
Glaser participates in over 50 organizations throughout Tampa Bay, including on numerous fundraising and non-profit boards. His long history of service and deep commitment to artists, and arts and cultural organizations, includes as Chair of the Morean Arts Center/Chihuly Collection, and on the boards of the Tampa Theatre, Florida Aquarium, Palladium Theatre and the Blue Ocean Film Festival, among others.
The Individual Impact Award will be presented to Dr. Kent Lydecker. He served as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, from 2010 to 2016. While at the MFA, Lydecker addressed the complex operational requirements of the MFA’s programs, building, and activities. He brought important exhibitions to Tampa Bay, established and expanded connections with key constituencies, encouraged robust public programs, especially services for families and schools, and grew the MFA’s extraordinary collection, now standing at some 20,000 works of art in all media from across the globe and all of history.
Lydecker previously served as the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Associate Director for Education of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where over a period of nearly 20 years he sustained excellence in museum teaching at all levels, built a team of award-winning publication and media professionals, pioneered uses of new technology in support of the museum’s mission, and led the reconstruction of the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education.
TBBCA will recognize the four Impact Awards honorees on Thursday, Oct. 20. The evening begins with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. at the Dalí Museum, 1 Dalí Blvd., St. Petersburg, and continues with dinner and the awards program at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahaffey Theater, 400 1st St. S., St. Petersburg. With maximum capacity at more than 370 confirmed guests, the 2016 event is sold out.
The annual Impact Awards benefit TBBCA programs, including The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships program. Since its founding in 2007, TBBCA has awarded more than 55 scholarships to talented Tampa Bay area high school students to help fund their higher education in the arts at prestigious institutions including The Juilliard School, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music.
About TBBCA
Tampa Bay BCA “TBBCA” is a non-profit organization founded in 1989, one of 11 national “Business Committees for the Arts,” part of the Private Sector Network and pARTnership Movement of Americans for the Arts. TBBCA’s mission is “to unite businesses to champion arts & culture for a prosperous community” based on the philosophy that “the arts are good for business, and business is good for the arts.” TBBCA provides advocacy, resources and support for arts and cultural organizations, artists, and arts education, and builds awareness of arts and culture as important economic drivers in our community and essential contributors to our quality of life. For information on Tampa Bay BCA and pARTnerships, or to donate to The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships, contact TBBCA Executive Director susanaweymouth@tbbca.org or (813) 221-2787, or visit www.tbbca.org.