PVM, a tenant at the Maritime Defense and Technology Hub, was recognized at the Third Annual Florida Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at USF Business Awards. PVM’s founder and CEO Pat Mack was named the 2025 South Florida Veteran Small Business Owner of the Year. Pat uses his leadership skills and resources at PVM to support efforts like SkillBridge and Hiring Our Heroes that transition service members into the workforce.
Lonestar Data Holdings, based in St. Petersburg, is still going strong after its launch to the Moon in February. Since then, the company has joined a $120 million partnership with Sidus Space and opened a new office in Austin, Texas. Keep following Lonestar’s success as they’ve got big plans in store for 2027.
The innovative ideas are flowing at our Tech X-Changes. Dr. Marcus Beck presented great material on tbeptools, an open-source software program built to visualize data used by TBEP. Visit the tbeptools page for more information.
We rely on hurricane categories to gauge risk, but what if the scale is leaving out the biggest dangers? Jennifer Collins, a hurricane researcher and professor in USF’s School of Geosciences, coauthored a new research paper proposing a more comprehensive approach. The current Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale measures a storm’s strength only by wind, yet wind is responsible for just 8% of hurricane-related fatalities. In contrast, storm surge accounts for 49% and rainfall flooding for 27%.