St. Petersburg Times business columnist Robert Trigaux spoke at the USFSP LeaderSpeak event “The Challenge of Business Leadership in Difficult Economic Times” on Sept. 29. He spoke to an audience of varying majors, with interests ranging from journalism to finance and entrepreneurship.
Trigaux has won several awards from organizations like the National Association of Newspaper Columnists and the Society of Professional Journalists.
At an early age, he was engrossed in the fields of economics and English. He worked in New York City at an investment firm and in 1991 moved to St. Petersburg to work for The Times as a business columnist.
Trigaux discussed various leaders on the local, state and national level, and focused on what he called “leadership qualities.” He started with Walt Disney, who Trigaux thinks might not be who college students instantly think of when they are challenged to think of inventive people.
He said that for his era, Disney was one of the most formative people in terms of bringing imagination to life and pitching a brand new economic idea. Trigaux highlighted people like Disney and Tom James of the Raymond James Financial Investment Firm as examples to help students realize they are capable of anything as long as they possess true dedication and determination.
“Small bottom-up economic development can be a powerful tool,” Trigaux said.
Charlie Justice, assistant director of Leardership Programs, said that he reads Trigaux’s column weekly and thought he would be a good choice for LeaderSpeak.
“The country’s economy is very relative, especially to college students,” Justice said.
“Trigaux’s comment on the rising retirement age and the pressure it’s putting on our generation was based on his overlapping theme that networking was as important as our majors,” said Jaylyn Malone-Wallace, freshman finance and economics major.
Sabrina Aldridge, a senior economics major, said his list of leadership qualities were “inspirational and helpful.”
Photo by Daniel Mutter
