Pictured Above: The appointments of Melissa Seixas (left) and Shilen Patel must be confirmed by the state Senate.
Courtesy of Melissa Seixas and HealthAxis
By Nancy McCann
A shakeup of the USF Board of Trustees continued last week as the state board that oversees Florida’s 12 public universities approved the appointments of two more new members.
Melissa Seixas, an executive at Duke Energy Florida, and Shilen Patel, the CEO and founder of a health care technology services firm, were named trustees by the Board of Governors of the State University System on Jan. 27.
They replace Stephanie Goforth and Nancy Watkins.
Will Weatherford, a Tampa-based businessman and former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, was appointed to the USF board on Jan. 20 by Gov. Ron DeSantis. He replaces longtime trustee Byron Shinn.
All three of the new trustees must be approved by the state Senate.
The new appointments come amid grumbling by key Pinellas County elected officials about the way USF leaders are handling consolidation of USF’s three campuses.
For weeks, state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, has called out the leadership of USF and said its performance “calls for a deep dive” into the Board of Trustees, the 13-member group that governs the university.
Six of the USF trustees are appointed by the governor and five by the Board of Governors – and all 11 must be confirmed by the Florida Senate. The presidents of the USF Faculty Senate and Student Government are also trustees.
Seixas is a familiar figure on the St. Petersburg campus, where she earned a master’s in American history, helped lead the campus’ 50th anniversary celebration in 2015-2016, and now serves on the Campus Advisory Board.
She joined Duke Energy (then called Florida Power Corp.) in 1986, and worked her way up the ranks to her present position as vice president of government and community relations.
She has served on a number of community boards and is now board chair of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership.
She replaces Goforth, an executive at Northern Trust Bank in St. Petersburg who has been a USF trustee since September 2010, according to her LinkedIn profile, and vice chair of the trustees since June 2020.
Patel, an entrepreneur and investor, is the founder and chief executive officer of HealthAxis, a Tampa-based firm that specializes in technology and health care administration.
According to the firm’s website, Patel’s investments range from “tiny startups” to a professional soccer team in Italy.
Patel graduated from Babson College in 2002 and has master’s degrees in business administration from both Columbia University and the London Business School.
He is the son of Kiran and Pallavi Patel, prominent physicians and philanthropists who have been major donors to USF. Kiran Patel also has been a USF trustee.
Shilen Patel replaces Watkins, a Tampa-based certified public accounting executive who has been a USF trustee since 2013. She also serves on the board of Hillsborough Community College.
The changes on the Board of Trustees also mean changes on the seven-member Campus Advisory Boards that help oversee the two branch campuses.
Seixas replaces Goforth as chair of the St. Petersburg board, and trustee Charles Tokarz, a certified public accountant who lives in Sarasota, replaces Shinn as chair of the Sarasota-Manatee board.
Since Goforth was vice chair of the trustees, the board will have a meeting to elect her replacement.
In an email, trustees Chair Jordan Zimmerman praised the three outgoing trustees for “their tremendous service not only to our board but to the entire USF community.”
During their tenure, Zimmerman said, “USF flourished to Florida preeminence designation, completed a $1 billion (fundraising) campaign (in 2017) and (became) a top 50 research institution on the national level.”
