Leadership Should Be Proactive, Not Reactive | Opinion Part 1

Magnet designer Jack Toth installs coils in the world’s strongest resistive magnet, housed at the National MagLab.

In one of my recent ventures, I’ve been deeply involved in the restaurant industry. It’s tough: high turnover, tight margins, and constant pressure to execute.

It changes how you see things.

Since then, whenever I read a negative online review about a restaurant, my first question is simple: did you actually tell the owner/manager what went wrong?

Because serious operators want specifics. What happened? When? Where did the process break?

That’s how problems get fixed. That’s exactly what we’re missing in Tallahassee.

Too often, when problems show up, community leaders reach for a microphone instead of a solution. Broad criticism replaces real diagnosis, and that’s where progress stalls.

Take the growing concern around Tallahassee’s economy: missed opportunities, limited growth, and a city falling behind. Those concerns are real. They’re part of the reason Grow Tallahassee was formed years ago. But saying “the economy isn’t growing” is no different than saying “the service isn’t good.” It might be true, but it doesn’t fix anything. We need specifics. What exactly is missing?

Amazon created 1,400 jobs and invested $250 million in capital improvements in Tallahassee.

Economic growth is not simple. It requires multiple pieces working together.

At its core, every competitive city gets three things right: where people live, where they work, and why they stay.

Tallahassee is still working through all three.

• Live: Housing that is available, diverse, and attainable, so people at different income levels can enter and remain in the market.

• Work: A base of industries that generate private-sector growth and produce jobs that can compete with other cities.

• Stay: A built environment that gives people a reason to choose your city: lifestyle amenities, food scene, a functional downtown, concerts, family-oriented activities and airport connectivity to larger markets.
  

Individually, each of these sound separate issues. Together, they define our ceiling on growth.

Mid-sized cities are increasingly successful in recruiting talent by offering a compelling mix of lower living costs, a high quality of life, and growing job opportunities that larger markets cannot match.

Across the country, there are cities that were once comparable to Tallahassee, and today, they are not.

Chattanooga combined industrial recruitment with innovation. Boise aligned talent, quality of life, and targeted industries. Greenville built a manufacturing and export base. Raleigh leveraged its universities into a long-term technology engine.

None of these cities grew by accident. And none of them grew by simply talking about growth online. They picked a direction, aligned around it, and executed over time.

If you want a direct comparison, look at Huntsville, Alabama.

Twenty-five years ago, Huntsville and Tallahassee were roughly the same size—both around 300,000 people. Today, Huntsville is pushing toward 600,000, while Tallahassee is still sitting at 395,000. That gap didn’t happen by accident. Huntsville built around defined strengths: defense, aerospace, research, and engineering. It invested in institutions like Cummings Research Park. It aligned its university pipeline with industry needs. And it stayed focused on sectors that bring outside dollars into the local economy.

That’s what execution looks like.

Growth at that scale expands the entire economic base. It creates demand for housing, supports local businesses, strengthens service industries, and increases airport connectivity to outside markets.

And to be clear, this isn’t just a government issue.

Those of us in the private sector share a significant portion of the responsibility. If we want better outcomes, we have to show up with more than opinions on social media. That means investing, collaborating, advocating and aligning around real opportunities, not just reacting when things fall short.

Tallahassee has the talent. It has institutions. It has the foundation. What it lacks: alignment and action.

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll outline specific, actionable steps we can take to move from discussion to real economic growth.

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This article is an opinion piece by Bugra Demirel, a longtime Tallahassee resident, entrepreneur, and community advocate. A graduate of Florida State University and Tallahassee State College, Bugra was inducted into the Tallahassee State College Alumni & Friends Hall of Fame in 2024 and honored as a Seminole 100 recipient for leading Demirel International—one of the fastest-growing businesses owned by an FSU alumnus. His company holds investments across retail, hospitality, manufacturing and commercial real estate industries.