Alma Kadragic, Ph.D., Alcat Communications and Nperspectives CFO & Strategic Services

 

Alma Kadragic, Ph.D.
Alcat Communications and Nperspectives CFO & Strategic Services 

Contact Information:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/almakadragic/

http://www.alcatusa.com/

https://www.nperspective.com/about/team/

Transcript

This is a transcript from The Floridaville podcast.  This transcript was created using artificial intelligence so it may not be an accurate account of what was recorded.

Rosanna Catalano  00:08

This is the Floridaville  get to know the people behind the Florida names you know, I'm your host Rosanna Catalano. On this episode we get to know Dr. Alma Kadragic, an entrepreneur, a journalist a researcher in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, and the President of ALCAT communications International, a company that bridges the gap between traditional media and the modern complexity of the digital media landscape. We're recording remotely. today. I'm in my home in Tallahassee, and Alma is speaking to us from her home office in Coral Gables, Florida. Welcome to the show.

 

Alma Kadragic  00:44

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

 

Rosanna Catalano  00:46

Your resume is so dynamic, and each position builds on top of the other. So I thought we would start in chronological order for today's interview. So let's start at the beginning, the very beginning, tell us where you were born, and where you grew up.

 

Alma Kadragic  01:03

I'm not going to reveal dates, which a lot of people will understand. But I was actually born in Budapest. And it's not that we were Hungarians or lived there for any amount of time. My parents were from Yugoslavia. They were This was during the communist period, of course, and they wanted to, especially my father, who was Mr. American dream, they wanted to get out of Yugoslavia go west, my mother would have been happy with Europe. But no, my father was America, America. And so we made our way to Geneva. And, and that's where I got when I was three years old, and stayed there another five years until we got a visa for the US and we're able to, to get on a ship in over France on that coast. You know, I think it was it was about two weeks. Two weeks later, we arrived in New York Harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty which I didn't, you know, my parents were very excited about I didn't know, you know, it's kind of interesting, but I didn't know what I knew much later.

 

Rosanna Catalano  02:06

What were you like, as a child? Did you have any hobbies?

 

Alma Kadragic  02:10

My prime hobby always was reading. I was an incredible bookworm. We, my parents were always reading things and wherever we were, no matter how temporary our place was, because I lived in, I think we total this up once. But before we got to New York, I think we'd lived in something like, I don't know, 15 or 20 different places. And most of which were not apartments, but rather hotels and things of that sort, reading was just something that I took to I was a shy kid. I was I was very much into curling up with a book and I did all those things, which kids who really love to read do like reading with a flashlight under the covers when you're supposed to be snoozing, stuff like that. And, you know, that was just part of my life. And that has persisted. I mean, through all of the changes, you know, reading is always the biggest relaxation and, and just something which, which, which is a major part of my life.

 

Rosanna Catalano  03:09

Where did you attend college? Ah,

 

Alma Kadragic  03:11

okay, so once we were done with the wandering around Europe apart, we stayed in New York for a long time. And the first apartment actually that that my parents found was in Riverdale, which is Northwest Bronx, just under Westchester. And it was you know, was ideal type of situation. I walked we lived in kind of it's wrong to say a project because it was a commercial buildings. But it was a bunch of, of six storey red brick type of buildings pretty close to tenements, with fire escapes and all that. And just, it was up a little hill. And just down the hill was PS81, which was my first school that I went into, and I came home for lunch and all this kind of stuff. You know, it was it was, it was terrific. Although, of course, when you're living these things you don't know, they just are later on, you realize, yeah, I was lucky. I never had to be bused anywhere, or had any of these kind of difficulties that people now have. And everybody. I mean, all my friends were pretty much also children of immigrants from Europe. And they were they were all ambitious and reading a lot. And, you know, there was no problem with motivating the kids because the parents would motivate them when they got home if they hadn't gotten the grades that they were expected to get, which was only one hundreds and A's or you know, whatever, whatever it happened to be. It was it was a very, very nice childhood. We didn't have much money at all because my parents were professionals. So for them was not the, you know, the route which many, many immigrants have have undergone. But you know, they both have had PhDs. My father had one from Yugoslavia, my mother. The first thing she did when we arrived here was to study at Columbia and in International Law on relations and that's what you got a PhD? Exactly just before we became citizens. So you know, barely five years after we arrived.

 

Rosanna Catalano  05:10

So what did you major in, in college?

 

Alma Kadragic  05:13

Oh, English English, I went to Bronx science, which anybody who's had it sort of New York education we'll know about, I mean, it was a special High School, you had to do very well, in your, in your, on the English side. And on the math side, I got in because of the English side, math was always a little dubious for me. And I didn't like it. And English was just, you know, just rolling down a hill. I mean, it was, it was the easiest thing for me, I could have majored in anything which involve a lot of reading, like history, or poli sci, or psych or something like that, but, but, you know, what I loved always was reading novels. And here was here, you know, you're supposed to do that it was great.

 

Rosanna Catalano  05:55

So I know that you have a master's degree, and obviously, you have your PhD. What made you decide to attend graduate, graduate school,

 

Alma Kadragic  06:04

it was really, you have to understand that all of my higher education, I lived at home. So we were I mean, you know, we're tiny family of three people. I was the center, but my parents were very busy carving out careers, and, and so on. So I grew up with kind of knowing all about that, and hearing about that, but I really had no idea what I was going to do, I pretty soon became a good writer in whatever context it was, and which is, you know, straight from my mother, because she was, I got that from her. But the only thing which at that time seemed possible, was to be teaching English in college and going on and doing research and writing books and scholarly books. And, and doing that kind of thing. The more I taught as a graduate student, the less I liked it, because the people who were teaching, they're all very nice. And they were, you know, they were quite nice to me. And I was nice to them. But they were very few, it was seldom to see a student who really loved literature. And what I wanted to be teaching was essentially people like me, or some of my friends. And you know, you just don't get that in a big urban university. So I was pretty quickly, not liking it. And then the other thing, which I have to say that I never took a journalism course, I never took a PR course. However, City College had not one, but two, at that time, student newspapers, which came out at least once a week, or often twice a week, and so on. And the one the one which I became associated with was called The Campus It was founded in 1907. So you know, it had a long tradition. And then sitting in New York, a lot of the people who had graduated and had been editors and, and writers for The Campus, were still around. And usually on Friday afternoons, kind of, you know, four o'clock, five o'clock, we would sit in our extremely small and grungy office with I can see the couch in front of me. I mean, it was a couch that you wouldn't ever want to have anywhere that you lived. But it was it was great. We flopped around and on the floor, of course, and so on. And then one of our people who was working at by that point at The Times, or the Herald Tribune was still around, I mean, there are many more newspapers would come and you know, would take the take the paper, sort of look at it and say, Okay, let's look at the at the at the front page. Okay, this headline, who wrote this headline, and I said I wrote it, Well, you don't really it doesn't really make sense. And it doesn't match the beginning of the story, which I hadn't written, it was somebody else, but you're supposed to do a headline that made sense, and so on. So in other words, we had this extensive critique from people who were a few years ahead of us and who had gone through the the process and all the rest of that. So the longer I was there, the more time I put into The Campus, and I became, I think my first editor ship was copy editor that was features editor. And then I was up to become editor editor. However, each one was for one semester, I would have had to wait until the final semester of my senior year to become editor, whereas the person who was selected for the first semester of his senior year was actually a year behind me and a guy from there weren't too many around at that time, as I mean, there weren't too many women around at that time, as you can imagine. And I just didn't like that whole thing. So I said, Okay, fine. I'm getting out of this. And I was, I was invited to do English honors, you know, which required a thesis. So of course, I did that. And so I graduated and Okay, I'm going to be teaching teaching, but what I really loved was his journalism, which I had been doing, you know, on a very, like baseball Class D league maybe or something like that. But But I love that. So as I started going through graduate school, and you asked me why I went to graduate school, it was because they said here have an assistantship, you know, go to graduate school. Maybe you should be working on a PhD, and not having, you know, any anything specific. And this was way before, I think, you know, if I had been been several years later, probably 20 years later, I would have gone into the military, because I think that that that would have appealed to me an awful lot, I probably wouldn't have liked the basic training or any of that stuff. But But I like the concept of it. And, and I was always, like most immigrants, I mean, you know, terribly patriotic from at home and on my own behalf, I just, you know, kept sort of taking the path of least resistance. But then a very good thing happened. And several times, you know, you mentioned how things kind of fit. Well, they fit in retrospect, in at the time they were happening, you didn't understand, by the time that I was almost finished with a PhD, I just had to knock off the dissertation, I was teaching full time at the City University. But knowing that I couldn't get a, a real full time job, which, you know, would be on a tenure track or anything like that, because they believed in sending their graduate students to other schools. And you know, I was in New York, I had no particular desire to go anyplace else. And, and I was very much of a baby still, and still living at home and all that. And so, the good thing that happened was that I lost my job, because there were budget cuts at the in the city, as you know, always happens from time to time. And of course, who can they get rid of, they can get rid of junior faculty that doesn't have  tenure, and so on. So all of a sudden, I was out of a job, what am I going to do, and then I started looking around and have, you know, various adventures in potential jobs, none of which involve teaching, because I knew I wasn't crazy about teaching, as it was then constituted one of my colleagues in graduate school, was married to a guy who worked for the New York Times, through really through someone that they introduced me to, they introduced me to a lot of people at at NBC, which is where he went after, after The Times. But it's sort of, you know, I was too educated to be a bright beginner. But on the other hand, I didn't have any particular any really broadcasting experience, which they kind of like you to have. They didn't know what to do with me, kind of as an afterthought, I was sent to see one of his colleagues from Columbia Journalism School, who was at ABC. And this was really the only person I ever met in my ABC career, who thought that the fact that I had a PhD didn't mean I was a total idiot, you know, I might know something, you know, it's very, I'm sure it hasn't changed that much. It's very craft oriented, do you know how to do this, and have you done it and so on. And right afterwards, once I really was, was good at it, seeing people there people who would come in with the kind of non experience that I had, and would catch on, and others who just not catch on it. And it had nothing to do with how smart you were or you know, how good your grades had been, or SATS or any of that sort of stuff. It was really just how, how you got it, whatever it was that you're supposed to get how you got it. So anyway, the after a year of sort of, kind of knocking around where my my parents really helped me because as these things happen, I had bought a new car, just you know, before I got fired, when I thought that, okay, I have this, I'm getting X amount of money, I have this new car, I had moved into my second own apartment, which was in Riverdale, which you know, was was reasonably not cheap. And then all of a sudden, you know, I have no money coming in. So my parents gave me the money, which I then later paid back. But I mean, there was no question. And my father was especially always very strong with this as of course, don't worry about it, you know, who will take care of it. So it took a year before I met the guy at ABC, who was willing to give me a chance. I never knew that in certain areas, they hire so called summer replacements who can work there for I think, because that's a writers field union contract, they could work for about five months, and then had to be either made permanent or, you know, kicked out, I got the job. And I and I hung on. And I hung on really through just gumption. And because I was very lucky there was there was one woman in this group of 10 people who immediately took me under her wing. And, you know, that was one of these kind of pay it forward things where I felt afterwards that I always tried to do that, because she had been so so friendly and helpful to me. And then the other thing was that I think on the second day that I was there, this was the least glamorous area of ABC News, which a lot of people not in the business don't even know about. But it was the affiliates feed every evening, at five o'clock, they would send it through a half hour of of independent spots which a station in Tallahassee or wherever, you know, that was an affiliate of theirs could record and then they could use it because we sent a script through also so one of their people could voice the thing and so on. So we covered essentially national stories which will stations wouldn't have access to normally covered national sports and of course international stuff. And like that song The The second thing that I was there, the guy who was the so called editor. So I have this baseball story here who wants to do that said, Oh, I'll do it. I'll do it. And I could see on his face that he was sure that this chick had no idea what she was talking about. But he was out of luck because I was a baseball fan from almost, you know, the first moment I started third grade in in Riverdale.

 

Rosanna Catalano  15:31

Did you end up writing sports for ABC?

 

Alma Kadragic  15:33

I mean, with that with those guys, I wrote sports. I never worked for ABC Sports. I was always at ABC News. But yes, I mean, I covered I covered several World Series and a Super Bowl, it was at the at the Rose Bowl, I remember which, you know, they they're not using for that so much anymore. But at that time it was. And that was for Good Morning America, because at that time, the Rams had a woman owner. So you know, this was grist for AB for Good Morning America. And so we covered the game. And sadly, whatever they call it, I called the dugout because of baseball. And then we went up to the superduper boxes up on top, where we were brought, because this owner knew Ethel Kennedy very well. And so we came into this box, and there's Ethel Kennedy, and who's very unbelievably sweet, even to the point of saying to me, I mean, you know, I was a child and had time saying to me, oh, dear, would you like to sit down? And said, no, no. We're working here. But anyway, they were there all kinds of great adventures with sports, and which, which I didn't know. But you know, baseball, baseball was always the first.

 

Rosanna Catalano  16:45

So you worked at ABC for longer than a decade? 16 years? Yeah, what prompted you to leave and become an entrepreneur? Because if I've got the dates, right, you left ABC, and then you became an entrepreneur? Is that right?

 

Alma Kadragic  17:04

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of the other way around. But at some point, you know, when you work for a big corporation of any type, you, you kind of after a while, you sort of know how things go, you initially or I certainly had ambitions at the beginning, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, get to be to the top, which, for me, meant to be executive producer of the World News Tonight, at that time with with Peter Jennings and, and others I mean, ultimately, with with just him, but then I got sidetracked as wrong. But I was sent overseas, and overseas is really what I always wanted to do, especially Eastern Europe. I mean, because of my parents, you know, I spoke serbo Croatian, which doesn't exist anymore, by the way. Now, there's a language called Serbian, and another quote, Croatian and Bosnian and Slovenian was always a little bit different, but they can understand basic serbo Croatian, but everybody calls it, what their, what their country is. Whereas before, you know, it was just a big, big jumble. And everybody spoke, so I wouldn't go there. I always like to say that I'm the last living person speaking serbo Croatian, but, you know, I had that background. So to get back to ABC. So in in 1982, about three years after I thought these guys are never going to send me overseas, because things incorporations always happen more slowly than you would like. And that is something's logical. All the sudden, I'm offered to go to London, the producer of the of the news on Good Morning, America said, you know, where can I have new news in the morning? Well, I can only have it from overseas, we want some while there's some sort of dramatic fire or, or hurricane or God knows what happening in the US. But generally speaking, you know, that's people snoozing time. So new news is going to be out there in Asia and in Europe. And so I was sent to London, which, you know, I had been to London a few times before that, but I was extremely happy about that, to essentially coordinate all of the material that for Good Morning America that would come in, that could be set up for that that day's programs, and with the time difference of six to nine hours, if you were out on the west coast, not even counting Hawaii and Alaska, which is worse, good. You could get a lot of stuff done and updated and so on. So I'm sent to London. And that was great. Except that the the executive producer for whom I worked at about four or five months after I was in London, he's gone and replaced by someone who absolutely couldn't stand and I'm not going to name any names because this person is still around, not not in networks. Thank God. I thought it was just awful. He was a yeller and a screamer. And, you know, that's, that's, that's something which I never tolerated. There was one incident where I was yelled at on a so called peace. Private line, you know, from, from New York through Washington, Atlanta, LA, all the local bureaus and Paris and London, whatever to Warsaw where we were covering one of the visits of Pope John Paul II  to Poland. And, and that was a very big story at the time and all the rest of it. And so I get yelled at because we we missed a story because a courier didn't make it. This is a fascinating thing, by the way of and this ties into what I started doing later. Because in TV, it's especially at that time, it's not enough to have the material, you have to be able to get the material to somewhere, because you know, I wasn't working for Polish TV or European TV or anything like that it had to get to, to New York, essentially to be disseminated around the country and then to their, to their clients in other parts of the world. And when you're covering a story like that, you plant motorcycle couriers in different places, and if somebody misses, you know, camera crew whizzes by, they throw out that this was still the age of cassettes, not everything being being recorded on discs. So they throw out a few cassettes, to the courier has got to be there. And if he's not there, they can chew those cassettes because they have to go on to their next place where they're covering the next, the next tour of the Pope, it was something you know, which simply didn't work and should have, but not having the material on the air, when the enemy at that time was, was only CBS, and NBC all had the story. And you know, we didn't have it. So it was terrible. And I get yelled at and so on. But just to give you an idea, when I got back to to London, and then got the guy on the phone, because you couldn't have it was a song and a dance to get someone in New York on the phone from Poland, you have to book the call, and all kinds of stuff like that it took took time. So finally, when I get to a phone that I can use, and I say to him, you know, how could you do that? Well, he had forgotten it totally. Because for him, it was just one of 2000 You know, it was

 

Rosanna Catalano  22:04

just an ordinary day to yell and scream. And I thought

 

Alma Kadragic  22:08

it was it was just awful. And I looked for a way out. And then actually, while I was in Poland on that trip, I learned that the bureau chief who had been sent there from from Washington was going to go back. And so when I came back to London, I asked the right people, has that job been assigned getters, you know, is it still available, and then I learned it was it was still available. And a couple of months later, I got the job. So I had been in Poland in July with the Pope. And then in at the beginning of October went there to take take on the job, which very quickly became bureau chief, because the the correspondent who at the title was was being moved to someplace else and and like that. So it was, it was a very interesting time. Because obviously, from 83 until 90, we covered that incredible decline of communism, which in retrospect, again, like everything else, you know, you can see perfectly, but at the time, you know, how is this ever going to end? It makes no sense. It's ridiculous. But they have all the weapons, they have all the the military police, they have everything. And of course, there's the the Soviet Union, the big guys in Moscow setting and their Soviet troops within Poland, you know, so there was, it was not clear at all how this was going to happen. That was 83,85 is when Gorbachev came in, in Moscow, you know, he was he wasn't Gorbachev for several more years, it took a few more years to kind of see how that would work out. And, and for him to realize that, you know, he really didn't have the juice, and all he could do was create a bloodbath. But it wouldn't help the real problem, which is just the total lack of ideas really collapse of the of the Communist Party in Poland and two different in each country was different, but essentially, throughout the whole, so called Warsaw Pact. And and ultimately, two years later, it went down in in Moscow itself, I mean, in in the heart of it.

 

Rosanna Catalano  24:07

So what prompted you, once you were bureau chief, and you were there for a bit? What prompted you to then leave and start your own venture?

 

Alma Kadragic  24:19

Well, it's Yes. And I didn't I gave you a lot of history. But I didn't answer that question. You know, when you when you're doing something, and although it's hard to imagine times, which would be more interesting for a journalist, especially somebody with my background, because I had an extra interest in, in Eastern Europe, because of my parents. I mean, my father was constantly talking about talking and reading and keeping up to the extent possible on this side of the world with what was going on there. And, you know, he predicted that he predicted the the dissolution of Yugoslavia almost from the beginning, the only thing could have kept it together would be if you know, they had had economic success, but they they didn't. And you know, I would say that they couldn't given that they were sort of stuck with. And eventually all the true believers cease to believe in all the rest of that, again, going back to working for a very large company with the money is good, and the benefits are good. And all sorts of stuff is good. If you're the kind of person as I am, what you're not happy with leaving things alone, you want to improve things all the time you want to change, you see someplace where Why are we doing this? Why couldn't we do that? and so on? Well, you'll get through with some of that, but a lot of it, you know, we'll just send no can't do that now. Or Yeah, damn girl, you know, just just just cover the news. And don't worry about it. So I started thinking, increasingly, and this would be sort of in the second half of the 80s is, as I'm covering these stories in Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia at that time, East Germany, that time, and you the Savio, so to a small extent, I'm thinking about you be really nice to be my own boss. And now, mind you, my parents are professionals, they never had a company, you know, they their minds didn't work. In that way. However, my mother's brother went to a year before we went to the US, he and his wife and, and my cousin, Daniel went to Australia. And he had very little education, but he was a brilliant businessman. And he became he started a company, construction company, essentially, he became very rich, is he's gone now too. But his son, who was who was the, the real Australian, in the group, he was born there, has took it over and is now approaching retirement himself and made a success of it, they have incredible amounts of money, put it to another way, half of my relatives are in in Australia, the other half from my father's side ER and in Bosnia. And as I was kind of, you know, doing a will and so who's going to get what? Well, I can't give anything to the Australians. I mean, it's ridiculous, you know, that they can bind me six and a half times or more, but, but whatever I have, whatever it means, we'll, we'll go to the Bosnians because you know that that's a completely different story. So anyway, from there was the example in the family in the more distant family of somebody who had had tremendous luck as an entrepreneur. And I liked him very much we were, he came to see us numerous times, here, we went, my mother and I, separately and together went to Australia, to stay with them. So that was kind of something you know, which kept it in my mind, just the way is, as in, in at City College, when we were at the campus, those colleagues, former colleagues, who had now made good and in major, major papers, they, they were sort of opening up a sense of possibility for me. So what happened was then in, I think it was maybe 87, or something that ABC made us sign contracts. And we got, I had an agent, then for the first and only time in my life, who negotiated a really good contract. But one of the things was that I can't start any companies. So I asked my parents, if they would start up the company, which they did, we just called it ALCAT, I mean, the same name, which is my mother's invention, by the way, because my father was AL, she was Catherine, and when Alma would get into it, that would fit anyway.

 

Alma Kadragic  28:26

And in fact, you know, when when she registered while I was away, in Europe, and when I came back and said, it's our cat, and I was kind of it, you know, I didn't like that, particularly, but equally, you know, it really doesn't matter. I mean, it's not, you know, we're not talking campbell soup, or Ford or something, it's going to depend on what I can do with it. And the name doesn't matter that much. I know, this is marketing people, which I am one of two would be upset about that. But realistically, you know, that's for a small company. That's kind of how that works. So, so anyway, I think it was an 88 that the company was was started. And it was just sitting there registered in New York, it didn't do anything. And then when I left ABC, big, I left because A, I wanted to become an entrepreneur. B, they were closing the Warsaw Bureau. And this was no threat to my job with ABC because I was still essentially registered as working I mean, on their books is working in London. So I could have continued working in London for a number of years until maybe, you know, in recent times that would have that would have gone away but it certainly it I wasn't in danger of losing my job. But I was in danger of repetition. And I don't like repetition. I like change. And going back to London, rather than sort of having a territory to cover where I knew a lot of people had a lot of contacts was able to get in on a lot of stories that not everybody could get in London, I would be what we call the firemen you know going to Okay, there's something there, go there, see what you can do. And then oh, Come back, maybe you can do something there. And, and like that. And it's difficult to I mean, you're an expert in, in creating something out of nothing or nearly nothing that, you know, I learned how to do that too. But it didn't appeal to me as a way to continue. And so let's, let's do something different. So I'm going to start a company. Well, what's it going to do? Well, my first thought was, it's going to be a production company and do documentaries, except that around that same time, I got several documentary producers in the US who are doing great work, but independence, you know, were calling me up and kind of saying, Hey, I'm doing blah, blah, how can I get this to ABC? and so on, which kind of opened my eyes and said, Hmm, okay, this is not that easy. And I don't have contacts on that end of it. I have news contacts, but, but I was always working in daily news, short form, etc. And this is a completely different thing. Maybe it's not the best way to start. Okay, so I'm going to have a company, we're going to call it consulting, because who knows what that is. And I mean, the idea I had was that in in 1990, the second half, a lot of companies, which had not been in Poland ever, or that had maybe until World War Two, we're now looking at it again, because new market, etc. What happened was that I thought I would be helping American companies get into the market, which I did in a couple of cases. But that wasn't the main work. Around that same time, a group of Americans or I should really say Polish Americans would experience here, but at GM, after Poland, said, we've got to have an American Chamber of Commerce here. In communist countries, you do not have American chambers of commerce, it's not, you know, not part of the model. In most normal markets you do. I went to an organizing meeting, where I talked quite a lot. At the end of that a guy came up to me and he said, Hi, I'm from American Express, and, you know, starting starting up here, and we need a news conference, and we need a party at the Royal Castle. So can you do that? And you know, whenever my answer whenever anybody asked me anything is yes, of course. And then I either know it, I know it slightly. I know who I can get to help me. I'll figure it out as about a mine. And it's a it's a challenge. And it helps also, because it has to be admitted that if I had tried to do the same thing in New York, or in Miami, you know, in any any larger city in the US, I mean, I would have been completely out of my league. But there, there I was an American who spoke polish, who had had had a long existence with ABC News. I was I was flavor of the month for quite a while there. And so we were getting clients, nobody was too cool on what PR actually wasn't what they could do, you know, questions like a guy who was a shoe distributor said, Well, if I hire you, how many shoes will I sell? So there was a lot of explaining that one had to do, right? My first client was American Express. My second was Levi Strauss. My third was Citibank. And it went like that through Compaq. And then later on Dell, Sun Microsystems, if you remember them, General Motors,

 

Alma Kadragic  33:16

many, many other companies of that ilk, Westinghouse, you know, what used to be a big shot in, in, in nuclear plants, which they were trying to do. And in I think they did eventually in in Hungary, and so on, all kinds of stuff like that. So it was very interesting. See, it was learning it as I went along.

 

Rosanna Catalano  33:34

So you built up this company with an incredible book of business. But then you went to teach, and I know, you went to teach in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, for a bit.

 

Alma Kadragic  33:50

First, the first was in Poland, in there, that's when I first thought PR, because I was getting a lot of interns who had essentially, master's degrees, you know, because in Europe, not in the UK, but in continental Europe, when they finish their, their college, they actually they've done five years. So they have what's recognized here too, is the equivalent of a master's and so on. So these kids were all very smart, well educated, you know, no problem with reading or any of that sort of stuff, highly literate, etc, etc. Many of them in English, as well as in Polish would come in, and then, you know, talk about, we always had a kind of a small daily meeting, and then we would have a meeting at the end of the week, and, you know, all this sort of stuff, which is a combination of my journalism, experiences and, and ABC experiences, they would be, we didn't learn anything like this. I mean, they didn't learn how to do a news conference. They learned they learned about the philosophy of crowds and, you know, all sorts of things of that sort. What I found was that and this is kind of my theory of life in general. That It's great to get out of the field first, and then when you read the literature, then you understand it, then you know, you can see parallels, you can understand it, if you do it the other way, which is still what we're doing here, for the most part, and what they're doing in Europe even more is that you've, you first have all the books, and then you have to somehow, despite what you've seen in the books, you have to be effective. And for example, effective. And for me, the task was how to how to talk to these kids, who are essentially much more like I was when I when I was their age, kind of so intending to be shy, comfortable with their buddies, but not you know, with a stranger, and we would do a lot of events for for clients. And so I would, you know, we'd come into one of these beautiful palaces or event spaces of which there are more and more as time went on. And, and I would see, you know, my guys that three or four of them who are working on that thing, they would be huddled in a corner corner, chit chatting, enjoying themselves totally, and so on. Meanwhile, there would be like an exposition, or there would be tables, that there would be people coming in who didn't know other people, you know, guys, we can't we can do this. Consider yourself that your host. And you can go up to anybody and say, Hi, I'm Bob, ah, and I work with, with ALCAT communications, can I help you? Do you know anybody here or should I introduce you to some people, Poland, Eastern Europe, in general has a much stronger, can you have an Italian background, so you understand perfectly. And Hispanics, as I see down here in Florida have this also, but not not all, Europeans have strong hospitality traditions. But they're, I could get them with that I could say, you know, your, your, it's really your event. So you have to welcome people, you have to talk to them, and, and so on. And if you if we have an expo table here, and we have some brochures or some little trinkets or whatever, you can't be turned away from that table and chatting with, with your colleagues back here. And you've got to be kind of looking at people and trying to catch their eye as they come by. And can I tell you about this bah, bah, bah. And so you know, stuff with just these, these kids, maybe it's changing by now. And I don't know. But you know, they didn't have the sort of show and tell experience that most American kids have. And they didn't have the thing about, you know, how you present yourself. And it's important to look at people and all these sorts of things, which mean not, not every kid is perfect at this, but they've at least heard about it. But they're the problem was just sort of Americanize them a little bit without losing the advantages they had and being educated and, you know, sort of nicely dressed young, young ladies and gentlemen type of thing, which, which was expected, they're very much in those kinds of situations. So it was very exciting, however, and you're going to ask me, what made me leave, there was only one one problem with all of this, I always came back to the US a lot, definitely for Christmas. In Poland, I mean, life stops around December 1517, something like that, it doesn't really start up again, until sort of at least January 10, or something, something in that line. And of course, it was the staff loved being given that time off. And so and I love being able to go back to to New York and hang out with my, with my parents and friends. And But at a certain point, I kind of really, I'm doing well here, I got to the point where in order for what we say now scale, we didn't use that term at that time. But in order to do that business, I would have to commit to it more fully. And I frankly, didn't feel like it, I had looked with non success for somebody local, who could be my partner, what happened and which happens with a lot of emerging markets is that whoever was like that, their idea was to have their own company, a couple of the people who worked for me actually started their companies and the the ones who who didn't, but they went to bigger companies and you know, the the local outlets of some of the international companies and things of that sort. So I never solved that problem. Again, I could have solved it, if I had put more time in there, but I was getting to the point where Okay, I want to spend more time in in the US and less here and you know, how can we do this cleanly. And then the other thing was that I was basically for several years, I was basically homeless. Now in Warsaw, I had a nice place to kind of the small as they call it a villa which had three storeys and ground floor, second floor or they call it the first floor. And then the top floor, top floor had a bedroom and bathroom and most importantly, a very large closet. And that was that was where I lived. That was my home. But the second floor had had my office which was really The living room, you know, of the of the house and, and had, I think another room there as well, it's quite spacious. And then on the ground floor was what I turned into the newsroom kind of sort of thing that I didn't want people to be tucked away in their offices because, you know, they needed more working together for so we didn't have a space for it, but also because of my newsroom training in earlier with the, with the college paper, I just believed in the effectiveness of having people be together. So everybody would know what was going on. Nobody would be able to say an answer to a phone call. Well, I don't know about that. That's my colleague, but she's not here now. So, you know, just leave a message, something like that I wanted to, you know, everybody to be to be very much involved in everything.

 

Rosanna Catalano  40:49

But I'm gonna stop you right there. I want to take a quick commercial break. And when we come back, I want to talk about a little bit more about your time overseas, your return to the United States. And tell us a little bit more about and perspective. So let's take a quick commercial

 

41:05

break.

 

41:07

This episode of the Floridaville

 

41:09

is brought to you by rocket ship consultants. Let us help you launch your career, your business, your podcast, or your live stream, follow us on Facebook and on Instagram and visit our website at www.rocketshipconsultants.com

 

Rosanna Catalano  41:27

Welcome back.

 

Rosanna Catalano  41:28

My guest today is Dr. Alma Kadragic, president of ALCAT communications, international Miami Florida. Before the break, we'll discuss a bit about how you built up business overseas. We talked about how you would return to teaching overseas left being overseas and return to the United States. Can you tell us more about your company, ALCAT communications?

 

Alma Kadragic  41:51

Sure, again, when you're an emerging and emerging market, and everybody does everything, so whereas you know, here, certainly in Tallahassee, you you might have a PR agency, and you're very strong on on digital, but then you need some advertising for one of your clients. And you go to, you know, a friendly, a friendly other company, with whom you you share business sometimes and send your client to that, and so on. In the early stages, that just doesn't happen, because you have a client, you want to hug them to your bosom and never let them go and figure out, you know, everything that's needed for them. So that's a very early stage. Poland is no longer like that. I should mention that. That was two things very briefly. One was that just as there was no American Chamber of Commerce, there was no PR Association. And I knew from my experience in the world, that there should be a PR Association and to to build the business. And that was a bit of a sales job on my part. I mean, I had a Polish colleague who had his own firm, and he's been a buddy all these years. And I could always get him to do things. The only thing I couldn't get him to do was to become president of that Association, which, initially, I did. So I was the first president for I think about four years of the association until I said, Okay, enough of this, one of you guys has to do, it shouldn't be, shouldn't be an outsider. And that was also part of the time that I was going back. The other thing very briefly, when the these interns who worked with me who are very smart, when I started to see what they knew, and they didn't know, they didn't know anything about PR, as it's generally taught around here, and certainly not as its as its operated. And so I went to, to the guy who was the Dean of the PR school, at the University of Warsaw, and, and kind of said to him, Look, you know, you're you're teaching them stuff, which is interesting, but it doesn't really help them in their day to day work at all, what what he wanted to say, Well, I could and again, I volunteered my colleague, Peter, I said, you know, Peter, and I could could do classes on Saturdays and Sundays, which would be practical, which would be really, you know, how to do various things. And so he bought them enthusiastically week, I think I didn't even take any any salary for that. Or maybe I did, but I gave it to the association, I don't remember. And it was it was negligible in our terms. And, and so we started that, and I know that when I left Of course, I didn't do that anymore, but I know that he continued doing it. And it's a very sort of valuable thing that they're doing and other other schools have also begun to be more useful in terms of news you can use you know, for for operating and PR, but anyway to get over to get back to the whole thing. So I was I was doing well. But But in order to do better in order to really grow the company, I need to spend more time there and I just didn't feel like that. My main stuff which had gone from London, to then to a storage place on Long Island. You I hadn't seen it for about six years. And I said, I really need someplace in the US where I can unroll my stuff. And, and stay there when I'm when I am there and, you know, eventually move in full time. So my first idea was to live around Lincoln Center, which is the area that I like best in New York and that's where abc news was, and so on so forth. Except that when I started looking around a studio apartment cost 300,000 and that seemed to me ridiculous, and that didn't take care of the car, which would need a car garage space, which would be you know, 800

 

Rosanna Catalano  45:36

I was about to say that's a whole other mortgage payment.

 

Alma Kadragic  45:41

Exactly in your this is we're talking now in 96. So it's all of that is more and rents have gone down now a little bit with COVID. But you know, there's there's still a lot and on the other hand, I remembered that I had been to a couple of conferences in the Orlando area, I had never been to Disney World or you know, any of those attractions and not having kiddies or, or being a kid by the time all of that was was accessible to me. I just hadn't been there but it's like, hey, maybe you know what, and I nip down there and see what's available. And so I called up Coldwell Banker just you know, an 800 number stayed at the at that very lovely Marriott there in the Disney area and, and was taken around for two days by by a one what proved to be a wonderful agent. On the second day we went to Winter Park because I said something about how you know, there's no shade here. I was thinking already bringing my parents down and the dog and you know, what's the dog going to do with this killer sun? She takes me to a house in in it was actually a townhouse attached on one side with a little swimming pool. Now for a New Yorker, you know, swimming pool was just........ Yeah, orange tree, three bedrooms, three baths, and a little little kind of garden in the back. And sago palms are actually two sago palms. So remember, in the whole damn thing cost. It was 240,000. I have heartedly negotiated for 5000 less but and you know, the people said no, I said, That's ridiculous. I'll take it, of course. And so at the at the beginning of really the end of 96, I moved down during during that holiday break, and moved in. And then in March, I had my parents and jingles the dog come down, and they loved it. They came down again in the summer, because, you know, we didn't know, we'd heard horror stories about what the summer would be like, except that this was the first time for all of us living in central air. And, of course, it was much cooler than just having a few window units, you know, which was the case in their house, in new. So anyway, I'm

 

Rosanna Catalano  47:46

always happy to hear about people that become Floridians by choice, because I think many Floridians actually get here by choice. And they weren't necessarily born here. We're a little bit running out of time. So I wanted to squeeze in here and have you tell me a little bit about your position. I know you're the Director of Business Development in South Florida for Nperspective. And I'm hoping you can share with the audience what that company does.

 

Alma Kadragic  48:16

Sure, well, it's a very interesting company, it's called the full name is Nperspective, CFO and Strategic Services, they what they do is they provide part time highly experienced, not kids, you know, the average, the sort of going age there starts around 50, in almost 100% of the cases people have had a lot of big, league corporate experience, but are now are now living down here want to stay down here, like the idea of working with smaller individual clients, again, the business of you know, and in a big corporation, you can get your point across too many times, working with a smaller client, you can kind of you see what their problem is, you make some suggestions, you say, Hey, you know, just to give you some some typical examples, you have three lines of business, do you know how much which of these are actually profitable? Well, I don't really know. And it turns out that one line of business is losing money. So the more orders they get, the more they lose, you know, so it's just the opposite of the way things are supposed to work. And then one of them is kind of mainly holding even. And one of them is really doing very well and obviously asked to be expanded and all the rest of that, well, it's a little bit like you go to a specialist, you have some sort of condition. And the specialist looks at you and you know, takes a few films or whatever, and says, Okay, here's your problem. And that's really the basis of what we do. And we do it so well, that clients will start with us for a little bit, you know, well, let's see if this is gonna really help and kind of like that very quickly come to say, Yeah, I see what you mean. I see that this can work. It's really interesting knowing practically To the day, how much money we have, what, what we're, what our cash position is, etc, etc, which is huge. It's just amazing to me how people have made millions of dollars without really totally knowing what they're doing. And here's the good thing about a crisis, when you have a crisis, you're forced to kind of look at things, you know, more with a, with a magnifying glass or microscope, whatever you want to sort of see, okay, well, you know, we've just lost a couple of our clients, and what do we have here? You know, what can we do, and it makes, it makes us more valuable to the clients, it also makes people who are who have not been using a CFO, a lot of entrepreneurs don't, they're kind of doing it themselves. I was one of those two, I never had a CFO, and when I see now, what I could have kept of the money we made, which I didn't, you know, it's it's just, it was part of the of the learning, but money wasn't was never sort of my primary thing, I just wanted to have enough to not worry about it. But, but it wasn't, you know, I didn't have the right attitude for a business person, like my uncle certainly did, and understood all of that. So, Nperspective comes in, and works on an on a basis of, Okay, here's a project you need something done, or you you have maybe a bookkeeper or a family member who's kind of doing these things, who sort of knows it, but maybe is not as, as well versed as, as could be, and certainly may not be able to help you scale, which you probably are now ready to do. We come into all those kinds of situations. And, and help. We're too small a company, we have about 20 CFOs, scattered around South Florida, Central Florida, where the firm began. And Tampa, we're the were the babies here in South Florida. Tampa has was the second one started. But it's a very virtual firm, there No, we have office space we can use in all of our locations. But essentially, people work out of their out of their home offices, or at the clients, you know, depending of which there's less now because of the situation. But you know, it's up to what the client wants, wherever the client wants, the CFOs to be, that's what they'll be.

 

Rosanna Catalano  52:22

Well, that sounds like an amazing business. So we like to end our show with a little fun by asking all of our guests the same question seven questions, what would people be surprised to know about you? Well,

 

Alma Kadragic  52:35

maybe maybe sort of how much I read. Because I belong to a book club. And I have several friends who read. But I read much more than any of them. And I don't talk about it too much. I mean, some some books you don't particularly want to talk about quite a bit of what I read is, is is not heavy duty is detective stories of mysteries and stuff like that, you know, and I read a lot of nonfiction as well, history and European history, but also all kinds of different things. I spent almost eight years in, in the Gulf. And so this was after Poland and after buying the place in in, in Orlando. So I became interested in that which I had never been before. So I've read a huge book on the Arabs, the 3000 years of history, which is absolutely fascinating. You know, there's, there's no limit to what you can read. The only limit for me is if I started reading something, and it's badly written, I read well enough myself so that I can tell the difference between you know, somebody who's writing with gusto and enjoyment you can do, you know, heavy duty information and still do it well, and avoid repetition and be lively and all the rest of that. But a lot of people don't write that way. And if I start something of that sort, unless you know there's I'm reading it for the book club or or there's some other pressing reason I know it's an important book and I should at least skim it I'll just you know dump it and not not worry about it longer.

 

Rosanna Catalano  54:07

When you have guests in town, where is your favorite place to take them?

 

Alma Kadragic  54:11

Ah, well, I love restaurants. So wherever you know the I have various favorites but now that we're we're with the this virus business, one of the in Coral Gables one of the very, very, very best terraces is Bachour, which is actually part of your heritage started by a guy whose grandparents were from Lebanon, but they went to Puerto Rico and his parents then grew up or But father I think grew up there and Mother Mother was from a fellow country in the area. And so the guy speaks Arabic, Arabic Spanish Of course French where he trained for his his cheffing and and naturally English And it's a fabulous place for for sweets, which are not particularly my thing, but all of their food is fabulous. And they have you know, it's not like just umbrellas or, or an awning or anything like that the the restaurant is it's a, it's a little complex of two buildings. One is done by by Covina ventures was a major developer around here in Miami. One part is a is an office building, which is I think six storeys, something like that. And then a courtyard. And on the other side of the courtyard is the residential building, which is condos. And I think also some rentals. And those two are linked by a 20 foot high, you know, masonry kind of join between those two buildings. So you have a fantastic deck to be on, where, you know, you could have I haven't tested this yet, but if there were a hurricane, you could be under that and you wouldn't get wet. I mean, I've certainly been there when it's been raining like crazy, and you just don't get wet because of it. So that's my current favorite place. I always take people to, to the Biltmore where you have, first of all you have eating casually by the pool. And then you have the Fontana restaurant, which is around a fountain as you might suspect, and has great food. I haven't been to the palm, which is they're really super superduper super expensive. Frenchie type restaurant because I feel it's not not essential, but, but I like to go there because they're outdoors. And then one of my all time favorites always is Seasons 52, which we have a nice version down here on a Miracle Mile. But you know, they have a few umbrellas. And if it's raining, you don't want to be there. And I haven't yet graduated to going to restaurants inside. I don't want to do that yet for a while.

 

Rosanna Catalano  56:50

So what is the name of a book you recently read that you could not put down or the name of a show you enjoy binge watching?

 

Alma Kadragic  56:58

Oh, I'm a great, I'm a great binger. And I love I mean, both on prime and on Netflix, you have lots of foreign programs. And I like them, you know whether there's several good series in Polish, and occasionally in Russian and of course, the Scandinavians have all sorts of, of detective stories and whatever. I don't want ghosts. So I stay away from anything, which is spooky. And I don't like science fiction. I like to read science fiction, but not to see it so much. Because it's always except for the whole Star Wars thing that I that I love. And I love Harry Potter, but generally speaking, so you asked me a book. There's a book which came out very recently called the daughters of Yalta. The Yalta Conference, you know, was one of the conferences that happened during World War Two, between Stalin and FDR, and in Churchill, and they were held that Yalta was, you know, the Crimea and, and Stalin didn't want to travel outside of the boundaries of the of the then Soviet Union. So it was there. The interesting thing is that each of these guys, FDR, Churchill, Avril Harriman, who was the US ambassador to Moscow, at the time, brought to that conference, their daughters, not their wives or girlfriends, or whatever, those people stay at home, wherever that was, but they brought their daughters who were essentially their their assistance, except that they couldn't because you know, this is 1944 and women didn't didn't attend really important things. But they were responsible for the first setting up the the comfort as much as it could be assured of these of these people. And they were on the edges of, of what was actually happening. So it's it's extremely interesting because one of them and a Herrmann was one spoke Russian, so she, she knew it, but the other two did not. They were doing their best in this very strange place. World War Two was still going on, you know, the Soviet Union was quite devastated by it. And they got they got an old palace to use for, for the headquarters of these guys. You know, they didn't have kind of like us, they didn't have things like toilet paper, they didn't have just the very ordinary things which we in the West have always until recently taken totally for granted. These women were had to sort of set all of that up and do it. And it's written by a young woman as a scholar from Colombia, I think, is where she got her PhD. And she writes very well. So she makes this whole thing, which is completely nonfiction, you know, did extensive research on among the papers of these, these women and of their fathers and all concerned people. And it kind of gives you an incredible idea of what's behind one of these sorts of international conferences, where huge decisions are made. By the way, that that decision at the altar was what led to 40 years of communism in, in Eastern Europe, the the Stalin, hunk tough and Roosevelt given to him, Churchill was against it, but couldn't do anything. He didn't have the muscle. So it's very, very interesting.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:00:19

It sounds like an interesting book among your close family and friends, what are you best known for?

 

Alma Kadragic  1:00:28

Probably for some of the things you pointed out for the changes all the time for the the non repetition, for for, for, for being interested in, in intellectual things, and having lots of opinions, which I'm not reluctant to, to express, although, politics for example, I mean, in this goes, this has nothing to do with the current situation. Going back to college, I'm used to not babbling about politics, because I was usually on the on the wrong side, in quotes, wrong side. And the, the knowledge I had from at home, and then my experience overseas, you know, just made me feel that I knew things that other people didn't know. And a little bit like, Okay, if you don't like literature, I'm not going to really tell you why you should like it. And it's the same way with, you know, you need some common ground. And if you can find too much common ground, like the people who say, Oh, look at Cuba, they have such wonderful health care. Well, that's only if you don't know any Cubans who've experienced that health care, which they're primarily anyway, exporting so that they can earn hard some hard currency rather than benefiting the, their their local citizens. But anyway, you know, so so it's just something that I that I tend not to do.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:01:52

So you're known for having your opinions as well as always being on a new adventure. If you have a nickname Who gave it to you. You don't have to tell us the nickname. But do you have one that someone gives you a nickname?

 

Alma Kadragic  1:02:06

No, you know, back in college, a friend who's who's still in New York and who I don't see very often, I mean, we went sort of way apart, but for some reason. And this is stupid. I know, for some reason, Alma, she kind of made into Elmer. And if you I don't know if they're even still around, there was the cartoon character, Elmer Fudd. So you know, she called me of funny sometimes and whatever. But it wasn't a nickname that that sort of stuck. I don't think it's nice having a very short name, you know, only four letters, because there's not too much you can do with that. And on the other hand, it's a name for which I have to thank By the way, my my great aunt, who was who was in Budapest, when I was born, my mother wanted to name me, Xenia. And you know, it was fine. They're coming to us with that name at that time, would have been a nightmare. I was always, you know, when I started a new class, new semester, and then the teacher would go down the road and read the names. And she'd say, Alma, K..k.k..k..k? I can't hear you, dear. So, you know, if I if I'd had a hard name to pronounce, I mean, I would have never been there to begin.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:03:28

If you knew you could not fail, what would you attempt?

 

Alma Kadragic  1:03:33

Oh, I think now, what I'm what I'm interested in, and haven't really done is to invest in some startup companies, things like that. I mean, I'm fascinating by fascinated by that. And I always advise people, you know, to not wait as long as I did before starting a company, but to do it, rather, you know, do it while you're in college, do it. As soon as you leave college, don't worry about, you know, paying huge, ridiculous amounts of money to be, you know, in some, some campus somewhere where you're getting drunk and not learning very much, really, I just, I don't I just don't like that whole idea of that, that thing. I would I know that they're their companies these days, who will hire bright young bunnies, and then send them to school, if they like them, if they if they want to, you know, train them so that they give them the college degree that they need in certain areas. And if they, if they if they want to start a company, and then you know, go to go to college later, I think that's perfectly fine. I did when I was in the Orlando period, I did some teaching for the University of Phoenix. And some of that was in school and others other of it was hybrid kind of online and in school. And what was true of both of the versions was that the students by and large, were older. So they were there because they wanted to be they had already done various things. In one case where there was a young student and her mother, who were both students in the same class, and and another one where it was an older guy, and he said, Well, he's put his kids through college. So now he thinks he should put himself to college,

 

Alma Kadragic  1:05:15

as well.

 

Alma Kadragic  1:05:16

Those guys are horribly motivated. They were, you know, they wanted to be there. They, they took full advantage of it. And the I don't think any, any young person who sort of, you know, can go to college, and I'll have a good time. And, you know, what am I going to study? Well, we'll see, what's my friend going to do, you know, those people shouldn't be going to college at that point, they should be doing doing other things. traveling around the country is fine to traveling overseas, when you know, all of this is now a little bit on hold. But, but, but in general, just expanding their horizons. And and especially for most Americans, the ones who don't come from immigrant backgrounds like you and I do. Being in another country doesn't matter which one or in several other countries, is just tremendous, because we tend to, we tend to think that everybody is just like us, and nothing could be further from the truth. And also, you know, it gives you become a much more faithful American when you when you see other places, because, you know, we have our problems, as we know, but but they're nothing compared to most other countries problems.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:06:24

Absolutely. We are absolutely blessed to be here in the United States. So what are the top three things you love about living in Florida?

 

Alma Kadragic  1:06:32

Ah, okay, so I spent, I spent, I guess, I don't know, at least 40 years, living in cold places. I live in New York among that, of course. And then Eastern Europe is even worse, because New York is pretty high on latitude. So even January, when you know, you can have 1015 degrees, but you can also have a brilliant sun. So that's great. But if you're in, in central Eastern Europe, on the, you know, higher latitudes, as as is the case with Warsaw, and most of those cities around there, you from from November, even the end of October, you just have gray, gray, gray, gray, it's not incredibly cold. But but it's it's bone chilling, you know, it's it's human cold, and you very seldom see the sun until March when it kind of decides to show up again, and everybody's very happy then. So I don't I love not being cold. I love not being cold. I'm always the first person to be cold. When again, in Poland, we we did a lot of waiting with the with the crew outside of buildings waiting for someone to come out or come in or, you know, whatever the typical stuff that that that TV journalists have to do. And you know, my guys, they were the cruise royal guys. They'll be dressed in shorts, leather jackets, and jeans and sneakers. And I would be I would have my fuzzy boots on. And gloves Of course, and you know, a couple of sweaters and a heavier jacket, and all the rest of it and I would still be sort of feeling cold. So I love not being cold. And people who are down here who have lived up north they say, Oh, I miss the seasons, and I don't miss the seasons at all. They're very nice. I saw a lot of them. I can see him again anytime. But I don't miss them. So that's one thing. I like the beat the short distance between from my house I mean, I'm I'm in Coral Gables. I'm not on the beach or a canal which you know, you can be here, but I'm not very far from it either. And, and so, you know, I go I live on the fifth floor of a 12 storey condo and I take the elevator down and in either get my car just go down outside and I'm in I'm in a kind of it's it's urban and that there's sidewalks and businesses and so on. But 12 storeys actually you can get a dispensation for having 16 storeys, but that's how tall it gets here and they're not that many of those. So I like that. Well I like the New York skyline and the Brickell skyline, which we have now here too. I like living Nanos skyline and, and going out on my balcony, which faces deenis. So I get the nice morning sun. And then by by 11 o'clock, the sun is over the building, and that balcony is perfectly shaded and is great. And the third thing is, I guess, the number of restaurants because there are an awful lot of them. And, and I always mean in New York, and wherever I was, I always look for

 

Alma Kadragic  1:09:46

for the

 

Alma Kadragic  1:09:48

possibility of eating outdoors. And there's more of that, of course here and naturally now with the situation where we're all looking for these things. So it's those three things. I really Enjoy.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:10:01

Well thank you for joining us today was an absolute pleasure.

 

Alma Kadragic  1:10:04

Thank you was great.

 

Rosanna Catalano  1:10:08

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