Christine Phipps, CEO, Phipps Reporting
Christine Phipps
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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.
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 Christine Phipps, the CEO of Phipps Reporting. In
the last decade, Christine has opened 10 offices, acquired 13 companies, and
her business is considered one of the fastest growing companies in America. On
top of all this, she currently serves as the president of the National Court
Reporters Association. We are recording remotely today. I’m in my home in Tallahassee,
and Christine is speaking to us from her home in Palm Beach. Welcome to the
show.
Christine:
Hi, Rosanna. Thank you so much for having me. I
really appreciate it.
Rosanna:
You have such an interesting life story. Let’s
start at the beginning. Tell me where you were born and raised.
Christine:
Well, I was born in Miami, Florida, a second
generation native to Miami, Florida, but I grew up in Broward County, in the
Fort Lauderdale area, and then I migrated. I’m in Palm Beach now for the last
15 years, so I’m in South Florida.
Rosanna:
You’ve just edged up North.
Christine:
Edged. Each county was a very big move.
Rosanna:
What was your home life like?
Christine:
Well, it was the ’70s. It was the best of
times... I grew up with my grandmother who owned a family restaurant, and so
from the age of 10 I started working in it. My mother never had her own career.
Things were so different back then. It was very hard to get out of a
relationship, especially when you don’t have your own career. It’s very much
what inspired me to always be self-sufficient and to make sure that I could
always make my own way so that I would never be under anyone’s thumb.
Christine:
But my mom is doing okay now. It was, of
course, very tumultuous growing up. It was tough. I’ve been on my own since I
was 16. I put myself through my last year of high school, living on my own, you
know, staying with friends and things like that. I forged my mom’s signature
through my last year of high school, managed to graduate, went to school every
day, and off I went.
Rosanna:
Tell us where you started your career.
Christine:
Well, my first job was at a bank. I got it
through a temp agency and started out as a teller. I worked there for seven
years. It was really a great experience. They promoted education, so I got
banking education while I was there. I climbed up the ladder, actually believe
it or not, I became a corporate officer of the bank by the time I was 21 years
old, and so I opened and closed the bank every day and was responsible for a
lot of employees.
Christine:
I think back now, 21 years old, as I have
employees that are that young, you think 21, I mean, you’re just a child, but I
don’t know. I always felt, I guess, having grown up like I did, I think I
always felt like I was 10 or 15 years ahead of where I was, but I worked for a
small savings and loan. Back then, there were savings and loans, and there were
commercial banks, and this bank was privately owned. They had seven branches in
the South Florida area. They had one up in Sebring. They really ran it really …
I mean, it was family owned.
Christine:
The owner was very unassuming. There’s a lot to
learn from that. Took great care of employees. People had been there for a long
time, but eventually, I was there about five or six years, and a head teller
had embezzled money. It was just when America’s Most Wanted had first started,
that TV show, and she was featured … They were looking for her, she had
absconded to Jamaica. I don’t think she was ever found. She had stolen a
quarter million dollars, which was a lot of money back in the early 1990s, but
people lost their jobs because of that.
Christine:
It just made me realize, somebody being in
control of me and that somebody else could steal and affect my life, and I
understand they were responsible, but I decided to go back to school for court
reporting. It wasn’t only that incident. It was also that I was a very hard
worker, and everybody was promoted through tenure only. You weren’t really
promoted through the work that you did. Even though I had a good position for
as young as I was, there were people that had been there for so long. It was
going to take me forever. I may have never really gotten any further, and
despite my position, I was balancing my checkbook down to the last $10.
Christine:
At this time, I already had a child, and I just
couldn’t see living life like that forever. I went back to court reporting
school. I went with the attitude that, if it takes me 10 years to finish, that
in10 years, I will still be making more money by the time I finished court
reporting school than I would if I stay on this path. That’s what I set out to
do. Of course, it didn’t take me 10 years. I finished it in two years, had
another child while I was in college and got out and started working in court
reporting, which is the best decision I ever made. I love what I do.
Rosanna:
Where did you go to school for court reporting?
Christine:
I went to Broward State College. I do have a
degree in court reporting. Court reporting varies. You don’t have to have a
degree. There are some people that do have a bachelor’s degree. I have an
Associate’s degree, which I’m really proud that I received that degree. But
yes, I went to Broward. It was Broward Community College back then, but it’s a
state college now.
Rosanna:
Where did you work once you graduated from
Broward with your court reporting?
Christine:
I worked for a small firm down in Miami. They
just did criminal work. I didn’t know types of cases, one from another. There’s
something in our industry, a nuance where you’re paid on the line, which means
that you get paid by the firm, whether they’re paid or not. I didn’t realize
how slow paying bills could be on the court reporting side. I literally was
driving down to Miami every day. I had two small kids. I was not making much
money at all in court reporting. I almost resigned myself to flipping burgers,
but luckily, I had another friend I went to college with who was with a great
firm in Broward County.
Christine:
The court system in some of the jurisdictions
throughout the state is given to a freelance firm, and that firm supplies all
the court reporters for that particular judicial district. For the 17th
Judicial, I was one of the official court reporters then, and I stayed in that
position for a couple of years until I left, and they brought me out to start
freelancing, and freelancing means that you go and cover depositions. You may
go and cover court, but on the civil side, and throughout Florida, the court
reporters are hired independently.
Christine:
There are no officials on the civil side of the
litigation. So, that was basically where I started. It was a great start. The
very first firm, she did me a real justice. She proofread my transcripts; red
penned them for four months. It really gave me a great foundation for becoming
a great court reporter. Then the next one, when I went to Broward County, that
firm, Merit Reporting, the owners were really great. They read your notes, they
cared about the quality, and that’s when I started to learn about different
firms and reputations and starting to make my way of what I was going to
associate my name with and what I wanted to become.
Christine:
Funny enough, I was talking to one of the firms
that I acquired today. I mean, I acquired them a few years ago, but I happened
to be talking to the former owner who works with me still, but he was one of
the most prestigious firms. It was Taylor Jonovic down in Miami. They reported
the original Engle trial, tobacco trial, which went on for years, unprecedented
trial of Florida, for sure. To think that he’s part of my firm now, and how far
things have come, but his firm had that reputation that I wanted to become when
I built my company.
Rosanna:
That’s amazing.
Christine:
Yes, it’s great having these people part of us
now.
Rosanna:
For those of us in the audience that are
unfamiliar with court reporting, can you describe for them what court reporters
do and why it is so important that they are correct and accurate?
Christine:
I’m a stenographer, there are three different
types of court reporting. There’s stenography, there’s voice writing, and then
there are some where they go in and electronically record. Electronic
recording, there’s a plethora of information about how bad that is. Voice
writing is not very popular here. I only know of about a half a dozen. In some
states, it’s very popular like North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas. Here, it’s
primarily all stenographic, and stenographic is the gold standard for creating
the record.
Christine:
Basically, I have a little machine and it has
22 keys on it, and I form syllables as I write. So, there are almost whole
alphabets in this hand and almost whole alphabets in this hand, and the vowels
are at the bottom and I write cat, and dog, and Christine. Every stroke of the
hand is a syllable of a word. But I call it … We’re quasi-judicial officers of
the court system. We work in tandem with judges and lawyers. I call it the
fabric of the judicial system. I’m the one that’s making the record, capturing every
single word.
Christine:
There’s just no room for any error, meaning one
slip of a can or can’t and not appreciating that apostrophe T, and something
that is said very quickly, or when people talk over each other, and making sure
that you interrupt to make sure that you got the correct word, literally
somebody’s life hangs in the balance. It could be the difference -- that one
word could be the difference between somebody getting life or death. It could
be a mother losing her children. It could cost a company hundreds of millions
of dollars for some egregious error that they’re accused of.
Christine:
Court reporters, stenographers, we take it very
seriously. We go through years of training. I got through in two years. I’m
probably a little bit more on the gifted side of getting through court
reporting school that quickly, considering that I had a child along the way as
well, but there are … I have friends of mine that have spent seven years in
school because it’s a skill that you obtain. It’s not like becoming an
engineer, and I get to become an engineer, even though I passed a couple of
those classes with a C minus. This, you must obtain a skill and you have to be
able to write at a minimum of 225 words per minute at 95% accuracy.
Christine:
Meaning, when I say 95% accuracy, not having a
comma in when you write counts, because there’s a big difference sometimes in
just four words in a sentence, you throw a comma in there and it completely
changes the meaning of something. So, it’s all very important, punctuation
included. We take it very seriously because we worked very hard to achieve
certifications and learn to be able to do that, and we feel just a deep
responsibility to the record. When you have things like electronic recording
going on out there, those things are just so … You’ve got somebody who’s not
really been trained, but maybe a week or two, and they’re out recording, and
God knows, when people talk over each other, things get heated, witnesses
purposely speak under their breath.
Christine:
Doors slamming, audio, bad audio in the room,
and then to not know that, that didn’t come out until after, it’s like you
really only get one bite of that apple, and you just recreate it to go and do
it over again. Nothing ever comes out the same. So, it’s a big, big
responsibility.
Rosanna:
I have always been impressed with how quickly
court reporters work in the courtroom, or when I’ve done depositions, and how
incredibly accurate the record has been. Now you’ve given me a new appreciation
for the pauses. I didn’t realize that they were … I’ve read it, but I just
accounted for the comma and the pause, but you’re right. That is something just
as important. I’m even more impressed looking back to all the transcripts that
I’ve read. Let’s take a quick commercial break, and when we come back, I’m
going to ask you how you created your business.
Christine:
Okay, great.
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Rosanna:
Welcome back. My guest today is businesswoman,
Christine Phipps, who is the CEO of Phipps Reporting, one of the fastest
growing companies in the country. You have been working as a freelance court
reporter for several years. You had been. What prompted you to start your own
business, Christine?
Christine:
When I was in college, I really wanted to have
my own business. Me and my girlfriend, we were going to start our own business
one day and we were going to be partners, and she moved to California so that
didn’t happen. Then I kind of put that dream aside. Then what happened was I
was becoming a very popular court reporter. I had lots and lots of clients. I
just had cultivated a lot of relationships. I had quite a book of business.
When I first started out, there were mom-and-pop type court reporting agencies.
That’s really all that existed.
Christine:
Then around the late 1990s, came in big
corporations into the court reporting space. I was working with one of the big
corporations, and I just found it very frustrating moving through the red tape
of the big corporations. I had my own book of business, I had built it on my
own reputation, and I wanted my clients to be serviced in a very particular
way. I was starting to have conflicts with management. That’s a really good
sign that it’s time, because I wanted to run things my own way. That doesn’t
really work so much in the corporate environment.
Christine:
I then decided to open my own business. People
were approaching me, other businesses from out of state and asking me to go
into business, trying to fund me to put me into business, but I kept walking
away from those deals ultimately, because part of it was the funding, the
startup, and how much do you need to start a business? But I kept hearing like
one deal, I remember they said something like just remember the banker controls.
That just really clicked for me because I was like, oh, okay. There’s probably
going to be some diminution of value at some point, or that means that I could
lose control of all this. No, and that’s not going to happen.
Christine:
Being in litigation all these years,
partnerships are … I just kind of know better. I already had two marriages that
didn’t work out. It wasn’t likely a partnership in business, which is probably
even more serious is going to work out either. Ultimately, I ended up, I saved
and saved and saved, and I ended up funding the business myself. Luckily, I had
enough. I didn’t take a salary. I didn’t take any income for eight months. I
had saved enough to live. While I used the money to start up, the initial
capital plus pay people that I needed, because I needed an employee pretty much
right off the bat, and to pay for some other things, and get the equipment that
I needed, and it all worked out.
Rosanna:
What advice would you give to people who want
to start a business, but don’t know where to start?
Christine:
Well, the first thing I would say is kind of
just what I was talking about, cashflow, cashflow, cashflow. Nothing else, so
when I started out while I did have a book of business on my own as a freelance
court reporter that was valued at 1.5 million. That wasn’t to say that when I
opened my own business, that all those people were going to definitely stick
with me, because I still had the proof of concept that I was going to be able
to service them in all those ways as a startup. But I started in my house. My
son was away at college. Copier was downstairs in the laundry room. I had an
employee upstairs in his bedroom, and we roughed it for the first six months
doing business that way.
Christine:
Because I did not want to invest in things,
including an office space until my concept was proving itself out. But that has
remained at the forefront to this day. I have remained self-funded. I don’t
have any loans, never borrowed any money, not that I don’t have … I do have
banking relationships and they’re prepared to fund me at any time because
that’s also very important as you get going, but it is also what saved me
during the pandemic, is because I believe in saving for a rainy day, so to
speak.
Christine:
I’m still that court reporter who was saving
just to fund the business in the first place, but cashflow is imperative, and
understanding that. Because you cannot run things where you’re balancing down
to that last 10 bucks like I did when I was in the banking career.
Understanding cashflow is just imperative. Outside of that, a very successful
lawyer, he’s a chair at the Gunster Firm, he took me to dinner,
and he gave me a book called The Peter Principle. He represented very large
banks. This was right after we were coming out of that banking crisis in 2008
with the downturn economy.
Christine:
2010 is when I started the business, but he
said, you will only be limited by your ability to manage people. I didn’t
realize what a profound statement that was going to become for me. Because he
had referenced a business where a guy grew the business and it was operating
fantastic, and he had like 50 employees, but then he went to really expand it,
and while he was good at managing 50 employees, he wasn’t so good at managing
150 employees. Then that just can tank everything.
Christine:
The thing is, is that, when I started my
business, I believe in team, I believe in people, because I don’t believe that
you’ll ever, ever get anywhere in life singularly. Everything is about the
people you surround yourself with, and team was at the very core founding
principle of my company, and that has just been everything. As a matter of
fact, we just got back an employee survey today, and everybody just … They had
really great faith in the leadership of the business and they felt that team
environment.
Christine:
I’m really happy because I’m at 80 employees,
which means I beat his initial 50 employees. Maybe that’s all you’re capable
of, which has been such a great thing for me. To me, this whole thing has been
a journey, it’s been learning. I’m a court reporter who went to school for
court reporting, and while I did have some exposure to my grandmother being a
business owner, it wasn’t … I mean, that was the 1970s. It was a very different
dynamic, but yeah, there’s so much I’ve had to learn along the way. I did get,
just by happenstance, somebody came into my life not long before I opened my
business. He’s a venture capitalist.
Christine:
He’s never invested in my business, but he’s a
very influential guy, very, very smart, and he took me under his wing. That’s
something else I would strongly advise people is to always be very open minded.
I don’t know if I’m just an open-minded person period, or if I’m willing to
always underestimate myself because I don’t have an MBA. I believe that we’re
always learning. I’m very open and receptive to evolving as a person and
learning and growing. That’s why he spent so much time with me, and he taught
me about things that I had no idea about.
Christine:
I remember him first talking to me about
onboarding and about brand and about culture. Those three words were something
he taught me at the very, very beginning. When he first was saying them to me,
I had no idea now, 10 years later, how it would be at the core of everything.
Because onboarding, acquiring 13 companies and onboarding their employees,
onboarding their clients, not losing that business is absolutely something that
you must get right to perfection, which is why I’ve spent a lot of time
acquiring companies because I’ve been perfecting that onboarding process,
perfecting the brand.
Christine:
Aligning every single thing that we do with
what my brand is. I have a whole framework of what my brand means. It goes
right down to every graphic, every image, fonts, the way we communicate,
everything aligns with the brand. That’s like my bright line. There are all
these little concepts, that I will admit, there was a time a few years in,
especially when I was growing so fast. When you grow fast like that, not only
was I new to business basically, but you have to figure out how to grow your
infrastructure.
Christine:
You have to be predictive because you’ve got to
be in front of the growth, because the minute that you’re behind it, then
things start to break down and you get cracks in your framework, and that’s no
good for anybody. I felt at times, I remember calling him from the airport one
time practically in tears saying, “What am I doing? I don’t have an MBA.” He
recently said to me, he’s like, “You’ve got the Herb Martens MBA. You don’t
need this Harvard class.” They have
some of those little go-to-CEO’s school, to learn these things.
Christine:
He’s like, you don’t need that. You already
know it. Because truthfully, there are some things that you can’t learn from a
book, how to interact with people, how to be a leader. Not that I was really
taught those things either. They did kind of come naturally to me, which is …
It’s a whole other conversation about team and things you learned as a kid.
Rosanna:
I’m sorry. I know that you’ve won a lot of
awards, and I think I have to read them because there’s a lot, so including
Woman of Outstanding Leadership by the International
Women’s Leadership Association; Most Enterprising Woman of the Year, by Enterprising Women Magazine; South Florida
District, Small Business Woman-Owned Person of the Year. Which one of your
accolades means the most to you?
Christine:
The one that means the most is the Most
Enterprising Woman of the Year. That one, because that was the first big award
I won for being a business owner, and it was because it recognized women. This
is something that means, obviously means a lot to me, but it’s something I
really want to support, even after I’m finished with my leadership with NCRA, I plan to do more things that involve women because I do want to
see women in leadership positions throughout our country. I want to see women
in leadership positions at all kinds of board tables and all kinds of great
Fortune 100, 500 companies.
Christine:
I want to see women start their own businesses.
I want to see diversity. I want to see clear representation that really
represents what America is. If it’s 50% women, then I want to see 50% women at
every single table. That really meant a lot to me. That award, it wasn’t just
based on performance financially. It was also based on a story of starting a
business in a downturn economy. There were some adverse circumstances when I
started the business that were pretty tough at the time, but there were all kinds
of lessons that I learned. I was fighting with a huge corporation that was
trying to crush me.
Christine:
There were things that I had to learn, like it
takes a bigger person to walk away, focusing on what I can control, what I
could change, and focusing, tuning out noise. If I couldn’t control it or
change it, if it didn’t move the ball down the field, basically, then I had to
tune it out, and you need that incredible focus in business. God, there was
just so much I learned from that. A lawyer told me, he said, “Christine, you
need to sit down and watch The Godfather over and over again.” He said,
“Because you are a sheep playing in a game with wolves.”
Christine:
He said I needed to learn to have thicker skin,
and I did, it was true. This whole thing really taught me all those things. I
ended up being so grateful. Even though it was a tough thing to go through, I
ended up being so grateful for it because it made me into the businessperson
that I needed to be. Now I’m basically a formidable opponent because I couldn’t
be beat, and so that makes me pretty fearless now, because what else you got to
throw at me? I’m good. Yeah, so that meant a lot to me because it was about the
story and about everything that I had come through, and it was kind of like an
award for coming through it. That one really means the most to me.
Rosanna:
That’s a wonderful story. You attribute a lot
of your success to creating the right team of people. What advice would you
give to other business leaders that are trying to build strong teams?
Christine:
At the beginning, when I first started, I said
that … I come from a corporation that I felt they didn’t value people, and I
felt like they ran from a position of negativity. I don’t think negatively, I
think positively all the time. The glass for me is always half full. Even all
those really hard things I went through as a kid, even being homeless and still
having to go to school, I was never, ever a victim of any of it. Because I
believe in accountability and I’m still responsible for my own life, and we
still have it better than all these other people. I mean, people in third-world
countries. There’s always a way to look at something and you’re doing good, no
matter what it is.
Christine:
I don’t care if you’re living under a sheet.
You’re breathing, you’ve maybe got food. When I started the business, I said,
no negativity. I said, from the outset, if you have a million-dollar book of
business and you’re a negative person, you’re not coming in this firm. I have
held true to that to this day, so much so that, if anyone, if we happen to make
a hire that ends up not being the right one and they start to demonstrate signs
of negativity or conflict, they really kind of almost just end up going away.
Christine:
They don’t work out very quickly, because they
so clearly don’t fit into our culture, that it just doesn’t work out. You’ve
got to hold true. You’ve got to figure out at the outset, what are those things
that you value and what do you want to be about. For me, the company was never
ever about making money, and I know that that sounds weird, but for me, it was
always about building something really great. I care about reputation,
integrity, and things like that. To me, those are the things that are going to
help me put my head down on a pillow at night and sleep soundly, not dollars.
Christine:
To me, having had nothing, I can go back to
nothing at any time because I would never trade money in for integrity or
reputation, or who I am. That’s all we’re going to take to the grave with us. I
value people, and those things, I figured, those were my bright line. It’s
those core things that guided me all the way. So, how I treat people, I treat
people how I would expect to be treated. You have to be able to have critical
conversations, even though they’re tough sometimes, and you know you’re going
to tell somebody maybe something that they don’t want to hear. I can tell you
that the more critical conversations that I’ve had, the more respect I have
gained.
Christine:
Even though they were tough to have, and they
didn’t want to hear them, they respected me because they know that when I say
something, I’m honest about it; good, bad, or indifferent. At the end of the
day, people ultimately appreciate that. I never, ever, I just won’t … I won’t
even tell a scintilla of a lie, or untruth, or shy away from a conversation,
because the minute people see that, if they ever see it, it becomes this little
ripple in a lake, and then it just starts to grow, and you can never get that
back once it runs wildly out of control. You can never stop the leaking, return
it to flat again, I don’t think.
Christine:
It’s the principles about who I am as a person
that I’ve just carried through in my company. I’ve built a company that I
wanted to work for myself. I feel like I work for it just like everybody else
does. Sure, I put in as many hours as most of them.
Rosanna:
I’m sure, I tell you, being a businesswoman is
not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of work and heavy lift that takes
place and a lot of worry and brainpower.
Christine:
It’s so true. It’s so true.
Rosanna:
And you’re thinking about it all the time. What
is next for you and your company?
Christine:
What is next? Well, I want to keep on growing.
My concept was to grow a company as big as I possibly could. I don’t know what
my limits are yet. I don’t know if they exist, but still keep it as a
mom-and-pop feel. If you go to my website, my cell phone number is on there, my
partner’s cell phone number is on there. You can still reach us. We just want
to be, we still care about people, people before profits, that feel that you
know me and can do business with me and my partner, but I just want to keep on
growing, so there’s no limit.
Rosanna:
I love that. We like to end our show with a
little bit of fun by asking all our guests the same seven questions. What would
people be surprised to know about you?
Christine:
Oh, they would be surprised to know that I am
about to compete in a bodybuilding competition.
Rosanna:
Are you serious? Oh, my goodness.
Christine:
I’m almost two weeks out.
Rosanna:
I’ve had another guest on that was a
bodybuilder competitor, so I love this. This is our first season. Tonight, is
going to end our first season of the Floridaville with you, so thank you for
being that guest, and I love that you are going to participate in a
bodybuilding competition. I love that.
Christine:
Yeah. We’re going to put a new Rosie, the
riveter.
Rosanna:
When you have guests in town, where is your
favorite place to take them?
Christine:
The Breakers. The Breakers in Palm Beach. That
just says it all. It says it all for Palm Beach old Florida. Yeah, it’s
gorgeous if you’ve never been in there. It’s absolutely stunning. It’s
impressive.
Rosanna:
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?
Christine:
Oh my gosh. I hardly read. I have to tell you,
all these years of reading transcripts, I just … If I’m not getting paid to read,
I’m not reading. Oh my gosh, I’m totally blanking on the show. The one that
takes place in Scotland, it’s on Netflix. Outlander.
Rosanna:
Oh, The Outlander.
Christine:
Yeah, Outlander.
Rosanna:
The Outlander.
Christine:
Oh my gosh.
Rosanna:
Yes, a great show.
Christine:
Yeah, I just want to go to Scotland now.
Rosanna:
Yes. Great show. Great show. Among your close
family and friends, what are you best known for?
Christine:
I guess dog with a bone. That’s probably what
I’m known for, that I’m relentless in pursuit of anything and that I can’t be
stopped. That’s probably what I’m known for.
Rosanna:
If you have a nickname, who gave it to you?
Christine:
Well, I was being called Khaleesi during the
whole Game of Thrones era until she burned the city down at the very end and
became this mass murderer. I had such a thing going because she was great
leader. It was Christine mother of dragons. I was calling the salespeople my
dragons, and I was telling them to bring me fresh meat. We had this whole thing
going.
Rosanna:
If you knew you could not fail, what would you
attempt?
Christine:
Well, I’m not sure. I don’t know that I can
fail at anything. I attempt everything I want to do, so I don’t have an answer
for that.
Rosanna:
That is a positive attitude right there. I love
it. What are the top three things you love about living in Florida?
Christine:
Top three, well, the weather for sure. I tell
you, I get all these people that are asking to come down to Florida and work,
like how do people live in the snow? I just don’t get it. That’s number one.
Gosh, I mean, I’m from Florida. I’m the second generation. I know Florida like
the back of my hand. I guess the other thing that … I mean, not only is my
family here and everybody’s here, and I love being connected. The other thing I
love about Florida is I love that each area is so different.
Christine:
If you go up to Panama City, Pensacola,
Tallahassee, it’s like Southern Alabama. It’s totally different. Different
dialects up there. They have a Southern accent. But then, you could go down to
the Keys. That’s a totally different lifestyle. I mean, you can go over to
Naples, and it’s very elegant and classy over there. The beaches are absolutely
gorgeous. Then you could be in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, it’s eclectic. It’s like
a melting pot. To me, when I worked down in Miami, I feel like I’m walking the
streets of New York, like when I’m at the courthouse, and you’re going down to
a restaurant that’s just close by, I think it might have closed, but you’d see
everybody on the streets, saying hello.
Christine:
I like the diversity that you could just not go
very far and just live in a completely different world, like Disney World.
Rosanna:
Exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining us
today. We really appreciate your time, and it’s been wonderful getting to know
you.
Christine:
Thank you so much for having me. I really
appreciate you giving me a platform and promoting women, and that’s wonderful
to see. Thank you.
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