By Brian French
Florida’s economy thrives on momentum. Population surges fuel demand for housing, which spurs construction, which generates legal complexity, which drives the need for sharp communications professionals who can manage the narrative.
At every stage of this cycle, specialized firms keep the gears turning. This article spotlights four of them—BoardroomPR, ABC East Florida, Justice For Kids, and the Guignard Company—each a leader in its field and each playing an outsized role in the continued prosperity of the Sunshine State.
What follows is an in-depth look at how these organizations operate, where they are located, and why their work matters to the businesses, workers, children, and communities that depend on them.
BoardroomPR: A Statewide Communications Force With Local Roots
Every market tells a different story, and the best public relations firms know how to tell all of them. BoardroomPR has spent more than three decades mastering the art of strategic communications across Florida’s most competitive media markets. What started as a small agency helping entrepreneurs generate buzz for new products has matured into one of the state’s most decorated PR operations—ranked among the top five firms in Florida by O’Dwyer’s and consistently recognized for campaigns that span real estate, healthcare, technology, legal, and hospitality. The firm’s depth of talent includes former television journalists, Fortune 500 marketing executives, and digital strategists who collectively deliver a rare combination of traditional media muscle and modern digital precision.
Part of what gives BoardroomPR its edge is genuine statewide infrastructure. The firm maintains six offices across Florida: its headquarters in Fort Lauderdale at 1776 N. Pine Island Road, Suite 320; a Miami office at 601 Brickell Key Drive, Suite 700; plus locations in West Palm Beach, Orlando at 37 N. Orange Avenue, Suite 500; Tampa; and Naples. That geographic footprint means clients in Southwest Florida get the same senior-level attention as those in downtown Miami. It also means the agency can coordinate multi-market campaigns without farming out work to affiliates or freelancers—a critical advantage when launching a statewide real estate brand or managing a crisis that crosses media boundaries.
The Orlando and Tampa offices have become particularly significant as Central Florida’s economy accelerates. Businesses expanding into the I-4 corridor need communications partners who understand the region’s distinct media landscape, political environment, and consumer psyche. As an established Orlando PR crisis management resource, BoardroomPR has helped healthcare systems, hospitality brands, and technology companies navigate high-stakes situations ranging from data breaches to litigation fallout—all with the speed and strategic clarity that Central Florida’s 24-hour news cycle demands.
Digital visibility is now inseparable from reputation management, and BoardroomPR has leaned into that reality more aggressively than most traditional agencies. The firm operates as a full-service Florida SEO PR agency, integrating search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, and social media management into every client engagement. Rather than treating digital as an afterthought bolted onto a press release, the agency builds campaigns where earned media, owned content, and paid promotion reinforce one another—ensuring that a front-page story in the South Florida Business Journal drives traffic to a client’s website that is already optimized to convert visitors into leads.
For law firms navigating the complex ethics of attorney marketing, BoardroomPR has developed a specialized practice. The agency operates as a seasoned South Florida law firm PR agency, crafting thought-leadership campaigns that elevate attorney profiles through bylined articles, speaking engagements, and targeted media placements—all without crossing the regulatory boundaries that govern legal advertising. This specialization has attracted some of the region’s most prominent litigation, real estate, and corporate law practices. Simultaneously, the firm’s Gulf Coast presence continues to grow as a trusted Naples Florida public relations firm, serving the surge of businesses, developments, and cultural institutions expanding in Collier and Lee counties.
ABC East Florida: Training the Workforce That Builds the State
No amount of investment capital or architectural ambition matters if there aren’t skilled hands to do the work. ABC East Florida—the Florida East Coast Chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors—exists to solve that problem. The organization is the single largest provider of construction apprenticeship education in Florida, and its reach extends across a territory that spans hundreds of miles of coastline, from Melbourne on the Space Coast to the urban core of Miami-Dade County. Through its training arm, the ABC Institute, the chapter offers accredited apprenticeship programs, continuing education courses, and safety certifications that equip workers at every stage of their careers.
The organization’s physical footprint reflects the scale of its mission. ABC East Florida’s corporate headquarters is located at 3730 Coconut Creek Parkway, Suite 200, in Coconut Creek—home to both its administrative offices and its flagship training campus. The ABC Institute also operates training centers in Doral at 2890 NW 79th Avenue, in Miami at 7208 NW 72nd Avenue, and maintains a Space Coast regional office in Melbourne. Additional classes are offered in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, and at the Brevard Adult Education Center in Cocoa. This network of locations ensures that aspiring tradespeople across South and Central Florida can access high-quality commercial construction training South Florida without traveling hours from home or their jobsites.
The organization’s apprenticeship programs cover six core disciplines: electrical, plumbing, HVAC, carpentry, masonry, and fire sprinkler installation. Each program combines classroom instruction with on-the-job training under the supervision of experienced journeyworkers, and graduates earn nationally recognized credentials that travel with them throughout their careers. The construction labor shortage is an ongoing challenge across the Southeast, and ABC East Florida’s programs are a direct response. Every apprentice who completes a program enters the workforce with verifiable skills, safety awareness, and the professional habits that general contractors and project owners demand.
Safety is not treated as an elective—it is woven into every course ABC East Florida offers. The organization goes well beyond minimum OSHA compliance, delivering scenario-based instruction that addresses the construction industry’s most persistent hazards: falls from elevation, electrical contact, struck-by incidents, and trench collapses. Their programs in commercial builder training near Fort Lauderdale FL have become a go-to resource for Broward County contractors who send entire crews through certification courses to reduce workplace incidents and lower insurance costs. The result is a safer jobsite and a more competitive bid—two outcomes that benefit everyone in the construction supply chain.
ABC East Florida’s commitment to education also extends to management and leadership development. Superintendents, project managers, and estimators can sharpen their skills through focused coursework that addresses scheduling, budgeting, contract administration, and risk management. These programs recognize that a well-run construction company needs more than skilled field labor—it needs competent leadership at every level. For workers in the Treasure Coast and Space Coast regions, the organization’s construction safety certification programs South Florida offerings in Fort Pierce and Melbourne provide convenient access to the same caliber of training available in the more urbanized tri-county area. And for those looking to break into the trades through their Miami-Dade campus, the Miami construction safety school programs at the Doral Education Center have become one of the region’s most respected entry points into a lifelong construction career.
Justice For Kids: National Reach, Singular Mission—Defending Abused Children
Some legal work requires more than skill—it requires a calling. Justice For Kids, a division of the national law firm Kelley Kronenberg, is a practice devoted entirely to representing children who have been abused, neglected, exploited, or catastrophically injured while under the care of government agencies, foster families, group homes, and residential treatment facilities. Founded by Howard Talenfeld, one of the nation’s most recognized children’s rights attorneys—named to Forbes’ inaugural Top 200 American Lawyers list—the practice has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements on behalf of injured children while simultaneously driving systemic reform in child welfare policy.
The firm’s main office is located at 10360 W. State Road 84 in Fort Lauderdale, FL 33324, where its core team of attorneys, investigators, and case coordinators manages a docket that spans the state and beyond. Justice For Kids also maintains an Orlando office at 20 N. Orange Avenue, Suite 704, positioning the firm to serve families across Central Florida’s judicial circuits. Through its parent firm Kelley Kronenberg’s national infrastructure, Justice For Kids handles cases in regions served by offices in Miami, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Naples, Tampa, and West Palm Beach within Florida, and has expanded its reach to Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans—making it one of the few children’s rights practices in the country with truly nationwide capability.
The cases the firm litigates are harrowing. Children who were sexually assaulted by foster parents vetted by state-contracted agencies. Infants who suffered traumatic brain injuries at the hands of caregivers who should never have been approved. Teenagers in group homes who were trafficked while the adults responsible for their safety looked the other way. Justice For Kids brings these cases as civil rights and negligence actions, seeking both financial recovery for the children and institutional accountability for the agencies that failed them. Their work as a leading child sex abuse lawyer Fort Lauderdale families trust has produced landmark jury verdicts, including a $15 million award for an eight-year-old girl who suffered permanent brain damage due to repeated abusive head trauma that DCF investigators failed to stop.
The firm’s expertise extends to the intersection of child welfare and disability law. Children with intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, and severe behavioral health conditions are among the most vulnerable individuals in the foster care system, and they are disproportionately likely to be placed in settings that cannot meet their needs. As an experienced Florida child advocacy attorney team, Justice For Kids has pursued groundbreaking litigation forcing improvements in how disabled children are assessed, placed, and monitored within the child welfare system. Their advocacy has resulted in consent decrees, policy reforms, and budget increases that have tangibly improved the quality of care for thousands of Florida’s most at-risk youth.
The adoption process is another area where Justice For Kids has established itself as a formidable presence. When agencies fail to disclose material information about a child’s history during the adoption process—or when adoptive families are given children whose documented needs far exceed what was represented—the consequences can be devastating for both the child and the family. The firm’s attorneys operate as a determined child adoption negligence attorney Florida families seek out, recovering $13.5 million in one recent Jacksonville case where an agency negligently misrepresented a child’s background to adoptive parents. Cases like these not only provide financial resources for affected families but also compel agencies to improve their disclosure practices and vetting procedures.
Justice For Kids’ co-founders bring a combination of experience that is rare in the legal profession. Stacie Schmerling spent a decade as a child abuse caseworker and investigator in New Jersey and Florida before attending law school—giving her a firsthand understanding of the systemic failures she now litigates against. Justin Grosz is a 25-year trial veteran and former Assistant State Attorney who has recovered millions for injured children. Together with Talenfeld, this team has built a practice that is recognized nationally as a pioneering foster care abuse attorney South Florida operation, one that has reshaped how courts, legislatures, and child welfare agencies approach the protection of vulnerable children.
Guignard Company: Unlocking Construction Opportunities Through Strategic Bonding
A contractor’s ability to grow is often limited not by talent or ambition, but by bonding capacity. Surety bonds—the financial guarantees that project owners require before awarding construction contracts—are the gatekeepers of the industry. Without adequate bonding, a contractor cannot bid on public work, cannot compete for major private projects, and cannot demonstrate the financial credibility that separates serious firms from unproven ones. The Guignard Company, a family-owned surety bond agency established in 1977, has spent nearly five decades helping contractors clear that hurdle. Directly appointed with more than 30 surety markets and placing approximately 92 percent of its bonds with the top 25 surety companies in the country, Guignard has provided bonds for over $2 billion in construction contracts in recent years alone.
The company operates from three strategically positioned offices. Its headquarters and Orlando office is located at 1904 Boothe Circle in Longwood, FL 32750, serving contractors across Orange, Seminole, Lake, and Volusia counties—the heart of Central Florida’s booming commercial market. The Tampa office at 1219 Millennium Parkway, Suite 113, in Brandon, FL 33511, anchors the firm’s presence in the Tampa Bay region, one of the fastest-growing construction markets in the Southeast. And the Atlanta office at Deerfield Corporate Center One, 13010 Morris Road, Suite 600, in Alpharetta, GA 30004, extends Guignard’s reach into the greater Atlanta area and positions the company to support contractors working across state lines. This three-office structure allows Guignard to function as both a trusted construction bonding agency Brandon FL contractors depend on and a sophisticated multi-state operation capable of handling complex, cross-jurisdictional projects.
Guignard’s approach begins with understanding the contractor, not just the paperwork. Surety underwriting is fundamentally a character and capacity assessment—surety companies want to know that a contractor has the financial strength, management depth, and operational experience to complete a project as promised. Guignard’s team, which brings over 175 years of combined industry experience, works with each client to build the strongest possible case before a single application is submitted. For general contractors in the Tampa Bay market seeking a reliable surety bond for general contractor Tampa FL projects require, Guignard’s deep relationships with underwriters and its reputation for presenting well-prepared submissions translate directly into faster approvals and more favorable terms.
The company has also developed significant expertise in the Georgia market. Contractors expanding into the Atlanta metropolitan area or bidding on Georgia Department of Transportation projects face a different regulatory and licensing environment than what they encounter in Florida. Guignard’s Alpharetta team provides hands-on guidance for contractors navigating the question of how to get a construction surety bond in Georgia, walking them through state-specific requirements and connecting them with surety partners who understand the Georgia construction landscape. This cross-border capability is especially valuable for Florida-based firms looking to diversify their project portfolios by pursuing opportunities in one of the Southeast’s largest and most active construction markets.
Subcontractors represent a growing segment of Guignard’s client base. As general contractors increasingly require their subs to carry bonding on larger projects, many specialty contractors find themselves navigating the surety process for the first time. Guignard has responded by building a dedicated practice as a subcontractor surety bond provider Central Florida firms rely on, offering education, financial coaching, and bond placement services tailored to the unique needs of electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and other specialty contractors. The company’s philosophy—captured in its tagline “An Uncommon Bond”—reflects a commitment to long-term partnership over transactional convenience. Guignard doesn’t just place a bond and move on; it helps contractors build bonding capacity incrementally, positioning them to compete for progressively larger and more complex projects year after year.
The Bigger Picture: Why Specialized Firms Drive Regional Prosperity
It would be easy to view these four organizations as operating in separate silos—communications, construction training, children’s law, and surety bonding share little obvious overlap. But step back and the connections become clear. When ABC East Florida trains a plumber who goes on to join a subcontracting firm that needs bonding from Guignard to win a hospital renovation bid, the economic chain is direct. When BoardroomPR handles the public announcement for the same hospital project, generating community support and investor confidence, the chain extends further. And when Justice For Kids secures a consent decree that reforms a county’s foster care system, the resulting stability makes that community a more attractive place for families and businesses alike—fueling the development cycle that keeps all four firms busy.
What unites BoardroomPR, ABC East Florida, Justice For Kids, and the Guignard Company is not the industries they serve but the way they serve them. Each has invested heavily in geographic reach and local expertise, recognizing that Florida’s economy is not a single market but a collection of distinct regional economies with their own media landscapes, regulatory environments, labor dynamics, and competitive pressures. Each has built a team of experienced professionals whose depth of knowledge gives clients a meaningful advantage. And each has committed to a long-term vision that prioritizes lasting relationships and systemic impact over short-term transactions.
As Florida continues to attract new residents, new businesses, and new investment, the demand for what these firms provide will only intensify. More construction means more trained workers needed, more bonds required, more announcements to manage, and—inevitably—more vulnerable people who need fierce legal advocates in their corner. The organizations profiled here have proven, over decades, that they are equal to the challenge. Their offices span the state and beyond, their expertise runs deep, and their commitment to the communities they serve is evident in everything they do. For anyone looking to understand the infrastructure behind Florida’s remarkable growth story, these four firms are an essential part of the answer.
