FL bills include marine campus

Northwest Florida state legislators have filed a bevy of bills that will be considered in the upcoming session of the legislature. Among those bills is one to propose creating a satellite campus of a marine university in Northwest Florida. Jay Trumbull, chairman of the House Select Committee on Triumph Gulf Coast, filed House Bill 3345, which would allocate a nonrecurring sum of $5 million to create a satellite campus of American Marine University in Northwest Florida, which would provide training for marine-related industries. A Facebook page tied to AMU calls for six primary objectives, including the establishment of a 150-acre main campus and 500,000 square foot research park. The organization, which is spearheaded by Jim Simons of Seminole, was at one time looking at establishing the school in Manatee County, according to WWSB-TV. AMU is to become a non-profit educational institution devoted to marine industries skill sets, much like the Florida-based Embry-Riddle University, which was established in 1925 and devoted to aviation-industry skills. Simons is also associated with the Florida Gulf Coast Center for Fish. The bills will be up for consideration this week. (Source: News Herald 03/15/17)