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Guy W. West, Chairman, 1996 - 1998

I took over as Chairperson of The Florida Project in the Spring of 1996. FP had now turned 12 years old and had reached a plateau. Where do we go from here? I thought, well, wouldn't it be great if we could extend discounts in NYC to our membership with FP member cards? So, we started to design FP's new marketing image. With the help of Hilde Garcia (then Acosta), we began to design our brochure, business cards and letterhead. We were well on our way to a stronger FP look.

I also developed our first annual Entertainment Business Forum where a select panel of industry professionals joined our members in an open dialogue about the state of the entertainment field. We continued holding Open Studios that had been started by Chris Dolman, but found that our members were more inclined to participate in staged readings of FP members' plays. We successfully produced staged readings of David Caudle's play, Lady O, a restoration comedy and Alan Pratt's screenplay- Go Go: A Tale of Modern Tribes. The Production Fund also helped finance Carole Healey's show, The Libertine on Theatre Row. (Carole was one of the founding members of FP).

We held our first ever Florida Project Board Elections in May 1998. Our Spring Fling also found our members looking through our archive files and helping the Board identify all the memorabilia. We then began to design a scrapbook. It was a very fun way for everyone to mingle. And some of those photos were quite priceless.

We have also become more organized and have many tasks now automated and on computer. We began to increase our member outreach. We decided that meetings were to be monthly and have really begun to work as a cohesive board. Currently, I still participate on the Board and on different FP committees.

I feel that I have helped take FP to a new, more professional level and that it strengthened our position in the entertainment community.

Guy is in an actor in NYC for theatre and film. He teaches elementary school drama and also does many voiceovers for the sci fi channel on line.