It took me less than five minutes with Pat Neal over a cup of coffee at the Doubletree in Tallahassee to see why he and Gov. Rick Scott are such good friends.
And it isn't because Neal, 68, has been a champion fundraiser for the governor, though he's certainly been all that.
Scott and the Bradenton homebuilder are cut from the same cloth. They speak the same language.
No wonder political insiders -- not all of them but some of them -- float Neal's name as the leading candidate for chief financial officer when Jeff Atwater leaves the post.
"Providing jobs for Floridians ... what higher a calling could there be for a leader in Florida?" Neal asked.
Does that sound like anybody else we know?
Neal and the governor are both overachievers, Energizer bunnies up at the crack of dawn -- disciplined, focused, successful executives. And both are multi-millionaires, with the same knack for raising money as for making it.
"I met Rick Scott on April 19, 2010, within a couple days of his announcing for governor," Neal told me. "I remember, Carlos Beruff, Bob Waechter and I and a few others were at the First Watch Restaurant in Lakewood Ranch. Carlos and I were business partners back then, and Carlos had kind of been looking around for somebody to support.
"Our business was suffering in the recession. We knew the state needed someone who could come in and turn the economy around. I can tell you, Rick Scott impressed immediately.
"I've never turned back from that day," Neal said.
People in Southwest Florida still talk about the fundraiser Neal and Beruff (whom Scott appointed Florida Constitution Revision Commission chairman) threw for Scott at the Polo Grill in Lakewood Ranch that heady election year. Said retired stockbroker Stephen Kline, "If Sarasota didn't know who Rick Scott was before that event, they knew after. Every member of the local donating class was there."
Neal remembers the event proudly. "We raised $800,000 for the governor. I think it still might be a record for a single event in Sarasota County."
The CFO position is a job for a money man. By anybody's definition, Pat Neal fits. And though he thinks it's inappropriate to talk about a job that is the governor's decision alone to give, he says, "I would serve wherever Gov. Scott believes I could help.
"I believe the role of any office in state government should be to expand the resources of taxpayers, to use for their own personal prosperity, not to divert it. That's what the governor wants to do, build personal, private prosperity and I share that philosophy."
As for the CFO job itself: "Jeff Atwater has done a great job. I think he and I are friends, we've talked quite a bit. ... "The CFO job touches on insurance and consumer issues. But mainly, the office collects the money, pays the checks, operates with a 41-year-old accounting system, primarily to handle our $89 billion budget and $190 billion pension fund. It's a money job."
Florida’s CFO also oversees multiple state agencies and roughly 2,000 employees. None of it fazes Neal.
The biggest difference between Neal and Gov. Scott may be their path to politics. Neal was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1974, when he was 25 years old; Scott waited until he was 58, after he had built the largest chain of hospitals in the world and employed a workforce of 340,000.
Like Donald Trump, Neal is a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded his homebuilding company in 1970, served in the state House from 1974 to 1978 and in the state Senate from 1978 to 1986. In the Senate he had plenty of clout, including a term as appropriations committee chair.
Some say the rap against Neal is, he's an old-time political insider, and voters have had enough of those. All true. But his Tallahassee heyday was 40 years ago. The political inside looked a lot different then. In 1974 in Florida, to get anything done, you had to be a Democrat no matter what you believed. And Neal was. He was the protege of Sens. Dempsey Barron and Curtis Peterson.
The year he suffered a surprise upset by a candidate who came out of nowhere -- a Republican, of all things, Marlene Woodson Howard -- he was actively supporting the Senate presidency of Ken Jenne, one of the most liberal Florida Democrats of the day.
Folks who know Neal today say his party allegiance back then means nothing. People evolve, they say. And certainly, Neal evolved.
"In the year I was appropriations chairman, I was the conservative anchor of Democratic Party leadership. I've always been a money man, always pro-business." He officially switched parties in 1986, as soon as he was out of office. And for the last 30 years he has stayed active in the Republican Party, serving as the chairman of the state Commission on Ethics, 2000-2004.
Explains Neal, "If you asked Pat Neal what he wants today, he would tell you he wants to reduce the size of government, return its functions of government -- education, criminal justice and transportation. When I was appropriations chairman we had no contribution to Medicaid, (Senate President) Harry Johnston resisted it as did I. Now Medicaid absorbs 41 percent of our state budget and pushes out what we consider government's traditional responsibilities."
Neal said he believes he lost that year because he took his eye off the ball, paid less attention to his campaign than he did to his business. "I got distracted ... My housing project was $100 million over budget. I ran my business from my home every day. We closed on 1,129 homes last year, but not back then. In 2004, I sold the project at the top of the market and you know it today as Central Park.
"And frankly, as crushing as it was at the time to lose re-election, I believe it was a blessing in disguise. I could stay focused on building the business, being a good family man and serving my community. And then a few years later, in 1990, we had the joy of bringing our second son, Michael, into the world."
In 1986, in his mid-thirties, Neal's recorded net worth was $18.6 million. But Neal said his love of business comes as no surprise to the people who know him best.
He grew up in Des Moines, Iowa with his mother, who was a school teacher. His father was a lawyer and lived in California.
"I've always had my own business," Neal says. "When I was 14, I started my first business called the Youth Power of Des Moines. I paid a group of kids 85 cents an hour to help me paint, wash windows, clean, haul trash, collect scrap metal ... I was earning enough money that I was fully supporting myself starting in the 11th grade."
After graduating from college, he moved to Bradenton, Florida, where his dad had retired. But it wasn't long before, in 1970, the two of them were building homes together. "My dad and I were the perfect partnership," he recalls. "He was very creative and a good deal-maker. I was a financial guy, hardworking, highly organized and ambitious.
"You know, I look back and see I've pretty much had a perfect life."
Neal is proud of his company's accomplishments, building 1,000 homes a year for middle class buyers, employing about 260 people in real estate and 125 in golf and hospitality -- some for more than 25 years. "Employees of Neal Communities have a culture of expertise in whatever they do. I interview every job applicant personally," he says. "I tell them, 'if I see my customer at Publix, I don't want to have to hide behind the Corn Flakes'."
Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, told me Friday he's known Pat Neal for 35 years. "Pat is well regarded in this community just about anywhere you go. If he's our next CFO, that would be fine by me. This is a quality man who loves Florida and Floridians and would work hard for both."
Neal serves as treasurer of Florida TaxWatch and is the former chairman of the Christian Coalition of Florida.
Other names insiders talk about for the CFO post are Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Jacksonville. But the governor isn't throwing out any hints and has vowed to wait for a decision until the current legislative session ends.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
