AIF Head Barney Bishop Resigns

Barney Bishop announced his resignation Wednesday as CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, effective Dec. 31. He will remain a consultant for AIF in 2012. He said he was pleased with his accomplishments at AIF and decided it was time to move on to another venture (as yet unannounced).

Once the legislative session ended, I started thinking about what my goals were both at AIF and in my personal life. I realized I had achieved my goals of rebuilding AIF and the organization was in a very good place. Working at AIF has been the highlight of my career and a challenge I feel proud to have met head-on. There are other things in life other passions that I wanted to pursue. Now is that time. I have always been a serial entrepreneur having previously started two companies. I may start a third company or join another. Public speaking and political commentary have also been other passions of mine. People appreciate my willingness to shoot straight and tell it like it is. I look forward to pursuing these opportunities in the future and I am keeping my options open. Right now, my focus remains on AIF and I have announced this decision now to ensure a smooth and seamless transition to the organizations next president and CEO," Bishop said.

The move comes months after he was criticized for suggesting board members of state-backed Citizens Property Insurance should be replaced if they were not dedicated to getting actuarially sound rates for the company. An AIF press release later discounted his "misstatements."

Barney has accomplished great things at AIF by rebuilding our membership and enhancing our effectiveness in the halls of the Florida Capitol. His passion and his unequaled round-the-clock effort to rebuild AIF will be missed.Anyone that knows Barney knows that he worked diligently, going wherever he needed to, in order to promote AIF to all sectors of Florida," said Erika Alba, chair of the AIF board of directors.