Sarasota-Manatee Business People, Feb. 3 – Business – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

The Van Wezel Foundation has appointed Tracey Long Beeker as its new director of communications and community engagement. In her new role, Beeker will be responsible for informing and engaging audiences to learn about and take part in the foundation’s mission to enrich the lives of children through the performing arts.

Beeker has more than 20 years of experience as a leader in communications, marketing, public affairs and community engagement. She has worked in corporate and nonprofit sectors, helping organizations increase awareness, engage audiences, build coalitions and foster community impact.

Most recently, she was director of communications and community relations for Sarasota County Schools. Before that, Beeker was the managing director and chief strategist for BE MORE Consultants in Washington, D.C., where she advised clients including PBS and Artemis Entertainment.

She graduated from Lemon Bay High School, in Englewood, and Florida State University, where she earned a bachelor’s in theater arts. She also holds a master’s from George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management with a focus in strategic communications.

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Windom Allergy, Asthma and Sinus specialists has added a fourth physician, Dr. Tara Vinyette Saco, to its Sarasota practice.

Saco was born and raised in Lakeland, and did her medical school, internal medicine residency and allergy/immunology fellowship at the University of South Florida College of Medicine.

Her fellowship training concluded in June 2019 and she began seeing patients in Sarasota the next week. During her time in the USF Allergy program, she received special training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston with Dr. Mariana Castells in chemotherapy allergy and desensitization, as well as systemic mastocytosis and mast cell activation syndrome.

Saco is now one of the few specialists in the state of Florida with expertise in these conditions.

She will maintain her ties to USF by serving as clinical associate professor of medicine.

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Florida Digestive Health specialists recently hired Dr. Ronald Andari, a board-certified gastroenterologist, to provide digestive health care to Sarasota and the surrounding areas.

Andari’s clinical interests include general gastroenterology, chronic abdominal pain, hepatobiliary and pancreatic pathology and colorectal cancer prevention.

He is fluent in Spanish, English and Arabic.

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Home Watch of Sarasota has earned accreditation from the National Home Watch Association for the third year. The NHWA was formed in 2009 to establish and maintain the highest industry standards for Home Watch and absentee homeowner services throughout the United States and Canada.

Owner Christine Brown has lived in Sarasota for over 20 years. As a licensed interior designer, she has the skills and knowledge to provide solutions when issues occur.

She acquired Home Watch of Sarasota in 2018. The business serves customers in Sarasota, Venice and Lakewood Ranch.

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Martin J. Kossoff, founder and chairman of Allegiant Private Advisors, has been named to Forbes’ Best-in-State Wealth Advisors list for 2020. The list has been published on Forbes.com, and a condensed listing will be available in the February issue of Forbes magazine.

Kossoff was recognized with the highest ranking of Sarasota-based advisers included on the 2020 list. He was president of Allegiant Private Advisors, in Sarasota, from 1998 through 2018. He served as primary adviser to all clients and managed the firm’s day-to-day operations and strategic growth as the company developed its unique team approach to customized wealth management.

In his current role as chairman, Kossoff focuses on enhancing the company’s performance, growth and efficiency.

Before moving to Sarasota in 1997, he led the Private Bank at Wells Fargo, in San Francisco. He is a Certified Financial Planner and an Accredited Investment Fiduciary, and has been recognized previously by both Barron’s (2013, 2014) and the Financial Times (2013) as one of the Top Advisors in the U.S.

The 2020 ranking of the Forbes’ Best-in-State Wealth Advisors list was developed by Shook Research and is based on in-person and telephone due-diligence meetings to evaluate each adviser qualitatively and on a ranking algorithm that includes client retention, industry experience, review of compliance records, firm nominations and quantitative criteria (including assets under management and revenue generated for their firms). Overall, 32,000 advisers were considered and 4,000 (12.5 percent) were recognized.

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Dr. Margaret Lowman, known worldwide as “Canopy Meg” for her tireless efforts to save global forests and the visionary behind the creation of the canopy walkway in Myakka River State Park, has been selected by the National University of Singapore as the institution’s first-ever female Visiting Distinguished Professor in STEM studies.

During the school’s 2020 spring semester, Lowman will lecture both in public science forums as well as the university’s science department seminars, and mentor STEM students, particularly women.

She will also continue her important conservation work nearby in Malaysia, submitting a UNESCO world heritage nomination for an important rainforest near Penang.

Lowman is a global scientist and the executive director of the Sarasota-based TREE Foundation (treefoundation.org), an international nonprofit organization dedicated to tree and forest research, exploration, education and conservation.

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Joseph McElmeel, chairman and CEO of Brooke Chase Associates, Inc., attended the combined Kitchen & Bath Industry Show/International Builders Show in January, along with staff members Richard Miller and Rick Mohrman.

IBS and KBIS once again joined for the annual Design & Construction Week, which drew about 90,000 attendees to Orlando. The event showcases the latest products and most innovative design ideas in the kitchen and bath and building products industries.

The Brooke Chase team attends the show each year. The executive search firm, based in Sarasota, specializes in the recruitment of executive management professionals within the building materials and kitchen/bath industries.