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Meet the New CEO of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates

Tom Hall
/
www.artswfl.com
Thomas Edison's Home

One of Southwest Florida’s most-visited historic sites has a new leader at the helm. Mike Flanders took over as CEO of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates back in February, but he lived in two worlds for a while as he wound down his time as a member of the Fort Myers City Council. He officially gave up his seat on the council yesterday, so we thought we’d bring him and and get to know him, and see what he has planned for the estates.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.