“I describe myself as passionate. I want to give 110 percent.”
http://youtu.be/JuHygPjEauc
Trudi Williams’ journey has been anything but routine. When she was four years old, her father who was a delegate to NATO, moved the family to Paris, France. Williams attended school in France until she came to Ft. Myers and enrolled at Cypress Lake High School. In the mid-seventies she attended Florida International University earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. After college, she returned to Fort Myers where she started her own engineering company while raising three children. In 1999, Florida’s new governor Jeb Bush appointed her to the board of the South Florida Water Management District. In 2004, Williams was elected to the Florida House of Representatives.
When she came home from her first board meeting for the South Florida Water Management District, she told her husband, “I am not cut out for this. I have no clue. I am so out of my league.” Williams said that her husband’s response motivated her when he said, “It is so good to see you out of your comfort zone.”
During her three terms in the Florida House of Representatives she served as chair of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee and the Select Committee on Water Policy. Williams says that during her tenure in Tallahassee she is most proud of the Babcock Ranch acquisition that took 73,000 acres of “gorgeous and pristine” land and made it state property. She is also pleased with the “Northern Everglades bill,” which cleared the way to clean up the waters north of Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.
Williams confidently says her greatest success is her family. “My three children who are a blessing and my marriage of 33 years, that’s my definition of success.”