As the convener of the Tampa Bay Ocean Team, the St. Petersburg Innovation District (SPID) brings together more than 50 organizations spanning academia, government, private industry and the nonprofit sector, all working to strengthen the region's ocean economy. When the Tampa Bay Ocean Team set out to publish its first unified regional framework, the Tampa Bay Ocean Strategy, SPID engaged our team to bring that strategy to life in print and digital form. It's the latest chapter in a longtime partnership: we've supported SPID's brand and communications for years, including their 2024 Impact Report and website redevelopment.

The Tampa Bay Ocean Strategy

The Tampa Bay region's ocean economy is a major economic engine, generating billions in wages and GDP across Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties. But that growth has always run through a network of individual institutions and initiatives rather than one shared plan. The Tampa Bay Ocean Strategy changes that.

The strategy organizes the region's opportunities into eight focus areas: 

1. Unifying regional collaboration
2. Catalyzing high-impact research
3. Expanding high-quality jobs
4. Accelerating innovation
5. Facilitating dual-use capabilities
6. Investing in critical marine infrastructure
7. Enhancing coastal resilience
8. Advancing the ocean and human health connection

Each one maps out the region's current assets alongside its future opportunities, giving Tampa Bay a single, comprehensive framework for growth.

A Rising Tide

Federal priorities around maritime prosperity zones are aligning, ocean-economy technologies are maturing, and momentum for the sector is building across Florida, underscored by developments like the new Office of Ocean Economy at Florida Atlantic University. The Tampa Bay Ocean Team recognized an opportunity: bring dozens of stakeholders together around one strategic voice while that window was open.

Bringing the Strategy to Life

We designed and produced the Tampa Bay Ocean Strategy as a 36-page printed report, with copies distributed to key stakeholders and partners across the region. A companion one-pager gives partners and press a quick, shareable summary of the full strategy, and a digital version lives on the St. Petersburg Innovation District website for ongoing access.

Every focus area balances current regional assets with forward-looking action items, giving readers both credibility today and a roadmap for tomorrow.

Anchoring the Region

The Tampa Bay Ocean Strategy was built to solve a specific problem: a region full of ocean-economy momentum with no single, shared framework to point to. By giving the Tampa Bay Ocean Team and its 50-plus partner organizations one strategy document, the report accomplishes exactly that. It positions the Tampa Bay Ocean Team as the natural convener for future partnership outreach, funding conversations and policy discussions. It gives SPID and its collaborators a citable, credible resource to point to when engaging municipalities, investors and federal partners. And it lays the foundation for accountability, with clear actions tied to each focus area that the Tampa Bay Ocean Team can measure progress against in the years ahead.

Most importantly, it turns a decade of organic, distributed growth into an intentional, coordinated strategy, exactly what a region positioning itself as a national leader in the ocean economy needs.