Finalist
Technology
The 1980s were wild and wonderful and heady years for Manuel D. Medina. Now, the 1980s were wild and wonderful and heady years for a lot of people, not just Medina, but those exorbitant years allowed Medina to not just have a life but to change his life and his business. Then they allowed him to change everything again.
At the dawn of the decade, Medina was working as an auditor for PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP. He had already emigrated with his family from Cuba to Miami, had already worked his way out of his tough Liberty City neighborhood, had already graduated from high school and college, and been certified as a public accountant. But he wanted to work for himself, so he left the company and founded Terremark Worldwide Inc., a commercial and residential real estate company.
Throughout the 1980s, Medina and Terremark were involved in the construction of some of the more recognizable buildings in South Florida and, yes, those were wild and wonderful and heady years. But as the next decade approached, Medina, the chairman and CEO, saw changes coming in the area housing market and the degree to which technology would rule our lives. So he overhauled his company.
Terremark flipped to an information technology infrastructure solutions company. A big change, yes, but also a necessary change. Today, Medina and the company provide an innovative business approach — from cloud computing and virtualization to cyber security and disaster recovery and managed hosting. The company was a pioneer in offering bundled services and was the first IT service provider to launch a cloud computing platform designed specifically for large companies and the federal government. And more development is on the way.
Which can mean only one thing — the 2010s could well be wild and wonderful and heady years, too.
How to reach: Terremark Worldwide Inc., (305) 961-3200 or www.terremark.com