Sandra Rios, PR and marketing manager for the Naples, Marco Island & Everglades CVB — a.k.a. Florida's Paradise Coast — brings 25 years of hospitality experience (casinos, the Opal Collection, opening the Hard Rock guitar hotel) to a wide-ranging tour of Collier County's three very different personalities. Naples is "unapologetically luxury": quiet wealth, owner-owned boutiques on Fifth Avenue, global cuisine, and a wave of new high-end product like the Four Seasons Naples Beach Club, a JW, the boutique Carnelian, and Florida's first Great Wolf Lodge. Twenty minutes south, Marco Island trades five-star for "beach chic" and laid-back tiki vibes, and Everglades City — population ~350 — is the authentic, stone-crabbing gateway to a UNESCO World Heritage national park.

Sandra also gets into the business side: sports tourism as a major economic driver (the Paradise Coast Sports Complex, FC Naples pro soccer, 64 pickleball courts and the US Open, plus three PGA/LPGA events), the destination's hurricane resilience and the CVB's role housing first responders, and a strategic pivot toward the drive market and domestic travelers amid economic uncertainty — including piggybacking on FIFA crowds in Miami. It's a polished, energetic look at a destination working hard to show it's more diverse than its luxury reputation suggests.

In This Episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 05:50 - Exploring Marco Island and Everglades City
• 11:19 - Resilience in the Face of Hurricanes
• 15:30 - The Rise of Sports Tourism in Naples
• 21:01 - Dog-Friendly Destinations in Florida
• 24:34 - Communicating the Drive: From Naples to Miami

Key Takeaways

• Three destinations, three vibes. Naples (serene, five-star luxury), Marco Island ("beach chic," laid-back, JW Marriott with fire dancers on the beach), and Everglades City (authentic, eco-adventure, stone crab) — all in one CVB, which shapes how they market.
• "Unapologetically luxury" — but not flashy. Naples leans into quiet wealth: owner-owned boutiques and restaurants on Fifth Avenue, nothing cookie-cutter, plus a surge of new hotels (Four Seasons Naples Beach Club, JW, the boutique Carnelian with its private Sterlings club, AC Hotel).
• Family gap, filled. Great Wolf Lodge — the first in Florida — added family-friendly product to a market that skews high-end.
• Gateway to a national treasure. Everglades City is the front door to Everglades National Park, one of only 25 UNESCO World Heritage sites in North America, with 350+ bird species — a huge draw for European birding visitors and the new Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center.
• Sports tourism is a major economic engine. The Paradise Coast Sports Complex (now heading into phase three), pro soccer club FC Naples, 64 pickleball courts and the US Open (50 states, 53 countries, 55,000+ attendees), plus three PGA/LPGA tournaments and 90+ golf courses.
• Pivoting to the drive market. Amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty, marketing is shifting from summer international travel to domestic and in-state visitors — including targeting FIFA crowds in Miami with "it's an easy hour-and-a-half drive" messaging.
• Closer than it looks. Naples to Miami/Fort Lauderdale is a straight, easy 90-minute shot — a fact most visitors don't realize.
• September "Sizzle" dining supports a cause. During the slowest month, restaurants offer specially priced menus, with proceeds benefiting Blessings in a Backpack, which feeds local kids on weekends — now grown from one week to a full month.
• Pet-friendly angle. Keewaydin Island (boat-access only) is a dog-friendly beach, with a monthly "Bark Ark" boat — a nice hook for the growing pet-travel audience.

Crystal River bills itself as the copyright Manatee Capital of the World, and marketing & content manager Nick Popham makes a strong case for why. A former TV reporter turned DMO storyteller, Nick walks host Larry Aldrich through what makes this stretch of Florida's Nature Coast a genuine hidden gem: 72-degree spring water year-round, thousands of manatees huddling into Kings Bay every winter, and the fact that Crystal River is the only place in the U.S. where you can legally swim with them. It's an old-Florida, untouched kind of place — no Cinderella Castle, no South Beach, just crystal-clear springs, cave channels, biking trails, small-town Elvis lore, and scallop season treasure hunts.

Beyond the wildlife, the conversation digs into how a small team (recently expanded to a mighty eight) punches above its weight — from D.C. legislators to influencer trips to Germany — and how the new Eco Compliant Partnership is reframing manatee tourism around conservation and education rather than the theme-park approach. It's a fun, energetic look at how a county of 170,000 puts itself on the global map.

In This Episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 05:15 - Exploring the Wonders of Crystal River
• 07:38 - Exploring Eco Tourism and Manatee Conservation
• 18:33 - Exploring the Wonders of Crystal River
• 22:52 - The Transition to Scallop Season

Key Takeaways:

• The only place in the U.S. to swim with manatees. Crystal River (and neighboring Homosassa) is it — a genuine differentiator no other Florida destination can claim, anchored by spring water that stays 72°F all year.
• "We love it when it's cold." When temperatures drop, thousands of manatees flood the warm springs — as many as 1,500 packed into a single spring, which drives some of the DMO's most viral content.
• Eco Compliant Partnership reframes the experience. Terry's initiative certifies tour operators doing things the right way — boats anchored away from manatees, power-pole anchors that protect seagrass, and a Fish & Wildlife education video before every swim. Conservation as the selling point, not an afterthought.
• "Edutainment" is the bread and butter. Every eco-compliant swim tour includes an educational component, so visitors leave having had fun and learned — a positioning that neutralizes the negative connotations some attach to manatee tourism.
• It's more than manatees. The Withlacoochee State Trail, Inverness (ranked a top small town in the South, with Elvis-filmed courthouse lore), crystal-clear springs like Three Sisters, cave-channel kayaking, Gulf fishing, and the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park underwater observatory round out the destination.
• Closer than you think. Crystal River is ~60 miles / one hour straight up from Tampa International — a shorter drive than Tampa to Orlando.
• Two seasons, two hooks. Manatee season runs Nov 15–Mar 31 (though 50–100 manatees stay year-round), and scallop season — a catch-and-cook "treasure hunt" in the Gulf — runs July through September.
• Small team, big reach. A staff of eight is putting a 170,000-person county in front of audiences in Germany, Texas, NYC, and D.C.

Recorded live at VETS 26 in New Orleans, this episode features Cordell Rolle, founder of Rolle IT, a cybersecurity firm about seven years in that works primarily with the federal government and VA, plus B2B clients navigating the new CMMC regulations. Cordell's origin story is the heart of the conversation: a Navy firefighter (damage controlman) who taught himself to install a shipboard software system, got hired by the vendor two weeks before separating, and spent five years traveling ship to ship across Korea, Japan, and the Middle East doing installs. Later, stuck without a promotion at an insurance job, a friend's nudge pushed him to launch his own company — and he built early trust by doing free IT work for nonprofits, which quietly connected him to boards full of community executives who became his first paying customers.

The back half digs into the business itself: Rolle IT grew to 35 people before DOGE-related federal cuts forced a hard lesson in resilience, and Cordell has since shifted his thinking from headcount to output-per-person, with AI integrated in-house rather than sold as a buzzword. He's carved out a niche most firms overlook — airport cybersecurity and IT operations, where the compliance web (TSA, border patrol, airlines, ground crews, dozens of vendors on-site daily) is relentless. It's an energetic, candid conversation about entrepreneurship, veteran grit, and finding underserved markets, capped by a natural fit with Aqua's own airport work and the Xeniq platform.

In This Episode

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 02:50 - Transitioning Careers: From Insurance to Startups
• 06:09 - Entering the World of Airport Marketing
• 08:24 - Transitioning from Military to Tech: A Personal Journey
• 11:00 - The Evolution of Company Growth
• 12:40 - Introduction of Zinique: A New Solution in Cyber Security

• From Navy firefighter to tech founder. Cordell was a damage controlman (E5, DC2) who taught himself to install a shipboard equipment-tracking system; the vendor hired him on the spot and he spent five years doing installs on ships worldwide.
• "Promote yourself." After being told by a boss that his future wasn't her concern, a friend's nudge pushed him to start Rolle IT — a resilience-over-money mindset that runs through the whole story.
• Free work for nonprofits was the growth engine. Doing pro-bono IT for women's and children's shelters built trust and put him in front of nonprofit boards stacked with community executives — who became his first paying clients.
• CMMC is a growth driver. Helping defense-industrial-base companies meet the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification requirements has been a major part of the business.
• DOGE was a gut check. The company hit 35 people before federal cuts forced layoffs — reinforcing his belief that resilience and doing good work matter more than headcount.
• Airport cybersecurity is an underserved niche. Rolle IT handles IT operations, access control, badging, training systems, and vendor management for airports — a world of relentless compliance (TSA, border patrol, airlines, 50–60 vendors on-site daily) that most firms overlook.
• Output over FTEs. Cordell's vision has shifted from measuring success by staff count to maximizing output with better people and in-house AI — "not bolted on, integrated from the jump."
• They're really a tech company. Despite the "cybersecurity" label, Rolle IT writes its own software — a parallel Cordell draws to Aqua and Brennsys being "really tech companies" behind the marketing.

About Our Guest:

About the guest:Cordell Rolle is the CEO of Rolle IT, a Space Coast cybersecurity and technology firm he co-founded in 2019. A 4 Under 40 winner, U.S. Navy veteran, and UCF graduate, he leads a team serving the VA, federal agencies, and defense contractors — with a niche in airport cybersecurity. A Certified Scrum Master and experienced configuration manager, his expertise spans government contracting, team building, and community advocacy through CareerSource and Junior Achievement.

"If your actions inspire people to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." — John Quincy Adams