Immokalee Foundation builds Southwest Florida workforce

Students in the Immokalee Foundation’s Career Pathways program had a front-row seat as two prominent Southwest Florida business leaders shared their visions for the future of the workforce at the organization’s mid-October Partners in Progress luncheon. 

Paul Hiltz, president and CEO of Naples Comprehensive Health, and David Hoffmann, founder and chair of the Hoffmann Family of Companies, explored the region’s workforce needs, focusing on how collaboration among educators, local businesses and the community can create meaningful internship and career opportunities for Immokalee youth. 

Hiltz, who joined NCH in 2019, has overseen the doubling of the nonprofit healthcare system’s operating budget, from $600 million to $1.2 billion — largely through philanthropy — while focusing on strategic advancements in service lines including heart and stroke care, oncology, orthopedics, and women’s and children’s health. 

Hoffmann oversees a family-owned network of enterprises that includes more than 200 brands and properties across 30 countries, employing nearly 30,000 people worldwide. 

In a conversation moderated by Michael Benson, managing partner at Naples-based Benson Blackburn, and introduced by Immokalee Foundation President and CEO Noemi Perez, Hiltz and Hoffmann stressed the importance of internships in building a long-term workforce recruitment strategy. 

Healthcare is one component of the Career Pathways program, and Hiltz said internships can help correct misconceptions about careers in the industry. 

He said some students may assume that all healthcare jobs are clinical and require a nursing or medical degree. 

“Then the interns get in and find out the variety and breadth of the jobs,” Hiltz said. “We’ve got jobs in IT, in hospitality and food service, environmental services, accounting and back-office function, and those interns help us kind of widen the depth to get great employees to come into a very diverse workforce.” 

Other career pathways in the program are engineering and construction management, business management and entrepreneurship, and education and human services. 

Hoffmann said internships are valuable to companies and interns, even when they don’t immediately produce a hire, because they establish relationships, mentorship opportunities and future recruiting possibilities. 

He cited as an example someone who interned with his company during high school and was mentored by Hoffmann before attending Tulane University and earning a master’s degree from MIT. 

“The guy that runs our mergers and acquisitions group for our company globally — and you know, we buy 18 to 20 companies a year — he was an intern with us,” Hoffmann said. “We interned him from high school and now he’s the head of M&A for a global company. We have a lot of that, actually, as a company.” 

Importance of company culture  

Benson asked Hiltz and Hoffmann about the importance of building and sustaining a company culture. 

Hiltz described how a group of “Culture Cultivators” at NCH meets four times a year to brainstorm ways to build a strong workplace culture. 

“We make that an intentional thing, and what we find is that especially for young people, they love that focus on culture, and they love this notion of having not a boss, but a coach,” Hiltz said. “And we’ve found that’s one way to help younger people get into the workplace.” 

Hoffmann said the defining culture at his companies — which he said will invest $200 million to $250 million annually in business expansion through acquisitions in Southwest Florida — is family. 

“Our company name is the Hoffmann Family of Companies, so we like to think of ourselves as a family,” he said. “A lot of our businesses that we buy, especially here locally, the ones that were founder-led and we’ve taken over and generally kept those founders in place. 

“So, the culture is one of family.” 

Growing a local workforce  

Hiltz and Hoffmann agreed that Naples’ expensive housing market can make recruiting difficult, especially because of the long commutes some workers face when they can’t afford to live where they work. 

“I think when we move people in, the cost of Naples, usually for housing, is higher than other parts of the country, so we always have to deal with that, and then I think it’s difficult to get that next level of work,” Hoffmann said. 

“That’s why what you’re doing in Immokalee is so important. It’s very difficult to get that next level of worker to move here because of that cost. So, it’s almost like if we don’t have something that develops a workforce locally, we have big problems.” 

Hiltz said NCH’s rapid growth means the system needs a constantly expanding employee base. 

“At NCH, we’re in a really massive growth phase — we doubled in size in five years — so we added a lot of employees,” Hiltz said. “Challenges around housing are certainly a big piece of it. As part of our strategy, we want to grow our own workforce and try to get younger people in the organization that we then try to use tuition assistance to help those young people get a degree while they’re with us and then move up into the organization over time.” 

Developing talent early 

In closing remarks, Perez said the conversation reinforced the point that workforce development “cannot begin when a position opens.” 

“We need to invest today,” she said. “We need to develop the talent earlier and connect our young people to the community of business partnerships. 

“Immokalee has tremendous talent. Our students are intelligent, ambitious, resilient and ready to work for their futures. What they may not have is access, to professional networks, workplace experiences, mentors or careers they’ve never seen up close. This is why business partnership is important, and why it matters.”