Candidate: Richard Cuff

(904) 386-9079 www.richardcuff.com rcuff@richardcuff.com I am president of CTI Marketing and founder of the NASEMBA Business Alliance – an organization that provides support and encouragement to small and emerging market businesses. I was born in Edison, GA and raised in the Liberty City community of Miami, FL, and discovered my gift of entrepreneurship as a seven-year old when I started my first business in the 2nd grade, painting Hot Wheel cars for a quarter, using my mother\'s fingernail polish. At 10 years old I started my second business taking out the garbage for the neighbors in our apartment community - also for a quarter - and doing that I was able to make as much as $2 a week. Over the next forty years I would spend my life pursuing my entrepreneurial vision and sharpening my managerial skills. I am a graduate of Jacksonville University’s Davis School of Business with a double major; a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Marketing and a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Management. I am married - 19 years – with two children who attend Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, and spend my weekends doing what I really love to do – giving private piano and violin lessons to elementary and middle school students. I served in the United States Army as an Indirect Fire Infantryman and was promoted to the rank of E-5/Sergeant before being honorably discharged. As a social entrepreneur and community advocate, I’ve served as consultant to the Jacksonville Symphony Association for three seasons. There I managed the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra and designed the Jump Start Strings Program as a community outreach initiative that now operates in four Title-1 elementary schools through Community in Schools. Currently, I serve as Executive Director of League of Florida Orchestras, Inc., a capacity building organization through which I developed the Guiding Success Program – a kindergarten to college pathway initiative for preschool students developed to encourage literacy through entrepreneurship and the arts. This is the only program in the state of Florida that provides an early childhood music education to three and four-year olds - teaching them to play violin - while in preschool. As a candidate for City Council District 7, I will advocate bringing manufacturing jobs back to our inner cities and will work to support the mayor’s mentorship and summer jobs program that will address the high unemployment rate among the youth in our district. In helping to close the digital divide I will advocate developing a healthcare resource network through the COJ web site that will insure that the most vulnerable within our community receive the care they deserve. I will present District 7 as a prime location for an east coast Silicon Valley and will work tirelessly to cultivate the IT talent that Northwest Jacksonville has to offer and will serve to attract talent from around the nation. I will work to attract investors that will create a micro-manufacturing hub that serves to incubate businesses that will develop innovative packaging and final-stage assembly processes that will create well-paying jobs. I believe that the best place to invest tax dollars is as early as possible when cost are low and the return on that investment is highest. I believe that every child should receive a high quality early childhood education and, once I am elected to represent the people as a member of City Council District 7, I will continue the work I have begun within the non-profit sector. I will work tirelessly to develop public/private partnerships that will encourage funding cultural arts initiatives that inspire our children on to greatness and help equip our youth to become our future leaders, teachers, pastors, entrepreneurs, and political figures.