John W. Koenig, Editor & Publisher

John Koenig came to Florida in 1983 to be a staff writer at Florida Trend, the state business magazine.  He later served as the magazine’s Tallahassee columnist and political editor before moving on to become executive editor of Tampa Bay’s Maddux Report and business columnist of the Orlando Sentinel.   Temporarily retiring from journalism in 2000, he founded and served as chief executive officer of O-Force, a non-profit organization focused on strengthening Central Florida’s workforce.

A native of Ohio, John studied journalism at the University of Illinois, where he received his bachelor’s degree, and continued his studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland, and the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College.  He lives in Winter Park with his wife Barbara. When he’s not working, John is likely to be found aboard his sailboat Lazy Jack.

Michael Joe Murphy, Managing Editor

Michael Murphy spent 28 years as an editor at the Orlando Sentinel, 23 of those as editor of the op-ed page and a member of the Editorial Board. He worked at the Detroit Free Press and (Cleveland) Plain Dealer during college, graduating from Kent State University in 1979. 

During his Sentinel years, the op-ed page won several awards for excellence from the Association of Opinion Page Editors.

Murphy, who grew up in Canton, Ohio, lives in Orlando with his wife, Susan Whigham, also a long-time Orlando Sentinel  editor. Their daughter, Rachel, follows in their footsteps, pursuing a journalism degree at University of Central Florida.

He has more than 24 days' worth of music on his iTunes account, primarily the blues. Murphy has volunteered for IDignity and Compassion Corner, two homeless ministries in downtown Orlando.

He can be reached at Michael.Murphy@Floridathinks.com.

John Kennedy, Associate Editor

John Kennedy has covered state and national politics and the Legislature from the state capital for the past 20 years. He worked 14 years as a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel and from 1998 to 2008 was the paper’s Tallahassee bureau chief. Earlier, he was a reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Palm Beach County and in Tallahassee.  Kennedy is a reporter for the News Service of Florida, an online subscription service based in Tallahassee, covering state government and Florida politics. newsserviceflorida.com

   Kennedy has won awards for investigative reporting, public service journalism and beat reporting from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, Florida Press Club, and Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors.

  He is married to Mary Ellen Klas, Tallahassee bureau chief for The Miami Herald, and they are the proud and occasionally stressed parents of two teenage daughters.

He can be reached at John.Kennedy@Floridathinks.com.

Martha Musgrove, Associate Editor

Martha Musgrove spent 37 years as a Florida journalist covering state and local government, politics, the environment, agriculture, health care and insurance issues. She retired in 2001 as associate editor of The Miami Herald. She had also worked at The Palm Beach Post and as bureau chief in Tallahassee with Cox Newspapers/New York Times Florida Newspapers. She was also editor-in-chief of The Palm Beach Daily News, popularly known as the “Shiney Sheet,” and Palm Beach Life Magazine, both Cox publications.

   During the course of her career, she has received numerous awards from environmental, agricultural, educational organizations and journalism organizations.

She is a native of Florida and grew up in Gainesville, where her father was a professor of architecture/engineering at the University of Florida.  She went to high school in Atlanta and earned a BSJ and her MSJ from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.  She is married to Charles W. Musgrove, and they have two sons and three grandchildren living in the Washington, D.C., area.

She can be reached at Martha.Musgrove@Floridathinks.com.

Tom Zucco, Associate Editor

Tom Zucco spent 28 years at the St. Petersburg Times, covering topics ranging from the Terri Schiavo saga, to the hurricanes of 2004-05, to shapshots of Florida's sagging economy. One example: two Tampa men who run a thriving repossession business, taking cars, trucks and boats, usually in the dead of night. But his main focus was, and still is, property insurance.

A 1979 graduate of Kutztown University with a degree in political science, he was also a sports columnist and features writer at the Times. He has won two American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors awards, a National Headliner Award, and numerous Florida Sportswriters Association awards.

He lives in St. Petersburg (in a bungalow built in 1937) with his wife, Karen, and their golden retriever, Dan. His daughter, Kate, is a law student at Michigan State University.

He can be reached at Tom.Zucco@Floridathinks.com.

Phil Balducci, Director of Survey Research

Phil Balducci is president of PB&A, Inc. a Florida-based marketing research company with a wide range of national clients from Dunkin Brands to the YMCA.

He holds a MSIM degree from Georgia Tech in research methodologies and a bachelor of science degree in economics from the University of Central Florida. Before founding PB&A, Balducci served as director of Research Services at the Marketing Research Bureau in Washington, D.C., and W B Doner Advertising in Baltimore. He is a Diet Coke-swilling workaholic who lives at the beach on Anna Maria Island with his wife, Kumi, and their daughter, Sarah, and three cats.

In his role at FloridaThinks, Balducci  will be formulating survey questions and analyzing the responses. He can be reached at Phil.Balducci@Floridathinks.com.