- November 17, 2024
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Steven Nobile has spent the past 25 years in corporate America as a consultant and software engineer, and now works as a software engineer for Array Information Technologies, a consulting firm, and owns HSDS Guns on Old Kings Road.
He has worked as an information technology consultant, through various firms, for the Air Force, the Navy and for Fortune 500 and Fortune 1,000 companies.
Nobile is running for City Council because “the current City Council and past City Council has done a good job of getting where we are now, but I think that we’re at a stagnation point. … I think that’s where I come in; I have the background to help us move to a new level.”
William Fitzgerald, CEO of Baywood Technologies and Nobile’s former supervisor, said he put Nobile in charge of a major military contract because his “leadership skills are great.” He said he’s known Nobile for 22 years. “They guy’s just straight up; there’s no bull with him,” he said. “If you’re looking for problem with him, he would tell you what he thinks and what he believes in, and sometimes as the president or CEO of an organization, you don’t want to hear that,” he said, chuckling.
Another colleague, Array Information Technologies senior software engineer Jonathan Leffingwell, said, “Anytime we hit a snag, he was ready to jump in and help rather than crack the whip. ... He’s pulled my hide out of the fire a few times.” Leffingwell said he’d first worked with Nobile in 1998.
Nobile is running against current District 4 Councilman Bill Lewis. Nobile and Lewis beat out competitors Woody Douge and Norman Weiskopf in the primary. Nobile took about 36.5% of the vote to Lewis’ 28.6%.
Economic and business issues
Nobile says he’s been in contact with a number of local business owners, though he wouldn’t name names, who “all have a major problems with the permitting process and the (city’s) code enforcement process. The level of frustration, they say, is almost not worth it.”
That, he said, is driving away businesses, and the attendant jobs. There is a perception, he said, that the city is not business friendly.
He mentioned Panera Bread— which had planned two stores in Palm Coast and ended up building only one — as an example, and said the city needs “more streamlined processes, especially with the permitting.”
“How economic growth occurs is by creating something that people want to move their business to, or start a business, or expand a business,” he said.
He also considers red light cameras a “direct, self-inflicted economic disaster” that he would work on “immediately” if he were to be elected.
Culture and recreation
Nobile said he used to volunteer with a church-organized youth program called Saturday Night Live, and that “We used to have 700 kids participate through that … It was not that big a thing; it was not that great, but people showed up, because it was the only thing,” he said. The city, he said, is “not engaged with kids,” and ought to be.
Nobile said that although he isn’t “a big arts person ... that’s irrelevant, because (the arts) are important to other people,” and he felt like the city hasn’t been investing enough in the arts in recent
years. “Unfortunately, it’s going to take an investment,” he said, “because the arts, I think, are one of the few things where you have to have it before they come. It’s something that has to be pre-supported.”
Leadership, weaknesses and strengths
Nobile said his consulting positions were leadership roles, and that he has worked with budgets of up to $500,000, while working with Barnett Bank.
He described his weaknesses as follows: “Sometimes I’m overbearing and over-controlling, and I have to be told to back off, to let other people in, because I like to be involved in everything. That’s why I bring in people around me who are not afraid to tell me, ‘You’re overreaching, stop it,’ and who will have different ideas.”
Asked to describe what sets him apart from opponent Bill Lewis, Nobile said he can “bring more current skills that are business-oriented and can help the city evolve.”
“Mr. Lewis is a great man; he’s done a lot of great service for our community over the years,” he said. But he said, he felt like Lewis“has a fear of Palm Coast turning into a dump town” that has made him too cautious about taking measures that could bring in growth and jobs.
“We’ve hit a plateau, and I think we need to jump that,” he said. “So I bring that different vision that says we can be a larger community, we can grow, we can create jobs, and we can preserve the beauty.”
Previous press coverage of Steven Nobile:
Click here to view previous Palm Coast Observer stories about Steven Nobile, here to view FlaglerLive stories and here to view Daytona Beach News-Journal stories.
