FY26 Special Category Review and Ranking Meetings

David Hoyt is the Executive Director of Development for the Heartland Institute. He was previously a Senior Consultant for AC Fitzgerald & Associates and the Founder and President of Liberty Development Group. Hoyt earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Tulane University.

Kathleen Kauffman has over 25 years of experience in the field of Historic Preservation. She currently serves as the Historic Preservation Officer for the City of Gainesville. She has a bachelor’s degree in historic preservation from Mary Washington College and a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Florida. She started her career in 1997 at the Florida Division of historical resources as a Historic Sites Specialist, managing the Great Floridians program and the State Historic Marker program. She has been the Historic Preservation Officer for the Town of Lake Park (Palm Beach County), the City of Fort Pierce, and the City of Miami. She has also served as Executive Director for the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, and served as the Historic Preservation Chief for Miami-Dade County, a position she held for almost ten years. In 2017 she started her own historic preservation consulting firm, KSK Preservation. She is a Director for the Council on America’s Military History (CAMP) and in 2023 was appointed to the University of Florida’s Historic Preservation Board of Advocates.

Dewey “Parker” Destin is a 6th generation Floridian. Parker grew up commercial fishing and operating restaurants with his family before receiving his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Tampa in 2007. Parker graduated from Florida Coastal School of Law in 2012 and is admitted to the Bar in the State of Florida. As a life-long student of Florida History, Mr. Destin has worked to preserve Florida’s historical heritage through passing local preservation laws, as an elected official, and digitizing documents from Florida’s Revolutionary War period. He currently owns and operates restaurants in Northwest Florida.

John Phelps has worked for the Florida Legislature for 48 years. His first appointment was in the House of Representatives where he held positions in various committees and the Speaker's Office. He was elected Clerk of the House in 1986 and served for twenty years before leaving in 2006 to accept an appointment as Curator of the Historic Capitol and pursue a longstanding interest in Florida history. In 2010, the Senate President recruited him for the position of Staff Director of the Rules Committee, which he held until November of 2022, when he retired.  John has held numerous offices with national legislative organizations, including Staff Chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures, President of the American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries and Chair of the Commission that revises Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure. Outside the legislature, John has been a procedural consultant to legislatures in Central America, Africa and the Middle East, most recently Iraq, Afghanistan and Morocco. He is a trustee of Eckerd College and Honorary Consul in Florida for Great Britain.