Road to growth

For the past two years, more than 30,000 people a year have made the move to Florida’s Polk County.

“That’s 80–90 people a day deciding to make a life here,” Deputy County Manager John Bohde tells The CEO Magazine.

Polk County is Florida’s ninth largest, with a population of just over 882,000, and Bohde says there is no shortage of reasons people are making a beeline for the county.

“As they say in the real estate world, ‘Location, location, location.’ That’s us here in Polk,” he says.

Equidistant from Orlando and Tampa, living in Polk means the job markets in these metropolitan centers are both accessible, yet also draw upon Polk’s lower cost of living and Florida’s lack of state income tax. Plus, there’s Florida’s famous weather.

“People want to be in warmer climates,” he adds.

These factors have combined to create what Bohde describes as a “perfect storm”.

“For two years straight, we’ve been one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Florida and in the top 10 fastest-growing counties in the country,” he says.

Growth priorities

As one of three deputy county managers at Polk, with direct responsibility over infrastructure, Bohde is feeling the impact of such rapid growth, particularly when it comes to juggling its wish list of unfunded road projects.

“In local government, the needs usually outweigh the resources,” he says.

Growth dictates how county resources are spent and what becomes a priority. For example, work is about to begin on County Road 557, which connects Interstate 4 with the city of Lake Alfred, at a total estimated value of US$160 million.

“Five years ago, that road was way down on the list of priorities,” Bohde explains. “But as growth happened rapidly in Polk County, it quickly rose up the list.”

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Knowing that Polk County is going to continue to grow, Bohde has to find ways to get creative with the revenues available and ensure the projects that get priority are those that can provide the relief the population requires.

Bohde himself was born and raised in Polk and knew he was destined for a career in public service from his teenage years, when he first spent a summer working for the local government in parks and recreation at age 15.

“I started to develop a passion for local government,” he says. “I ended up getting a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and I thought I might have wanted to go to law school.”

But the more he thought about his future, the more he realized he didn’t want to move away.

Save for a break in the private sector in early adulthood, Bohde has spent his entire career at Polk County. Before his current appointment in 2024, he held the title of Office of Planning and Development Director, with responsibility over three divisions: Building, Land Development and Transportation Planning.

As Deputy County Manager – Infrastructure, he oversees a team of 900 who are currently working on US$794 million in government capital projects back into the local economy, including the creation of private sector employment.

“Over the next five years, we’re going to spend US$1.9 billion on capital projects,” he says.

Parks and recreation

And this investment extends further than road infrastructure.

“Our park system has also seen tremendous growth,” Bohde says. “More people means more parents and more kids and, with that, more people wanting to frequent our parks.”

In response, plenty of upgrades are being rolled out to existing parks that need attention, and there is a park under construction.

Another area currently benefiting from significant investment in Polk is Tourism and Sports Marketing, a division that also falls under Bohde’s mandate.

“We’ve got people traveling around the world to bring events to Polk to highlight our county,” Bohde explains, adding that the target is to host 300 events annually.

The enormous economic impact such events have is no secret: Bohde puts it at hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The platform is already strong: along with having one of the top public golf courses in the county, Streamsong, Polk is the longstanding spring training ground of choice for the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball team.

Its reach extends across the pond, too. Visit Central Florida, the tourism organization based in Polk County, is a sleeve sponsor of EFL Championship team Swansea City.

Bohde has spent the majority of his career working in the public sector, but these are all parts of the job that continue to give him a buzz, day in and day out.

After all, it’s not every profession where you get to see the end result of something that’s been years in the making – or experience the impact of your work.

“We have the ability to make a difference in people’s lives, and we can really see it. It’s those results that make me want to get up and go to work every day,” he says.