JULIAN MACQUEEN
FOUNDER & CEO, INNISFREE HOTELS, PENSACOLA
MacQueen started Innisfree Hotels in 1986. The company develops, manages and owns hotels and has $800 million in assets managed and owned, 2,000 employees, $175 million in revenue with 3,500 rooms. MacQueen chaired a group that successfully added a property tax to fund children’s programs in Escambia County netting $10 million a year for 10 years. Innisfree also created Pensacola’s first sustainable community garden.
| EDUCATION | University of South Alabama (BA) |
| SOMETHING SURPRISING | I flew myself and my wife around the world in our plane as the pilot in command and set three world speed records. I graduated second from the bottom of my high school class. I spent three years volunteering in Israel. I got my helicopter license when I was 70. I flew a 75-year-old flying boat across the Atlantic Ocean. I had a flying accident when I was flying solo at 16. I skied barefooted at 70. |
| READING | The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson; Janis, Her Life and Music, by Holly George-Warren |