Ryan Nicol
The Senate Education Committee is signing off on a series of executive appointments, including a move to place Florida Power & Light (FPL) President and CEO Eric Silagy on the State University System (SUS) Board of Governors.
The Committee reviewed four Gov. Ron DeSantis appointments to that board at a Monday afternoon hearing. The panel also approved the appointments for Brian Lamb, Steven M. Scott and Kent Stermon to serve alongside Silagy.
Those approvals were unanimous. The members’ respective terms will end on Jan. 6, 2026.
Both Lamb and Scott have experience serving on university boards prior to their appointment to the SUS Board of Governors.
Scott has sat on the University of Florida (UF) Board of Trustees since 2008. He served until Jan. 2018, covering two terms there.
Lamb, meanwhile, was first appointed to the University of South Florida Board of Trustees in 2010. He was again confirmed to that post in 2016.
Stermon is an executive at the Jacksonville-based Total Military Management. He’s been a DeSantis supporter dating back to the now-Governor’s time in Congress.
Silagy was named President of FPL in 2011 and CEO in 2014. In 2015, Silagy was appointed to the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is also the former Chair of the Florida Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors.
Silagy earned his Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas at Austin and his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Monday’s stop was the first in the Senate this Session. The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee is also slated to review those appointments before they go up for a vote before the full Senate.
The SUS oversees a dozen universities statewide including Florida State University and UF. The board oversees the SUS by setting education policies, appointing a portion of a university’s board of trustees and conducting other responsibilities.
