The leadership gods have really put Jerry Demings to the test in the past five years.
During the early hours of June 12, 2016, Demings — then serving as Orange County Sheriff — was bravely front and center with first-responder leaders at the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack. Orlando had never seen such mayhem and sadness. The world watched in horror, and our community still grieves the loss of 49 angels.
As a longtime friend and chair of the National Pulse Memorial’s board of trustees, I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Mayor Demings in several different capacities over the years. Ever since his 2008 election as Sheriff, he has become one of the most respected voices in Orange County and the Central Florida region.
Fast forward to the early months of 2020 and the beginning of Demings’ most recent challenge – the novel coronavirus pandemic. Arguably, his steady and effective management of Orange County’s response to COVID-19 has also been his biggest accomplishment to date.
Neither the Pulse tragedy nor the pandemic had any sort of how-to manual to which leaders could refer. As mayor, Demings trusted his specific suit of leadership qualities to pull our region out of the abyss of COVID-19 shutdowns and economic panic. Always a gentleman and exuding humility, he was thoughtful, data-driven and calm in his near-daily news briefings to our community.
Some Florida leaders took different and starkly controversial approaches to combat COVID-19, which often read like political stunts showcasing personal ambition over scientific prescriptions and recommendations. But Mayor Demings’ steadiness and people-before-politics philosophy paid off for Orange County.
The Demings administration showed empathy and compassion in its rapid delivery of vaccines to residents. Through the work of Orange County Government, Federal Retail Pharmacies and other community partnerships, more than 2 million vaccines were administered throughout the county, which has helped to vaccinate nearly 70% of residents who are 5 years old and older with at least one dose. Such success surely lies with the fact the county was immediately proactive in addressing the coronavirus.
When the first local case was diagnosed, the county went from handing out personal protective equipment to rapidly securing and staffing testing sites. All hands were on deck, as employees from Fire Rescue, the Orange County Convention Center, the Medical Director’s Office and agencies in the Orange County Public Health Department were central in the staffing of these sites.
When the Delta variant arose a few months ago, an emphasis on testing returned. At its peak, the county was administering more than 6,000 tests a day. To date, more than 20 million facemasks have been distributed and over 550,000 tests have been administered. Orange County is widely considered a national leader in its positive and effective handling of the pandemic.
Worldwide pandemic fatigue — fueled by anti-vaxxers and certain nations woefully undersupplied with vaccines — is likely to linger a bit longer. While our national vaccine and mask conversations can be quite divisive and bitter, Orange County is thankfully mostly an outlier. We are lucky to have Mayor Jerry Demings as our leader.
In a word, he is, well, remarkable.
To view the full list of Watermark’s Remarkable People of 2021, click here.
