About me
Laura Hine will be our Closing Keynote Speaker.
First elected in November 2020 and re-elected in 2024, Laura Hine serves on the Pinellas County School Board and as the Executive Director of Educating Florida’s Future.
A native Floridian, Laura attended K-12 public schools, was bused during integration and graduated from Chamberlain High School in Tampa. Laura attended the U.S. Naval Academy earning a degree in aerospace engineering and completing the U.S. Army’s Airborne School. Serving as a surface warfare officer in the Navy. Laura was one of the first two women integrating a US warship and participated in three Pacific Ocean deployments to the Middle East.
After her military service, Laura moved back home and joined the construction industry, starting with the Southwest Airlines terminal at Tampa International Airport and later directed the development of The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art in downtown St. Petersburg, earning her General Contractor’s license and an MBA in Finance along the way. Laura then served as the museum’s Executive Director until 2023, when she turned her professional focus to public education fulltime.
When Laura’s first-born was coming of age for kindergarten she learned that her local school was a “D” graded school and that not many of the neighborhood children she knew attended the school. Laura co-founded the non-profit Friends of North Shore Elementary in 2015 to bring awareness of and support to the school, she then lead that school’s PTA. North Shore Elementary is now an A school and the share of neighborhood students who attend the school has grown from 59% to 81%. In addition to her professional work in education, Laura is the president-elect of the PTA at St. Petersburg High School and active with the John Hopkins Middle School PTA.
Laura believes that public education impacts our national security, economic prosperity and community vitality, and it can and must be exceptional for all students. She spends her efforts in that cause.
