Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a five-part series on winners of SRQ magazine’s 2018 Localpreneurs of the Year.

The need for more science and engineering jobs isn’t just a topic of interest to Joy Randels, but a personal mission. The founder of Applied G2 and Invision Communications has brought sustainable and high-tech industry into the region and has no plans to stop. When Randels was named among the inaugural class of winners for SRQ Media Group’s Localpreneurs of the Year award, she said her win was a true surprise but was most rewarding because of the recognition of tech to the regional economy. “I’m particularly happy businesses in STEM fields were recognized,” she says.

Randels, who founded New Market Partners in 2004, has a long history of entrepreneurship, having worked with more than 800 startups to help build scalable businesses. An early stage investor and enthusiastic advisor, she has led public and private companies to raise over $360 million in capital and to generate more than $15 billion in total revenue.

At Applied G2, a boutique cybersecurity firm, she has overseen as the company introduces a solar-powered custom wireless security system. Meanwhile, Invision Communications has brought high-tech communication strategies alive and markets itself as the engagement solutions agency sought as a partner by “the strongest, most dynamic businesses in the world for design and delivery of business-critical initiatives."

Randels, who has previously been selected for SRQ’s Women in Business Leadership Circle, today serves as board chair for Technova Florida, a regional tech community dedicated to improving the infrastructure for new businesses, emerging technologies and product development.

What would help improve the ecosystem for entrepreneurship on the Gulf Coast? Randels says: “In the Sarasota and Bradenton region, we do too much marketing of philanthropy and too little time investing in the future to ensure the community we enjoy will be able to thrive decades from now.”