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Peter S. Rummell became chairman and chief executive officer of The St. Joe Company’s vast land holdings in 1997 and shifted its emphasis from paper products to real estate development. With approximately 835,000 acres at its disposal, JOE has developed a new model in real estate under Rummell’s leadership, creating high quality places and also sequencing its residential and commercial projects to act as accelerators of regional economic growth.
Rummell began his real estate career in 1971 with the Sea Pines Company, developers of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Amelia Island, Florida. Beginning in 1977, he was general manager of Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the Arvida Corporation. He joined the Rockefeller Center Management Corporation in New York as Vice Chairman in 1983, leaving in 1985 to become president of Disney Development Company. The Development Company was responsible for The Walt Disney Company’s non-theme park land, directing hotel and related development at the company’s theme park locations in Orlando, Anaheim, Paris and Tokyo.
During Rummell’s 12-year tenure, Disney produced over 20,000 hotel rooms. The new town of Celebration, Florida was also a product of this focused development effort. Disney Development Company and Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s design and creative division responsible for theme park development, were later merged and Rummell became chairman of the combined group, Walt Disney Imagineering.
Rummell serves on the Board of Directors of Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN), a Fortune 250 diversified energy company. He is vice-chairman of the Florida Council of 100 and serves on the State of Florida’s Board of Governors, which provides policy oversight for Florida’s university system. Rummell is on the board of The Alliance for World Class Education and serves as a member of the board and the executive committee of the Council for Educational Change. Rummell is chairman of the Urban Land Institute Foundation and also serves as an officer and trustee of the Urban Land Institute. He was co-chairman of the Jacksonville Super Bowl Host Committee, which hosted Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.
Rummell, 59, graduated from The Hill School, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1971, he received a master of business administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Rummell and his wife, Lee Ann, have two children; Mahala Hunter (12) and Harry Stevenson II (10). They reside in Jacksonville, Florida.
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