Charlie Hunsicker built his career on being in the right place at the right time – and everyone in Tampa Bay has benefited. Now the director of natural resources for Manatee County, Hunsicker earned the 2025 Herman W. Goldner Award, the highest award bestowed on an individual for regional leadership at the Future of the Region Awards presented by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council (TBRPC).
“Charlie has been at the forefront of environmental protection in the Tampa Bay region for nearly 50 years,” said Wren Krahl, TBRPC’s executive director. “His work has impacted every resident in Manatee County and Tampa Bay, as well as across the state and nation as a leader in purchasing environmental lands for preservation.”
It all started in 1982 when he was working in Manatee County’s utilities department. At the time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was deciding where it would dump spoil material from deepening and widening the Tampa Bay ship’s channel. “The EPA, with limited information, designated an interim disposal site approximately 9.5 miles from shore – just outside the 9-mile limits of the state’s jurisdiction and review authority – but was moving so slowly to designate a final site that the Corps decided to use it without the complete study,” Hunsicker recalls. “So by moving to use the interim site, the Corps failed to complete the studies which would have indicated irreversible impacts to the rare living hardbottom in the immediate area.”
Then, required testing revealed that the sediments to be dredged were contaminated with Vibrio cholerae that can cause severe diarrhea. “They were going to put that 9.5 miles off Anna Maria Island. We went through the normal administrative notices to challenge the site, and finally concluded that ‘the only way we’re going to get past this is to go to court.’”…