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Can you ace a baker's dozen business quiz about Tampa Bay?

 
Published July 28, 2012

Did you pay close attention to your own Tampa Bay business community in the first half of 2012? I did, but then again, it's my job. And if you didn't, who's to blame you? It has been another grim year for many businesses. Anyway, here's a midyear test of your news acuity.

1. In 2012, these retail landmarks were all up for sale or sold:

A) BayWalk, Centro Ybor, Channelside.

B) Citrus Park Mall, BayWalk, University Mall.

C) Channelside, Shops at Wiregrass, Westfield Brandon Mall.

D) The Trop, the Port of Tampa, Plant City.

2. One of the principal "stages" where the Tampa Bay business community will pitch itself live and online during the Republican National Convention is called:

A) Rising Tampa Bay.

B) Tampa Bay RNC.

C) Front Row Tampa Bay.

D) Tampa Bay: We're not Orlando!

3. The Tampa Bay metro area's unemployment fell from this number in January to this number in June.

A) From 10 percent to 9 percent.

B) From 10.6 percent to 8.6 percent.

C) From 11.1 percent to 9.4 percent.

D) From "OMG!, We're All Gonna Starve'' to "OMG! We're Probably Gonna Starve.''

4. Next-generation mega-sized cruise ships imperil the Port of Tampa's tourism business because:

A) Tampa Bay can't attract enough passengers to fill such big ships.

B) The dredged channel through Tampa Bay to the port isn't wide enough.

C) The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is too low.

D) We don't have enough hotel rooms for mega-sized people.

5. The incoming and outgoing deans of the University of South Florida College of Business in Tampa are, respectively:

A) Moez Limayem and Robert Forsythe.

B) Steven Covey and Malcolm Gladwell.

C) Frank Ghannadian and Maling Ebrahimpour.

D) Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez.

6. In public hearings following the Duke Energy-Progress Energy merger fiasco, ousted CEO Bill Johnson was criticized as too:

A) "Autonomous."

B) "Autocratic."

C) "Autoimmune."

D) Much like Winston Churchill.

7. All three of these Tampa Bay-headquartered companies were acquired this year:

A) Raymond James Financial, MarineMax and Aerosonic.

B) Lincare, Numara and SRI/Surgical Express.

C) WellCare, Tribridge and C1 Bank.

D) The Hurricane, Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish and the Tampa Bay Rays.

8. After controversial Tampa cloud computing business Savtira declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it was financially rescued by area investor:

A) Outback Steakhouse founder Chris Sullivan.

B) Philanthropist Kiran Patel.

C) Entrepreneur John Sykes.

D) Evan Longoria (who's got nothing else to do these days).

9. What two events best highlight Tampa International Airport's ambitions this year?

A) Opening Columbia Restaurant Cafe and Cigar City Brewing locations.

B) Adding first direct flights to Cuba, and flights to Switzerland via Edelweiss Air.

C) Renovating TIA bathrooms and revising its 20-year master plan.

D) Eliminating Bob Buckhorn's recorded welcome, to be replaced with one from Ronde Barber.

10. This Tampa Bay area company has got a new name and will soon go public.

A) Bloomin' Brands.

B) SRI Draper.

C) Mons Venus.

11. She grew up in Clearwater to be named the world's youngest self-made female billionaire by Forbes magazine:

A) HSN CEO Mindy Grossman.

B) USF president Judy Genshaft.

C) Spanx founder Sara Blakely.

D) Ex-ESPN broadcaster Erin Andrews.

12. Thanks to a 2006 state law, Progress Energy has been able to force its Florida customers to:

A) Pay more than 25 percent more for electricity than Floridians served by neighboring Florida Power & Light.

B) Pay hundreds of millions of dollars more than a decade in advance for a proposed nuclear power plant in Florida that may never be built.

C) Both A and B.

D) Pay through the nose.

13. Gazelle Lab, Tampa Bay Wave and BarCamp are:

A) New area theme parks.

B) Area groups that encourage business startups.

C) Out-of-state businesses recruited to this metro area.

D) The nicknames of the USF track team, the Rays' "hitters'' and where many Bucs go after practice.

Robert Trigaux at trigaux@tampabay.com.