Nurturing What’s Next

At meetings of the American Association of Community Colleges, school presidents nearing retirement are feted, their achievements summarized.

Typically, recalls Dr. John Holdnak, presidents are saluted in terms of buildings built, degree programs added, or scholarship dollars raised. But for Holdnak, who served as the president of Gulf Coast State College in Panama City for eight years, those statistics, while important measures of a college’s vitality, didn’t speak to community service.

“One of the things I enjoyed most about my responsibilities at the college was getting involved in economic development,” Holdnak says. Indeed, “supporting economic development” is part of GCSC’s mission statement and the job description for its president.

“I wanted to leave the college with the community better off than when I started,” Holdnak says. “If the number of good-paying jobs available locally had grown during my tenure, I could feel that I had been a decent president. The bigger that number was, the better I felt.”

The college is in a position to facilitate job growth and increase the community’s attractiveness to businesses by tailoring curriculum to employers’ needs.   

Photo by Boo Media

Holdnak, having successfully worked with Bay County Economic Development Alliance president Becca Hardin and others to attract big payrolls, left GCSC feeling good and ready for more—economic development, that is.

“Involvement in economic development gave meaning to my career at the college (34 years in total), and it’s giving meaning to the latest chapter in my work life,” Holdnak says.

Today, he is the vice president of operations and innovation at TechFarms, a technology business incubator founded in Panama City Beach by serial entrepreneur Steve Millaway, whom Holdnak got to know when Millaway was a GCSC trustee.

Holdnak devotes much of his time and energy to The Atlantis Center, the former Sallie Mae Servicing Corp. building located in Lynn Haven and acquired by Millaway in 2024. At 133,000 square feet, it is a leviathan of a structure that houses more than 80 offices. It is capable of hosting large-scale events and accommodating businesses, including light-manufacturing operations.

Holdnak and Millaway believe that Atlantis is an asset that can figure in community betterment and, yes, economic development efforts. They are actively recruiting tenants and booking events pursuant to a “hybrid business model.”  

Atlantis stands to fill a void that has existed since 2018 when Hurricane Michael destroyed the Marina Civic Center owned by the City of Panama City. It offers variably sized spaces suited to events both big and small and has 1,100 on-site parking spots.

Data centers and additive manufacturers have expressed interest in Atlantis, and companies outgrowing their TechFarms incubator space are likely to land there.

Millaway started the incubator 10 years ago after talking with entrepreneurial types in Bay County and finding that other than Starbucks, they had no place to meet, share ideas, and compare notes.

Photo courtesy of Tech Farms

“Over the years, we’ve learned that more than office space, more than equipment, more even than capital,collaboration is what people come to the incubator for,” Millaway says. “Tech, driven by AI, is moving so fast that no one person can keep up with everything. That makes collaboration all the more important.” 

At TechFarms, diverse incubator tenants are generating success stories.

ATOR Labs, the developer of breathing simulators used to test respiratory protective devices like those relied upon by firefighters, has expanded its product line and is outgrowing its incubator space, making it a candidate to move to Atlantis.

Better Greens sells highly nutritious microgreens by subscription and is working to automate its cultivation and harvest.

Chaos Audio exemplifies a truism: The world of entrepreneurship is perpetually fluid, chaotic even. CEO Landon McCoy burst upon the music scene when he introduced the Stratus guitar pedal, a plugin platform that enables musicians to build and store a catalog of effects on a single accessory and perform hands-free.

In 2025, Chaos birthed Stratus’s big brother, Nimbus, a combined smart amp, audio interface, looper, and effects processor that McCoy likes to call a “music studio in a box.” The highly portable Nimbus, which figured in a successful Kickstarter campaign launched in October, replaces much of the cumbersome gear that musicians are used to carrying around.

ArroTech’s metal-detecting drone, the GEON E61, was purpose-built with a humanitarian goal in mind: precisely and swiftly locate landmines and unexploded ordnance while avoiding the need to place people in harm’s way.

In recent months, the company has carried out demonstration flights for members of the demining community in Ukraine.

Photo courtesy of Tech Farms

Various interests from around the world have contacted ArroTech and suggested uses for the drone, ranging from mapping underground conduit at decommissioned military installations to locating underwater hurricane debris.

The GEON E61 system has been upgraded to provide for real-time data processing and display. Operators can now see mission results as they are obtained on a computer tablet.

In addition, ArroTech owner and chief technical officer Tobias Leininger has been working to equip the drone with obstacle-avoidance capabilities. The work is tricky in that sensors that detect objects in the drone’s flight path must be installed and operate such that they don’t interfere with the GEON E61’s metal-detecting function.

Scaling a good idea typically requires funding beyond that which friends and family can provide. That reality led Millaway to found a venture-capital firm, TechFarms Capital, now GAIN VC.

With $10 million in assets under management, GAIN VC is invested in 20 companies and has undertaken a second capital raise. Fund 2, with a goal of $25 million, is focused primarily on companies that produce AI-enhanced hardware. Such devices include sensors that can make decisions based on algorithms and collect vast amounts of saleable data.

“I’m confident that in another 10 years, TechFarms and GAIN VC will have had an appreciable regional impact on job creation and business development,” Millaway says. “We’re focused on stimulating organic growth. Businesses rooted here are the most likely to stay and eventually spin off more new companies.” ▪