Leadership

Darrell Starling is a community redevelopment professional, real estate developer, and consultant with more than 15 years of experience in neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, economic development, and public-private partnerships. A native of Tampa, Florida, he has devoted his career to helping communities attract investment, expand homeownership, and transform underutilized properties into productive assets.

Darrell is Owner and Principal Consultant of D. Starling Consulting, LLC, and Co-Owner of RAD Armor Development, LLC, which focuses on affordable and workforce housing and commercial redevelopment.

Previously, Darrell served as a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Program Manager for the City of Lake Wales, Florida. His work included helping secure approximately $1.2 million in sidewalk infrastructure improvements and supporting neighborhood and housing revitalization efforts affecting more than 100 homes in the city’s Northwest community. He holds the Redevelopment Professional (RP) designation through the Florida Redevelopment Association.

As a consultant to the North Port St. Joe Community Development Corporation, Darrell assists with affordable housing initiatives, property redevelopment, community education, and economic development. His work includes helping develop the CDC’s Start-to-Home Program, intended to create pathways to homeownership, and advancing MLK FORWARD!, an initiative supporting property owners along the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard corridor through the predevelopment process and toward commercial revitalization.

Darrell believes successful redevelopment goes beyond constructing buildings. It should create lasting opportunities for residents, strengthen local businesses, encourage property ownership, and build generational wealth. His approach centers on community engagement, strategic partnerships, and practical solutions that help neighborhoods grow while preserving their identity.

Dannie E. Bolden is the owner of Bolden and Associates Consulting Services LLC and a community organizer, community development specialist, and grant writer with 21 years of experience partnering with local organizations, outside agencies, and funders to make North Port St. Joe a safe and affordable place to live and work. In 2005, he co-founded the North Port St. Joe Community Development Corporation, then known as the Gulf County CDC, with John Hendry and was hired as its first Executive Director, leading it through its earliest years and laying the groundwork for its programs and operations.

Dannie is a former Program Administrator for the Gulf County State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) program, former Vice President of the North Port St. Joe Project Area Coalition, a board member of the Gulf County Citizens Coalition, and President of the Florida Panhandle Minority Communities Climate Change Coalition (FPM4C). Following Hurricane Michael, he organized and managed the Pioneer Bay CDC food and essential supplies distribution center on the George Washington High School campus, which assisted more than 3,000 people in North Port St. Joe and surrounding communities.

A skilled grant writer, he spearheaded the proposals that resulted in three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Justice grants totaling $899,000 for the Pioneer Bay Community Development Corporation. He also mobilized community and city residents to oppose a proposed liquefied natural gas export and storage facility in Port St. Joe near the North Port St. Joe neighborhood; the overwhelming public response stopped the facility. In addition, he served as one of three researchers on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders team that studied Port St. Joe Health Equity Scenarios for 2050, whose final report is titled Changing Currents.

Dannie’s work has earned national and statewide recognition. He received the Florida Brownfields Association’s 2025 Environmental Spirit of Excellence Award and Public Citizen’s Super Citizen Activist Award in 2023. In 2022, he was invited to Washington, D.C., to take part in a White House roundtable on environmental justice, housing, economic revitalization, infrastructure, and climate resilience, and from 2022 to 2023 he spoke at the Federal Environmental Justice Forums of the EPA and its Federal Advisory Council. He has also received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from Congressman Neal Dunn for outstanding achievement, service, and public distinction.

A committed community builder, he organized and chaired the first Annual North Port St. Joe Juneteenth Celebration Committee and organized the North Port St. Joe Earth Day Celebration, bringing neighbors together to honor the community’s history and care for its environment.

Over the past 21 years, Dannie has drawn on his experience as a team builder and coach to bring partners together to address the environmental and social justice concerns that affect North Port St. Joe residents. Key partners include the Florida Brownfields Association, the University of Florida, the University of West Florida, Florida A&M University, Florida State University, the ReGenesis Project, the Northwest Florida Water Management District, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Earthjustice, and Public Citizen.

Dannie holds a bachelor’s degree in business with a minor in social work from Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, and is certified by the United States Air Force as a Production Control Technician and Cost and Accounting Specialist. Today, through Bolden and Associates Consulting Services LLC, he continues to support the CDC’s mission as a consultant, bringing deep institutional knowledge and a lasting commitment to the community he loves.