Kafi Benz
Encyclopedia
Kafi Benz is an American
writer
and artist
who began participation in social entrepreneurship
through environmental preservation and regional planning
in 1959 as a member of the Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed plans by the New York Port Authority to found a new airport in the Great Swamp, the central feature of a massive fifty-five square mile watershed
in New Jersey bounded to the south and east by the Watchung Mountains
, twenty-five miles west of Manhattan
.
During the 1980s she also became very active in historic preservation
, founding a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, Friends of Seagate Inc., for that purpose. The organization later was expanded to include concerns for additional areas in the arts and sciences. At the same time she founded the official website
of the sculptor Jim Gary
. In 2001 it was moved to another website she created that may feature other artists as well, Kafi Benz Productions.
Born during 1941 in Chatham
, New Jersey
, her mother was a commercial artist, graphic designer
, and illustrator
and her father was a physician
and surgeon
who was chief of staff
at a hospital in Morristown
.
with a much larger complex farther to the west. After infiltrating meetings the powerful authority, headed by Austin J. Tobin
, held to marshal support among construction companies and unions, the members of the association distributed opposition literature and drew public attention to its efforts. Once the issue was revealed by coverage of the expulsion of four of the JJSA members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) from a meeting at a Newark hotel, the Essex House, in a local newspaper, the Newark Evening News
, greater opposition arose among the residents of the massive area that would be affected.
The JJSA was closely followed by a sister organization, a new sub-committee founded in Washington, D.C. within the North American Wildlife Foundation, and these combined efforts led quickly to the establishment of the park that would become the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
by an act of Congress
on November 3, 1960. Residents such as Geraldine R. Dodge and Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr.
contributed the funds necessary to purchase the core of the swamp as the legal opposition progressed into a victory for the preservationists that led to the perpetual protection of the important natural habitat.
The initial donation of land to the federal government as a park was 2600 acres (10.5 km²). The park now consists of 7600 acres (30.8 km²) or almost 12 square miles (31.1 km²) of varied habitats. It was declared a National Natural Landmark
in 1966 and given wilderness
status in 1968.
During the final period of the founding of the park, Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Lee Udall, headed the federal department which was in charge of parks. He supported the efforts of these conservationist
s and commented that he believed they mounted the greatest effort ever made by residents in America to protect a natural habitat.
, and participated in the planning and administration of its annual competitive regional art show. The organization has been renamed as, The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), is located in Bedminster, and is noted as a regional art center with a comprehensive studio art school, professional exhibition program, and a community outreach component. Her painting and sculpture works are held in private collections in several states. Occasionally sitting as a model for sculpture classes taught at the association by Berta Margoulies (a 1946 Guggenheim fellowship recipient), many sculptures of Benz have been exhibited by these students.
At that time a friendship with sculptor Jim Gary
developed that would lead to her representing the sculptor at many times, eventually becoming his publicist
, creating and maintaining the official web site for Gary and his work and becoming the director of his studio, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, marketing and placing his works and exhibition.
When Gary died in January 2006, Benz established a memorial fund and led efforts to bring about the placement of sculptures from his traveling exhibition, as a single collection
in a suitable museum or institution where the sculptures in the collection would remain open to the public. By 2009 negotiations with a site in Sarasota
seemed assured and much publicity ensued, through 2010. That contract was not executed, however, and negotiations were redirected successfully to a museum in Tallahassee.
In August 2011 twenty-one Gary sculptures were packed into vans and moved from Colts Neck, New Jersey for a ten-year display at the Tallahassee Museum
in Florida. When National Geographic Magazine
was unable to meet the schedule, Benz invited three free-lance photographers to document the preparations and complex move with videos and still photographs.
She represented painter Lee W. Hughes also, principally while he was a transparent watercolor artist, with a studio and gallery in Mendham, New Jersey
. She also represented his wife and her longtime friend, pencil
medium artist
Sue Hughes (née McQuillan), while she was working out of a studio in New Jersey and later, in California.
A search committee headed by Virginia Laudano of the Art Club of Sun City Center, invited Kafi Benz to judge its thirty-sixth annual art show held during February 2003 jointly with the prominent Tampa Bay area multi-media artist, Gainor Roberts. Soon thereafter, Benz participated in a project with transparent watercolor artist, John Crawford, to publish his research of an early Renoir
painting of Marie Le Coeur, that was among his art collection since its acquisition in Chicago during the 1930s. He is the namesake of the John Crawford Art Education Studio that was created after his death at SouthShore Regional Library of Hillsborough County, which now features many of his own paintings. The planned book was not published before his death.
in Sarasota, Florida
. She joined the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, Inc. shortly after Veronica Morgan founded the organization in 1985, and has served in several positions among its officers as well as being a director of the organization over the years. Dudley E. DeGroot, Jerris Foote, and she conducted archaeological research to document historical and prehistoric aspects of two endangered properties that were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
—the El Vernona Hotel (built by Owen Burns
in 1925 and later renamed to John Ringling Hotel) and Seagate (a fishing retreat built for Gwendolyn and Powel Crosley in 1929) during efforts to protect the historic properties from demolition.
Toward the end of the decade, Benz participated in documentation of other archaeological and historical sites. She was cited as a special contributor to the survey of archaeological, historical, cultural, and natural resources in the coastal areas of Sarasota County that was conducted by the Florida department of environmental regulation as well as for recommending sites deserving further research.
In the late 1980s Benz founded Friends of Seagate Inc.
, which championed the preservation of the remaining portions of the large platted subdivision, Seagate, that became the estate of the Crosleys, was sold to the Horton family, and was purchased in the late 1970s for development into a club-based condominium project by the Campeau Corporation
. Although the property had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
, little protection is afforded through listing and Benz's concerns were for both historic preservation and environmental conservation. Unfortunately, the condominium market in Florida had collapsed shortly after Campeau acquired the property and the ambitious plans to use the 1929 home and auxiliary buildings as the clubhouse and headquarters of the development were never realized. Work permits were kept alive by intermittent, but unrelated and minimal construction until the corporation began to collapse. That collapse led to the demise of many of the most prestigious department stores
in America—such as Bonwit Teller
—having been acquired by the failing Federated Department Stores
division that had become part of Campeau. The Seagate property changed hands several times with several inglorious plans submitted for redevelopment that met with opposition until Friends of Seagate was founded and Benz's campaign for acquisition was begun, that resulted finally, in public acquisition. In 1990 the property was acquired by the state of Florida with a division into two portions, the bay front residence and 16 acres (64,749.8 m²) being overseen by Manatee County and the much larger, eastern portion of the property along Tamiami Trail
being overseen by New College
and University of South Florida
until their separation and the resulting development of this portion into a new campus only for the satellite, commuter campus of the university. Following the public acquisition of the property the objectives of Benz's organization were expanded to broader preservation issues involving archaeological, artistic, cultural, environmental, and historical aspects of the region.
In 2002, Benz also led Friends of Seagate Inc. in its commitment as the nonprofit environmental entity to hold land in a partnership with the Sarasota municipal government as the eligible local governmental entity, applying for a state grant for funding through the Florida Forever Program, (Florida's premier conservation and recreation lands acquisition program) amounting to $1,505,625 for acquisition of Rus In Ur'be, a large land parcel in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a neighborhood park
. The parcel includes over 11 acres (44,515.5 m²) and contained a great deal of wooded and undeveloped land, wetlands, a tennis court
, and a Sarasota School of Architecture
structure that served as a private club
house or recreation
al lounge
for a bay front home opposite it on Bay Shore Road that had been sold separately from the house and held for a long time by a developer. The clubhouse was roof
ed with glazed blue Japanese ceramic
tiles, used pecky cypress
timbers for framing
, and had expansive glass partitions along the western elevation, facing the tennis courts. The project retained its status among those not able to be included for state funding in that cycle, but was sold for private development before the next cycle began. The structure was demolished and the tennis courts destroyed, plat
s for development with single family homes were surveyed, and a private road paved through the parcel, but no structures were built prior to the downturn of the real estate market as the speculation boom of the 1990s and 2000s collapsed. Several development projects have been proposed for the parcel. The property remains undeveloped and often is identified as a likely location for a neighborhood park as other efforts continue.
led Benz to participate in community planning projects as well as the designs for the campuses of both New College and the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. She became a director of a large and active neighborhood association and assumed a leadership role in the community and many organizations related to community issues.
She was appointed as a local government official
to represent Sarasota County while serving on the federally-mandated
Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization Citizens Advisory Committee
, where she has served for many years, including as its chair, a member of its executive committee, and its delegate to the regional committee of the chairs of all local MPOs within western central Florida, encompassing eight counties, the Chairs Coordinating Committee.
The establishment of MPOs throughout the nation as an aspect of local government in the United States was mandated by congressional legislation. Depending upon the area, the governance
of an MPO may be planning for a single community, county-wide, multiple or bi-county-wide, or regional. The area of an MPO may cross other established jurisdictional lines of government. By federal law, any urbanized area with a population exceeding 50,000 is required to form an MPO to guide transportation planning in the metropolitan area. MPOs are funded by the federal government in conjunction with additional funds contributed by the state and local governments of the regions in which they are formed. The need for larger regional transportation planning co-operation has driven the establishment of additional agencies within the MPO structure, such as the Chairs Coordinating Committee, with much larger focus to draw the officials from the MPO organizations in many regions into the national effort to integrate transportation planning more effectively.
After studying the work of the road engineering expert, Michael Wallwork, in the late 1980s she initiated the examination of a new design for road intersections, the modern roundabout
, by the MPO and both county and city governments and has continued to advocate its application for the elimination of unnecessary deaths and serious injuries at conventional intersections, improving the environmental and beautification aspects of community designs, and while counter intuitively, improving congestion issues by carrying larger volumes of traffic than the conventional designs.
Decades later, the federal highway standards now support the use of true modern roundabouts and some states have begun requiring road planners to defend any proposal lacking this innovative intersection design. Insurance companies now advocate it as well, to reduce fatalities and injuries, and to prevent extensive damage to automobiles at intersection crashes.
, but some are devoted to history, biography, and historic preservation as well, featuring illustrations and details of the subject people and structures. Brochures and fliers she created on the latter topics have been distributed to encourage historic preservation and made available by local government and institutions owning the historical structures.
Other professional experience for Kafi Benz has included commercial art, graphic design
, and illustration
; marketing
, public relations
, and corporate image
development; real estate development
; medical and research publication and editing
for a Fortune-100 ethical pharmaceutical corporation, Novartis
, that now ranks third in the multinational pharmaceutical industry; technical publication and editing for a regulatory agency of the federal government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
; ghost and speech writing; and electronic engineering product development including the second generation of early personal computer
s while with Litton Industries
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
who began participation in social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is the work of social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change . While a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a...
through environmental preservation and regional planning
Regional planning
Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. The related field of urban planning deals with the specific issues of city planning...
in 1959 as a member of the Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed plans by the New York Port Authority to found a new airport in the Great Swamp, the central feature of a massive fifty-five square mile watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
in New Jersey bounded to the south and east by the Watchung Mountains
Watchung Mountains
The Watchung Mountains are a group of three long low ridges of volcanic origin, between 400 ft. and 500 ft. high, lying parallel to each other in northern New Jersey in the United States...
, twenty-five miles west of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
During the 1980s she also became very active in historic preservation
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
, founding a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, Friends of Seagate Inc., for that purpose. The organization later was expanded to include concerns for additional areas in the arts and sciences. At the same time she founded the official website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
of the sculptor Jim Gary
Jim Gary
Jim Gary was an American sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts...
. In 2001 it was moved to another website she created that may feature other artists as well, Kafi Benz Productions.
Born during 1941 in Chatham
Chatham, New Jersey
Chatham refers to two neighboring municipalities in Morris County, New Jersey – Chatham Borough and Chatham Township. The two are separate municipalities, the first a municipality that was settled in 1710 as a colonial English village in the Province of New Jersey...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, her mother was a commercial artist, graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
, and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and her father was a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
who was chief of staff
Chief of Staff
The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
at a hospital in Morristown
Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 18,411. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the...
.
Initial environmental conservation
The Jersey Jetport Site Association was a small, but effective conservation organization, circumventing the efforts of the Port Authority to replace Newark AirportNewark Liberty International Airport
Newark Liberty International Airport , first named Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport within the city limits of both Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States...
with a much larger complex farther to the west. After infiltrating meetings the powerful authority, headed by Austin J. Tobin
Austin J. Tobin
Austin Joseph Tobin served as the executive director of the Port of New York Authority, the precursor to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, from 1942 until 1972...
, held to marshal support among construction companies and unions, the members of the association distributed opposition literature and drew public attention to its efforts. Once the issue was revealed by coverage of the expulsion of four of the JJSA members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) from a meeting at a Newark hotel, the Essex House, in a local newspaper, the Newark Evening News
Newark Evening News
The Newark Evening News was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. As New Jersey's largest city, Newark played a major role in New Jersey's journalistic history. At its apex, The News was widely regarded as the newspaper of record in New Jersey. It had bureaus in Montclair,...
, greater opposition arose among the residents of the massive area that would be affected.
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is located in Morris County, New Jersey. Established in 1960, it is one of more than 550 refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System.The refuge was declared a National Natural Landmark in May 1966...
by an act of Congress
Act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States Congress or the Congress of the Philippines....
on November 3, 1960. Residents such as Geraldine R. Dodge and Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr.
Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr.
Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr. was the chairman of the board of Remington Arms Company and a member of the family associated with the Phelps Dodge Corporation. He also was president of the Y.M.C.A.-Biography:...
contributed the funds necessary to purchase the core of the swamp as the legal opposition progressed into a victory for the preservationists that led to the perpetual protection of the important natural habitat.
The initial donation of land to the federal government as a park was 2600 acres (10.5 km²). The park now consists of 7600 acres (30.8 km²) or almost 12 square miles (31.1 km²) of varied habitats. It was declared a National Natural Landmark
National Natural Landmark
The National Natural Landmark program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only natural areas program of national scope that identifies and recognizes the best examples of biological and geological features in...
in 1966 and given wilderness
Wilderness
Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...
status in 1968.
During the final period of the founding of the park, Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Lee Udall, headed the federal department which was in charge of parks. He supported the efforts of these conservationist
Conservationist
Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...
s and commented that he believed they mounted the greatest effort ever made by residents in America to protect a natural habitat.
Fine arts activities
In the late 1960s Benz became a director of the Somerset Art Association, then located in Bernardsville, New Jersey, exhibited fine artFine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
, and participated in the planning and administration of its annual competitive regional art show. The organization has been renamed as, The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), is located in Bedminster, and is noted as a regional art center with a comprehensive studio art school, professional exhibition program, and a community outreach component. Her painting and sculpture works are held in private collections in several states. Occasionally sitting as a model for sculpture classes taught at the association by Berta Margoulies (a 1946 Guggenheim fellowship recipient), many sculptures of Benz have been exhibited by these students.
At that time a friendship with sculptor Jim Gary
Jim Gary
Jim Gary was an American sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts...
developed that would lead to her representing the sculptor at many times, eventually becoming his publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
, creating and maintaining the official web site for Gary and his work and becoming the director of his studio, Jim Gary's Twentieth Century Dinosaurs, marketing and placing his works and exhibition.
When Gary died in January 2006, Benz established a memorial fund and led efforts to bring about the placement of sculptures from his traveling exhibition, as a single collection
Collection (museum)
A museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that forms the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc. This differentiates it from an archive or library, where the contents may be more paper-based, replaceable and less exhibition oriented...
in a suitable museum or institution where the sculptures in the collection would remain open to the public. By 2009 negotiations with a site in Sarasota
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...
seemed assured and much publicity ensued, through 2010. That contract was not executed, however, and negotiations were redirected successfully to a museum in Tallahassee.
In August 2011 twenty-one Gary sculptures were packed into vans and moved from Colts Neck, New Jersey for a ten-year display at the Tallahassee Museum
Tallahassee Museum
The Tallahassee Museum is a privately funded, non-profit corporation in Tallahassee, Florida.The stated purpose of the Tallahassee Museum is "to educate the residents of and visitors to the Big Bend area about the region's natural and cultural history, from the nineteenth century until the...
in Florida. When National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...
was unable to meet the schedule, Benz invited three free-lance photographers to document the preparations and complex move with videos and still photographs.
She represented painter Lee W. Hughes also, principally while he was a transparent watercolor artist, with a studio and gallery in Mendham, New Jersey
Mendham, New Jersey
Mendham is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the 2000 Census, the borough population was 5,097.While New Jersey was an English colony, Mendham Township was formed on March 29, 1749 as a new governmental entity, from portions of Hanover Township, Morris Township,...
. She also represented his wife and her longtime friend, pencil
Pencil
A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
medium artist
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
Sue Hughes (née McQuillan), while she was working out of a studio in New Jersey and later, in California.
A search committee headed by Virginia Laudano of the Art Club of Sun City Center, invited Kafi Benz to judge its thirty-sixth annual art show held during February 2003 jointly with the prominent Tampa Bay area multi-media artist, Gainor Roberts. Soon thereafter, Benz participated in a project with transparent watercolor artist, John Crawford, to publish his research of an early Renoir
Renoir
-People with the surname Renoir :* Pierre-Auguste Renoir , French painter* Pierre Renoir , French actor and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir* Jean Renoir , French film director and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir...
painting of Marie Le Coeur, that was among his art collection since its acquisition in Chicago during the 1930s. He is the namesake of the John Crawford Art Education Studio that was created after his death at SouthShore Regional Library of Hillsborough County, which now features many of his own paintings. The planned book was not published before his death.
Return to preservation
During the 1980s Benz became active in environmental and historic preservationHistoric preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
in Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...
. She joined the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, Inc. shortly after Veronica Morgan founded the organization in 1985, and has served in several positions among its officers as well as being a director of the organization over the years. Dudley E. DeGroot, Jerris Foote, and she conducted archaeological research to document historical and prehistoric aspects of two endangered properties that were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
—the El Vernona Hotel (built by Owen Burns
Owen Burns
Owen Burns was born in Fredericktown in Cecil County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was an entrepreneur, banker, builder, and land developer who at one time owned the majority of Sarasota, Florida and developed or built many of its historic structures, developments, roads, seawalls, and...
in 1925 and later renamed to John Ringling Hotel) and Seagate (a fishing retreat built for Gwendolyn and Powel Crosley in 1929) during efforts to protect the historic properties from demolition.
Toward the end of the decade, Benz participated in documentation of other archaeological and historical sites. She was cited as a special contributor to the survey of archaeological, historical, cultural, and natural resources in the coastal areas of Sarasota County that was conducted by the Florida department of environmental regulation as well as for recommending sites deserving further research.
In the late 1980s Benz founded Friends of Seagate Inc.
Friends of Seagate Inc.
Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501 nonprofit charity that is based in Sarasota, Florida in the United States...
, which championed the preservation of the remaining portions of the large platted subdivision, Seagate, that became the estate of the Crosleys, was sold to the Horton family, and was purchased in the late 1970s for development into a club-based condominium project by the Campeau Corporation
Robert Campeau
Robert Campeau is a Canadian financier and real estate developer.-Early years:His formal education ended in grade eight, at the age of 14. He talked himself into jobs at Inco as a general labourer, carpenter and machinist. In 1949 he entered the residential end of the construction business...
. Although the property had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, little protection is afforded through listing and Benz's concerns were for both historic preservation and environmental conservation. Unfortunately, the condominium market in Florida had collapsed shortly after Campeau acquired the property and the ambitious plans to use the 1929 home and auxiliary buildings as the clubhouse and headquarters of the development were never realized. Work permits were kept alive by intermittent, but unrelated and minimal construction until the corporation began to collapse. That collapse led to the demise of many of the most prestigious department stores
Allied Stores
Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company founded in 1928...
in America—such as Bonwit Teller
Bonwit Teller
Bonwit Teller was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street. In 1897 Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street, East of Sixth Avenue...
—having been acquired by the failing Federated Department Stores
Federated Department Stores
Macy's, Inc. is a department store holding company and owner of Macy's and Bloomingdale's department stores. Macy's Inc.'s stores specialize mostly in retail clothing, jewelery, watches, dinnerware, and furniture....
division that had become part of Campeau. The Seagate property changed hands several times with several inglorious plans submitted for redevelopment that met with opposition until Friends of Seagate was founded and Benz's campaign for acquisition was begun, that resulted finally, in public acquisition. In 1990 the property was acquired by the state of Florida with a division into two portions, the bay front residence and 16 acres (64,749.8 m²) being overseen by Manatee County and the much larger, eastern portion of the property along Tamiami Trail
Tamiami Trail
The Tamiami Trail is the southernmost of U.S. Highway 41 from State Road 60 in Tampa to U.S. Route 1 in Miami. The road also has the hidden designation of State Road 90....
being overseen by New College
New College of Florida
New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college located in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded originally as a private institution and is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida.-History:...
and University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
until their separation and the resulting development of this portion into a new campus only for the satellite, commuter campus of the university. Following the public acquisition of the property the objectives of Benz's organization were expanded to broader preservation issues involving archaeological, artistic, cultural, environmental, and historical aspects of the region.
In 2002, Benz also led Friends of Seagate Inc. in its commitment as the nonprofit environmental entity to hold land in a partnership with the Sarasota municipal government as the eligible local governmental entity, applying for a state grant for funding through the Florida Forever Program, (Florida's premier conservation and recreation lands acquisition program) amounting to $1,505,625 for acquisition of Rus In Ur'be, a large land parcel in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a neighborhood park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
. The parcel includes over 11 acres (44,515.5 m²) and contained a great deal of wooded and undeveloped land, wetlands, a tennis court
Tennis court
A tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...
, and a Sarasota School of Architecture
Sarasota School of Architecture
The Sarasota School of Architecture, sometimes called "Sarasota Modern," is a regional style of post-war architecture that emerged on Florida's Central West Coast...
structure that served as a private club
Club
A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...
house or recreation
Recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun"...
al lounge
Leisure
Leisure, or free time, is time spent away from business, work, and domestic chores. It is also the periods of time before or after necessary activities such as eating, sleeping and, where it is compulsory, education....
for a bay front home opposite it on Bay Shore Road that had been sold separately from the house and held for a long time by a developer. The clubhouse was roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
ed with glazed blue Japanese ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
tiles, used pecky cypress
Cypress
Cypress is the name applied to many plants in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is a conifer of northern temperate regions. Most cypress species are trees, while a few are shrubs...
timbers for framing
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
, and had expansive glass partitions along the western elevation, facing the tennis courts. The project retained its status among those not able to be included for state funding in that cycle, but was sold for private development before the next cycle began. The structure was demolished and the tennis courts destroyed, plat
Plat
A plat in the U.S. is a map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. Other English-speaking countries generally call such documents a cadastral map or plan....
s for development with single family homes were surveyed, and a private road paved through the parcel, but no structures were built prior to the downturn of the real estate market as the speculation boom of the 1990s and 2000s collapsed. Several development projects have been proposed for the parcel. The property remains undeveloped and often is identified as a likely location for a neighborhood park as other efforts continue.
Planning
Interest in regional and local planningUrban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
led Benz to participate in community planning projects as well as the designs for the campuses of both New College and the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. She became a director of a large and active neighborhood association and assumed a leadership role in the community and many organizations related to community issues.
She was appointed as a local government official
Local government in the United States
Local government in the United States is generally structured in accordance with the laws of the various individual states. Typically each state has at least two separate tiers: counties and municipalities. Some states have their counties divided into townships...
to represent Sarasota County while serving on the federally-mandated
Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization Citizens Advisory Committee
Metropolitan planning organization
A metropolitan planning organization is a federally-mandated and federally-funded transportation policy-making organization in the United States that is made up of representatives from local government and governmental transportation authorities...
, where she has served for many years, including as its chair, a member of its executive committee, and its delegate to the regional committee of the chairs of all local MPOs within western central Florida, encompassing eight counties, the Chairs Coordinating Committee.
The establishment of MPOs throughout the nation as an aspect of local government in the United States was mandated by congressional legislation. Depending upon the area, the governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
of an MPO may be planning for a single community, county-wide, multiple or bi-county-wide, or regional. The area of an MPO may cross other established jurisdictional lines of government. By federal law, any urbanized area with a population exceeding 50,000 is required to form an MPO to guide transportation planning in the metropolitan area. MPOs are funded by the federal government in conjunction with additional funds contributed by the state and local governments of the regions in which they are formed. The need for larger regional transportation planning co-operation has driven the establishment of additional agencies within the MPO structure, such as the Chairs Coordinating Committee, with much larger focus to draw the officials from the MPO organizations in many regions into the national effort to integrate transportation planning more effectively.
After studying the work of the road engineering expert, Michael Wallwork, in the late 1980s she initiated the examination of a new design for road intersections, the modern roundabout
Roundabout
A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...
, by the MPO and both county and city governments and has continued to advocate its application for the elimination of unnecessary deaths and serious injuries at conventional intersections, improving the environmental and beautification aspects of community designs, and while counter intuitively, improving congestion issues by carrying larger volumes of traffic than the conventional designs.
Decades later, the federal highway standards now support the use of true modern roundabouts and some states have begun requiring road planners to defend any proposal lacking this innovative intersection design. Insurance companies now advocate it as well, to reduce fatalities and injuries, and to prevent extensive damage to automobiles at intersection crashes.
Publications and other activities
Contributions by Benz to publications of organizations to which she has belonged include articles, design and layout, and illustrations as well as editing. She also has published privately many short stories, some of which include her own illustrations. Some have appeared in commercial media. The great majority of her published works are devoted to natural historyNatural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
, but some are devoted to history, biography, and historic preservation as well, featuring illustrations and details of the subject people and structures. Brochures and fliers she created on the latter topics have been distributed to encourage historic preservation and made available by local government and institutions owning the historical structures.
Other professional experience for Kafi Benz has included commercial art, graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, and illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
; marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
, public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
, and corporate image
Corporate image
A corporate image refers to how a corporation is perceived. It is a generally accepted image of what a company stands for. Marketing experts who use public relations and other forms of promotion to suggest a mental picture to the public...
development; real estate development
Real estate development
Real estate development, or Property Development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others...
; medical and research publication and editing
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
for a Fortune-100 ethical pharmaceutical corporation, Novartis
Novartis
Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...
, that now ranks third in the multinational pharmaceutical industry; technical publication and editing for a regulatory agency of the federal government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
; ghost and speech writing; and electronic engineering product development including the second generation of early personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s while with Litton Industries
Litton Industries
Named after inventor Charles Litton, Sr., Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States, bought by the Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2001.-History:...
.