David Silvers Sits Down With Tribune Staff, Talks 2014 Elections
A native Floridian who was born in Miami Beach, and raised in Boca Raton, David Silvers is currently running for the State Representative seat in District 89.
Silvers lived a big chunk of his young life between East and West Boca, “My temple was in East Boca, yet I lived in West Boca,” remembers Silvers about his early days in Boca Raton.
As a teenager, Silvers attended the University of Florida where he graduated with a degree in economics. Silvers then furthered his education by attending the University of Miami and received a Law Degree and an MBA in financing.
“I grew up my whole life a Miami Hurricanes fan,” jokes Silvers. “In fact, my first game I went to as a kid was the 1983 National Championship Game.”
Upon graduating the University of Miami, Silvers was offered a job in a Venture Capital firm in Miami, however Silvers decided to turn down the job to work for his family’s local cable company in Port Saint Lucie, Hometown Cable.
Silvers moved up to West Palm and began working in the family business. He was very successful; he grew a company from 10 full-time employees to 50 in just two short years.
“They needed someone who they could trust,” explains Silvers. “The general manager at the time was a disaster.”
Around 2007, Silvers began realizing he was losing recruits for his company and upon finding the reason; he made it his goal to champion the issue in Tallahassee.
“I’ve seen first-hand how our school systems affects our abilities to attract and retain high caliber work forces from outside the state,” explained Silvers. “I lost recruit after recruit to fill these managerial positions, with families who all had the same issues: Schools.”
“The answer many would give was that they refused to come down to Florida and put their kids in our public school system,” continued Silvers.
“I want to change that,” Silvers added. “And I want to make sure kids have every opportunity to succeed in a global economy. That’s really why I’m running is education. I have a friend who has a son in Boca Raton High, one of the best high schools in the country. … And they told him he can’t bring his math book home because they don’t have enough. If that’s an A school, what’s a B school look like?”
In 2009 Silvers joined his family’s other business, movietickets.com, where he ran the International Division of the company. When he arrived, movietickets.com only distributed tickets to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
Silvers expanded their ticket distribution to countries like Spain, Argentina, Chile, Bahamas, Mexico, and others.
Silvers currently runs Tekno Books, a book-licensing firm that is a subsidiary of Hollywood Media, run by his mother, Laurie Silvers, and stepfather, Mitchell Rubenstein. Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers co-founded the Sci-Fi Channel in 1989 and sold it to USA Network in 1992.
According to The Sun Sentinel, Silvers’ opponent, two-term incumbent Bill Hager, says he should be re-elected in part, because of the job he’s done when people in his district have come to him with their problems.
However, Silvers sees it differently.
“I looked at the district, I looked who is currently in the seat and I noticed he wasn’t on track in leadership, he wasn’t getting many bills passed, his biggest issue is insurance, and it’s a coastal district and insurance rates aren’t going down,” explained Silvers. “This guy is not the right fit for this district.”
The race for the District 89 seat is going to be a tight one. And both Hager and Silvers are ready for the challenge.
