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Former Florida rep’s service earns lifetime award
As a four-term member of the Florida House of Representatives, his last term as speaker, Schultz led successful efforts to reform Florida's government, change the way schools were funded and create a consolidated government in Jacksonville.
He served from 1979 to 1982 as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, during what he said was, until recently, the worst economic crisis since the Depression.
He played a leading role in founding some of Jacksonville's most successful civic organizations, including Leadership Jacksonville, Jacksonville Community Council Inc. and the Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership.
He led study commissions that helped reorganize Florida's public schools and community colleges.
And he enjoyed an extremely successful career as an investment banker.
But, oddly, Schultz said the happiest period of his life began about five years ago, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and told he had about six months to live.
"I thought about the things I had done well and the things that I wasn't happy about and I decided I hadn't spent enough time with my wife and children," said Schultz, who has four children and 10 grandchildren.
"He's the perfect husband now," said Nancy Schultz, his wife of 57 years. "It only took me about half-a-century to get him there."
As a young man, Schultz, who grew up in Ortega, said he was "in hard training to be the playboy of the western world."
He was in danger of failing at Princeton University until school officials sent him to spend a summer collecting garbage and working in a mine in Ontario. That gave him a new perspective, he said.
Then he met his wife, whom he married in 1951, and served as an Army officer in Korea from 1952 to 1954, receiving a Bronze Star.
By the time he returned to Florida and earned a law degree from the University of Florida, his playboy days were a memory.
After eight spectacularly successful years in the Legislature, Schultz experienced the greatest disappointment of his political career in 1970, when he ran for the U.S. Senate.
"I should have won, except Lawton [Chiles] was a better politician than I was," Schultz said, referring to the former senator and Florida governor.
Chiles, who later became a good friend, edged Schultz by about 13,000 votes to finish second in the first primary, then won the runoff and general election.
"It was terribly disappointing," Schultz said. "It may also have been the luckiest thing that ever happened in my life."
Of all his accomplishments, Schultz said, he is proudest of his work improving education in Florida.
In 1971, Gov. Reubin Askew had appointed him chairman of the Citizens Committee on Education, which, after two years of study, made 112 recommendations, 91 of which were adopted. After Chiles became governor in 1991, he put Schultz in charge of overhauling the community college system.
Schultz attributes most of his success to being "the right man in the right place."
Others say Schultz is just being typically modest.
"He put himself in the right place," former state Rep. Steve Pajcic said.
Pajcic was a promising Princeton student from the wrong side of Jacksonville's tracks when Schultz first invited him to his Ortega home.
"He treated me like a son," said Pajcic, whose 1986 run for governor was chaired by Schultz. "He knows how to touch all kinds of people. He has a sincere warmth and charm. He actually is interested in other people."
"Everywhere he has gone, he has served with dignity and honor," said Robert Shircliff, a long-time Jacksonville civic leader who will speak during tonight's dinner.
Shircliff said Schultz brings a first-rate intellect, vast knowledge, integrity and "compassion and courage" to the role of community servant.
Ben Bishop, chairman of Leadership Jacksonville's board, said that, when the board decided to make its first lifetime achievement award, "it was very clear he stood out by himself."
"This is a big deal to me," Schultz said. "I told my mother when I was 16 that I wanted to help other people. She never let me forget that ... I think God's purpose for me was to try to help my community and my country."
Schultz's cancer has recently recurred and he begins another round of chemotherapy Friday. But he said he remains optimistic - and happier than he's ever been.
"I've been an extraordinarily fortunate man," he said.