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CEA Group (“CEA”) announced today John Parke Wright IV, a renowned global expert and entrepreneur has joined CEA’s Advisory Board as Senior Advisor – International.
Mr. Wright is a 6th generation Floridian whose ancestors pioneered trade between, Scotland, Spain, Cuba and the United States from the 1850s onwards. He is one of the great-great grandsons of Dr. H.T. Lykes, who, with Captain James McKay established the trade of cattle and general cargo from Tampa to Havana. This trade flourished and led to the formation of the Lykes Bros (lykes.com), a steamship company, which expanded to all of the other U.S. Gulf ports and around the world. Mr. Wright joined Jardine, Matheson & Company of Hong Kong and China in 1972 and is credited with re-opening shipping for Lykes Lines and trade between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China. In 1981 he returned to the U.S. to join Lykes Bros. Inc. of Tampa as Vice President for Corporate Planning. He also became Chairman of the Northeast Bank of Clearwater at the time, one of several banks that became the then First Florida Bank Group, and now Bank of America.