From Green Bay Packers to green energy: How an ex-NFL player built a hurricane-proof town

When Hurricane Ian slammed into Southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm in 2022, it left a trail of devastation—downed power lines, destroyed homes, and over 2.6 million people without electricity. But in the middle of the chaos, one community never lost power: Babcock Ranch, America's first solar-powered town.

The man behind this achievement is Syd Kitson, a former NFL linebacker turned real estate developer who spent decades proving that sustainable communities aren't just possible—they're practical. After playing for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, Kitson traded tackles for land development, eventually purchasing 91,000 acres in Florida with a bold vision: Build a town that works with nature, not against it.

In this episode of Plugged In: The Full Conversation, Kristina Zagame sat down with Kitson to hear the full story—from his risky elevator pitch to Florida Power & Light, to the eight hours his community spent under Hurricane Ian's eyewall without losing a single watt of power.

Kristina Zagame: So, of course, you have a very seasoned career. You went from the NFL—you played for the Packers, the Cowboys—and then became this Florida real estate mogul in sustainable development. How did you get here?

Syd Kitson: You know, I really started in college. I went to Wake Forest and probably started before that because when I was young, for many years, I used to spend quite a bit of time hiking and camping up in the Adirondacks, in the Appalachians, in the Smokies. I'd go for three weeks at a time and really developed this incredible appreciation and love of nature, of the environment.

So fast forward—when I went to Wake Forest and I was playing football there, I met a gentleman who was a real estate developer. I remember he took me all throughout Winston-Salem, and the thing that really amazed me—he talked about all these things he created, but he never talked about money. It was just the love of what he was doing.

And I remember thinking, this is exactly what I want to do. Now, of course, I get a lot of "how can you be sort of an environmentalist and be a developer?" And I think they're perfectly matched, to be honest with you, because look, we need more homes. Developers do create impacts, but we need to mitigate those impacts, and we need to prove that it can be done the right way.

So I've sort of dedicated my life to be maybe a different kind of developer, one that really respects the land, really proving that we can do these things. We can work with nature and not against nature. So that's how it started. Of course, then I played—I spent a little time in the NFL, and that really has nothing to do with real estate.

And when I came out of the NFL, what I discovered very quickly is there are not a lot of people who want to hire really big people who hit people for a living. So that wasn't sort of a really good career move after that. But I knew what I wanted to do. I had a great degree from Wake Forest and really set my mind to make it happen. And a lot of what I learned in football was very helpful in terms of never giving up, the sacrifice, the dedication, the passion—all those things that you need to be successful. And certainly being in the NFL helped me quite a bit on that.

Kristina Zagame: Oh, good. Yeah. And those years weren't wasted.

Syd Kitson: Right? That's right. For sure.

Kristina Zagame: Okay. Now on to talk about Babcock Ranch. So I'm a little familiar with it, but how would you explain this community to someone who had just never even heard of it?

Syd Kitson: Babcock Ranch is a new town that we're building in southwest Florida, and it's very different than maybe any other town that has been built, because we have set out to prove that a new town and the environment can work hand in hand. Our whole concentration is being sustainable, resilient, and innovative, and that's what we're doing.

You know, when you drive through Babcock Ranch, you'll see that it feels different. It lives different. It's kind of what you could imagine growing up in a hometown would be, but with all the modern technologies and conveniences. It's a place where we focus on being outdoors, on making it easy for people to be outdoors—everything from our trails and parks, how you can bike and hike throughout the community. It's just designed for that.

And we focus heavily on education. We have pre-K. We have K through 12. We have the Florida Wildlife Center that we're building, that's going to focus on the wildlife corridor. We have Solar Ranch, which talks about how Babcock Ranch is the first solar-powered town, and we have an education center on that. And Florida Gulf Coast University is going to be building their first of what we hope will be several buildings—a 125,000 square foot building that's going to focus on sustainability and resilience.

So Babcock Ranch is a new town we're building, but one that is very different than anything you've ever seen.

Kristina Zagame: What inspired you to want to build this whole sustainable town?

Syd Kitson: I just really wanted to prove that you could do it the right way and that we could change the world, and we could be a part of the solution.

So for many years, I have gone to conferences, and every time you go to a conference, people talk a lot about resiliency, a lot about what's going on with climate, all the issues that we're facing throughout our country. But there was a lot of talk, and we decided we sat down and said, let's do something about it. Let's prove that this can be done the right way. And of course, having that love for nature, really wanting to make certain that whatever we did was additive and didn't create issues for future generations, but really did it the right way from the beginning. And I think that mantra just became an absolute passion for us.

And you know, look, we're very fortunate to have been able to find a piece of property like Babcock Ranch. Originally, it was 91,000 acres. Think about that. That's 143 square miles, or an area five times the size of the island of Manhattan. And we then sold 73,000 acres to the state of Florida in the largest land purchase in the history of the state.

We ended up with 18,000 acres, and we're preserving half of it. So at the end of the day, 90% of the original ranch is in preservation forever. So as I said, this really became a passion for us and something we all set out to make certain that we can prove that it could be done.

Kristina Zagame: I love it, I love all of it. And I know that you had to partner with Florida Power and Light to bring the solar-powered town to fruition. And I actually read that you delivered a real-life elevator pitch in an elevator to the CEO of FPL. Can you talk about that and how you convinced them to buy in?

Syd Kitson: This is an absolutely true story. We knew we wanted it to be solar-powered. I mean, we're here in Florida. We wanted to be powered by renewable energy, and solar power was the way to go. So we knew that we couldn't do it ourselves. We needed to have the local utility take care of that, to take responsibility for that. And it was Florida Power and Light.

And I wanted to meet with the CEO of Florida Power and Light. But for some reason, he didn't want to take my call. I guess hearing from somebody saying, "Hey, I'm building a new city, a new town, and I want to talk to you about that"—I'm sure that's not something that he felt was maybe real.

So I found out that he was talking to a subcommittee up in Tallahassee—the energy subcommittee. So I hopped on our plane and flew up to Tallahassee and waited in the audience until he was finished testifying. And as he came out, and he was coming out the door of the room and heading to the elevator, I just jumped right into the elevator.

Now, unfortunately, it was just two floors I had, but I started talking and talking fast. I introduced myself. I talked about the new town we wanted to build, how big it was—20,000 homes, 6 million square feet. We wanted to be the first solar-powered town, and we could create this great partnership. And I went through that whole elevator pitch, if you will—a real one.

And when we got to the floor at the bottom floor, it was just a couple of minutes. He looked at me and he said, "Okay, I'll have somebody call you tomorrow." So now, getting to Tallahassee is a long ride. It's not so much a long flight, but there are no direct flights to Tallahassee.

So I flew back to West Palm Beach at the time. And the whole way back, I kept thinking, there's no way this is going to happen. But sure enough, the next day, I received a call from Florida Power and Light, and I met with a team of their people, and they were very enthusiastic about making this happen.

And they had a lot of other ideas that they offered to make it even better. So it went from this dream to meeting with them and hoping that we could get something going to a group of Florida Power and Light executives to make it a reality. And it was really very exciting.

Kristina Zagame: I feel like that's where your football mantra of never give up, you know, came in there.

Syd Kitson: No question about it. And when you think about it, it's 150 megawatts. That's 700,000 panels on 440 to 450 acres. So that's a lot of land. And it's beautiful to see. We have an observation tower where you can actually look out on it, and what they call Solar Ranch, which is a little education center.

Kristina Zagame: Wow. And how important do you think it is for utility companies and solar professionals to work together?

Syd Kitson: One of the things I was concerned about was if you want to be a solar-powered town, I didn't want to rely on people putting it on the rooftops because, you know, not everybody can afford it. And at least here in Florida, it can be very difficult because insurance companies don't like any kind of intrusion into the roofs. So there are so many issues associated with it.

So the utility-scale solar is what we wanted to do. And I think that landowners, communities can reach out to their local utilities and work with them. You'd be surprised. We've done so many things with Florida Power and Light to harden our community, to make it resilient to these storms. And it's proven out. But they're willing to talk. They're willing to listen. And at least in Florida Power and Light's case, they're willing to take action.

Kristina Zagame: Are there some homes within Babcock that do have their own solar panels?

Syd Kitson: Yes, there are quite a few. They have solar power generators also, battery packs and so, yeah. So a lot of people do have them here and we encourage it. It's great. I just didn't want to rely on it to be the first solar-powered town where we are directly powered by the solar energy. That's something that I wanted to make a reality. I didn't want to rely on other people to make that happen.

Kristina Zagame: You and I spoke for the first time back in 2022, after the category four Hurricane Ian really devastated most of southwest Florida. It was a really tragic storm. If I remember correctly, that storm sat over Babcock Ranch for quite a while. What was that experience like for you and for your residents?

Syd Kitson: Yeah, it's one of those events that you never forget as long as you live and never will. At the time, we had probably a little over 5,000 people living here. Today, we're closing in on about 15,000, a little bit more—maybe at the end of the year, probably closer to maybe 20,000.

But I remember when that storm, Ian, went over Cuba and entered the Gulf waters and the warm Gulf waters and just exploded into this strong category four hurricane. And originally, if you recall, it was headed to the Panhandle, and then it was going to the Big Bend, then to Tampa, and then it took a right-hand turn and headed to Fort Myers Beach.

And I can remember sitting in my home and watching the weather, and the weather person said, "Well, it's headed right for Babcock Ranch." And sure enough, that storm came and hit us. And we were on a very eastern side of the eye of the hurricane, so that's where the kind of dirty side of the storm, where you have the highest winds, that eyewall. And so that thing sat on top of us for eight hours. It was going about three miles an hour. You could walk faster. And I mean, it was moving, but the winds were absolutely mind-boggling.

We had spent so much time planning for a hurricane, wanting Babcock to be the most resilient town that's ever been built. We had engineers and planners and so many people who had really dedicated their time to make Babcock resilient, and there were so many things that were done.

But you can do all those things, but when you really get tested, that's when the rubber meets the road, if you will. That's when you find out if all that work had really happened, if you're really going to make it as resilient as we said we were going to be.

I remember I promised over 5,000 people they could shelter at home. So this thing sat on top of us. And if you've ever been through one of those, it is like a freight train running through your house. Just remarkable. And my house is out on the water, right in the middle of one of our lakes. And I was getting thrashed with waves hitting the side of the house.

The strange part about it was we never lost power, so you could watch this thing on top of us and everything that was going on around us, because the devastation was absolutely unbelievable—the loss of life, the homes destroyed. It was just catastrophic all around us.

But through this whole storm, we never lost power. But the crazy part about it was, as I was sitting there looking out of my house, because the wind was so violent, I couldn't really see anything. So I really didn't know what was going on in the town. It wasn't until the next morning when I hopped in my truck and started driving around. I drove around for about five hours all over Babcock Ranch, and we had little to no damage. And everything that we had worked on, everything that we had done to plan for this had worked.

And it just really proved out that if you do the right thing and if you think ahead of time of what needs to be done, that you can be very successful. Now, there's nothing that is foolproof. Nature is—you can't challenge nature that way. And we understand that. And I don't want it to sound like it is foolproof. But what we've proven is that we can handle very strong hurricanes and that we're not going to flood. And that when you work in partnerships like with Florida Power and Light and others, that you can be resilient enough to get through these storms.

Kristina Zagame: You said that there was no loss of power. Is that due to all of the battery storage?

Syd Kitson: You know, I've been asked that question a lot of times. And the answer is they actually never had to use the battery storage. It was there, ready to be deployed, but it didn't have to be used. And the reason is, at Babcock Ranch, everything is underground. And that's not so unusual. I think a lot of places are doing that now.

But our entire town, all utilities are buried, including water, sewer, which we own and hardened that also. So we never lost water service throughout the entire event. But also, Florida Power and Light gave us a redundant system with a redundancy of the transformers. We have additional switches, so it's self-healing if, in fact, there was a problem.

But the thing they really did was they hardened all the infrastructure coming into Babcock Ranch. They have these concrete poles that carry electricity from all over the state that comes in directly to Babcock Ranch, right into the substation and then feeds to our town.

So in order for us to actually have lost power, even if there was a lightning strike—we had the redundancy within the system to handle that—the poles would have had to have come down. These are built to handle strong category four hurricanes. So the battery storage that we had—we had 10 megawatts of battery storage—never had to be deployed because we were receiving electricity from all over the state.

Kristina Zagame: Wow. So there were no grid outages—like the grid outages that were around you did not affect the electricity coming in?

Syd Kitson: Electricity was out all over southwest Florida, all around us. Electricity was out. Neighbors right across the road did not have electricity. But that was because we were receiving electricity from other parts of the state, whereas that had not been in place yet in other parts of southwest Florida.

I do think, though, that a lot of that is being done. Unfortunately, a lot of the power lines in these towns are still above ground, and that is problematic for a lot of these locations.

Kristina Zagame: Yeah. And of course, hurricanes and severe weather events aren't really going anywhere. And they seem to be getting more and more frequent, more and more severe. What is your advice to government leaders or other developers like yourself who are looking to build more resilient communities that might not know where to even start?

Syd Kitson: You know, I think one of the things we did from the very beginning was when we had the land, we took a look at the land and found the natural flowways. And it's hard to really determine that. So we had to go back to maps from the 1940s to actually find these natural flowways. So what we determined right from the get-go was we're not going to build there, because that's where the water is going to go in these big rain events.

And that served us very well. We saved as many wetlands as possible. But if you drive into Babcock Ranch, you'll see it feels different because we have these large areas of preserved areas that are wetlands, and they store a tremendous amount of water. And then we mitigated a lot of the wetland areas that needed help.

We also put in a smart stormwater system, and that works incredibly well. It can anticipate storms and can lower the ponds to give more capacity. And all the ponds are interconnected, so we can move water around the entire community. And it's big. I mean, we're talking 18,000 acres where we're moving this water around.

But what I told many existing communities—because that's where it is really difficult—if you're building a community from the ground up with a blank sheet of paper, you can do it the right way if you want to. And you need to focus on those things that are important. But we also know that there are a lot of towns that have legacy infrastructure issues that they're dealing with.

And look, you've got to start somewhere. Talk to your local utility and start to invest in hardening your infrastructure. Be very thoughtful about where you allow homes to be built. If it's in low-lying areas, in watersheds, in those basins that can create a problem—just don't build there. I know that sounds easy, but that's what we've done and that's what we need to start thinking about as we move forward.

Let's not build in those high-risk areas and be thoughtful about that. But really, the key is to get started somewhere. When you have these legacy infrastructure issues, like I said, meet with your local utility, get started on something. Because I got to say, 10, 20, 30 years from now, your kids and your great-grandkids are going to be very happy you did.

Kristina Zagame: You keep saying Florida Power and Light really worked hard on hardening the infrastructure. What exactly does this mean, and what needs to change in how utilities approach storm preparation and resiliency?

Syd Kitson: Well, a lot of the power lines that you see throughout the country—a lot of them are wood. And that's not necessarily a problem, but it's where they're located with high vegetation areas. And a lot of these power lines come down because of trees that have fallen on top of them.

It's things like that that you really need to think through. And then creating a redundant system. So if the power does go out, you can have a self-healing power system and power grid, if you will, that can provide electricity in multiple ways. We have our solar energy, but we also can draw energy from throughout the entire state of Florida. And that really makes it extremely resilient and allowed us to survive a strong category four hurricane.

Kristina Zagame: And now, obviously, we all wish that Hurricane Ian events like these didn't happen. But do you think it strengthened the doubters' belief in Babcock's model? And how important was it for you to have that proof-of-concept moment?

Syd Kitson: I remember during the storm, I remember thinking, this is going to make or break us. It was either we're going to prove it, and then people would want to know how we did it, or people are going to say, "See, it really doesn't work. There's nothing you can do. It's a waste of money, waste of time."

And because we proved that it works, I do believe that others have opened their eyes to it. We've proven that it's a good economic model. It makes sense financially to do it the right way. And I think insurance companies are opening their eyes to what we've done. And they've said, "Okay, this is an opportunity, if people will do it on more of a global scale."

I also would say, I hope people look at what we've done at Babcock Ranch and say, "We're going to either copy it or do better." I think people can improve on what we're doing, and I hope that happens. How great would that be? So that this kind of builds on itself as people look and say, "You know what, let's try something different," because there are going to be different solutions in different parts of the country. And we need to be thoughtful about that also.

Kristina Zagame: Definitely. How do you respond to the critics who say that solar communities like Babcock are only viable for wealthy residents? And how do you make the model more accessible to more Americans?

Syd Kitson: Well, if you come to Babcock Ranch, we can prove that our homes are priced starting in the $200,000s. We even have workforce housing here. We're building more of it. The price points go from in the $200,000s up to over a million, highly concentrated in that $400,000 to $600,000 range and a lot in the $250,000 to $300,000 price range.

So if you want to buy a home, you can buy it here at Babcock Ranch. And we have all housing types. We have single-family homes. We have condominiums, townhouses, small lot, large lot. We have an apartment complex. We have rental homes, pretty much every type of housing you could imagine.

So it's a myth, in my view, that says if you want to be powered by solar energy, you want to be resilient, you want to be sustainable, that it costs more money. It really doesn't. And the payoff is huge.

Kristina Zagame: Finances aside, not everyone in America can obviously move to Babcock Ranch. What do you hope that people listening to this right now can take away from your community and apply to their own homes and living situations?

Syd Kitson: That's such a great question. I think that when you have an opportunity to improve your home, just think about doing it the right way. There's a little more cost, maybe in hurricane glass, if you will, for your windows. But it's not a lot of money to be able to tie your house, your roof down properly, use certain types of nails, or just little things that can actually make your home more resilient to the elements.

If you're going to buy a home, I would recommend really studying where you're actually buying your home. Where is it located? And be thoughtful about what the risks are, whether it be nearby waterways or if you happen to be in a flood zone or whatever it is. Just really be thoughtful and do your homework when you're looking to buy a home.

And as I said, there are things that you can do to make your home more efficient, to save money, and to endure, and to really be thoughtful about those things within your household.

Kristina Zagame: So I'm curious—for Babcock, is there a reason why you chose solar energy and battery storage as opposed to trying to figure out wind or hydro or another sort of energy source?

Syd Kitson: You know, we looked at all those. We even looked at geothermal. I'd done geothermal energy up in the northeast, and it was pretty successful. It worked well. We studied all those. We even studied the wind patterns to see if that would make sense. But none of it did. Florida is the Sunshine State, so it became a little bit obvious what the best form of renewable energy was for us to use.