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When Tom Griffin first encountered Keaton Alexander six years in the past, his wingman was a canine.
As Keaton tells it, she was at The Governors Membership and somebody had introduced a canine. “Which may be very uncommon, however I’m an enormous canine individual. … And it being a Friday, and later within the night time, I sat down and began petting the canine on the bottom such as you do. I feel Tom simply appreciated that I used to be the true me and will simply, be at night time in a office and simply benefit from the canine that I used to be having fun with.”
It made an impression and a pair weeks later, again on the GovClub, he launched himself — within the strangest approach doable. Seems, Tom had recognized Keaton’s sister, Britton Grimes, by means of work for years. So his opening gambit was to speak to her about her sister.
“He didn’t give me his title. So I needed to chase down his title. Determine who he was,” Keaton says. “The group of women I used to be with didn’t know. So all of us did just a little reconnaissance.”
Issues bought sorted out, and a primary date occurred (skip to the tip of the story for an entire obtain), and the lobbyists joined their lives — and their enterprise — by getting married in 2022 and beginning their very own agency, The Griffin Group. Every introduced their ebook of enterprise to the partnership and so they have added one other group member, Principal Robyn Metcalf Clean.
Simply to maintain issues hopping, they added one other member to their household final September, daughter Breit Eleanor Griffin. She stunned her mother and father by making her look a month early however with none issues. “It’s been an journey, to say the least, however I feel she, we’ve gotten right into a groove. I feel we’ve figured it out. Not figured all of it out, however found out how you can juggle it collectively,” Keaton explains.
The Griffins cut up their time between workplaces and houses in Lakeland and Tallahassee, and the infant travels with them.
Keaton has a powerful political pedigree. Her father is JD Alexander, a former state Senator instrumental in establishing Florida Polytechnic College in Lakeland. Ben Hill Griffin Jr., her great-grandfather, was a member of the Legislature for 12 years. His generosity to his alma mater, the College of Florida, led to the soccer stadium being named in his honor. Her great-great-grandfather, Napoleon Broward, was Florida’s governor from 1905 to 1909.
Whereas politics was in her blood, Keaton had a level in dance. After accidents and deciding “being a ravenous artist in all probability wasn’t for me,” she pivoted to The Course of. “I appreciated politics” which, like dance, she says, is “only a bunch of fancy footwork.”
“And so I turned a loopy lobbyist. It’s been enjoyable. I nonetheless do some group theater work right here and there and substitute educate dance courses and stuff like that.”
The truth that Tom’s final title is similar as Keaton’s kinfolk is “pure coincidence,” he says. “Though Keaton’s grandmother, Sarah Jane Alexander (daughter of Ben Hill Griffin) was very involved in regards to the final title initially. I consider she withheld approval of the connection till we confirmed the Griffin bloodlines had been sufficiently forked.” Tom attended Florida State College however pulls for the Gators each sport besides that one on Thanksgiving weekend. At one-month-old, Breit attended her first Florida-Florida State sport within the Swamp.
Tom was steeped in politics rising up outdoors Washington, D.C. His mother and father weren’t concerned, however many family and friends had been concerned within the authorities. “It’s an organization city, identical to Tallahassee, simply on a bigger scale,” he says.
His mom labored in drama her complete life. “So we sort of grew up in that world as properly,” he says. “I feel Keaton and I bonded over that early on.”
The Griffins’ Sine Die custom began on their first date at — the place else? — The Governors Membership. They made their technique to the bar — together with half the legislators and lobbyists in Tallahassee.
“If we had been searching for a refined and discreet technique to have a primary date, that couldn’t have been a extra inappropriate method to that technique,” Tom says. “The phrase was out that possibly we had been on a date. So yearly we’ve got a drink on the Governor’s Membership on Sine Die. It doesn’t matter once they gavel out. Final 12 months, as an example, they gaveled out within the morning, so we had a cup of espresso collectively.”
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