Featured Speaker for May 10th Meeting:
Liston Bochette III
Ward 4 Council Member
Liston “Lin” Bochette is a five-time Olympic Athlete, internationally recognized artist and civic leader.
Councilman Bochette served on the Community Redevelopment Agency Board and in 2018 was appointed to the Fort Myers City Council by Mayor Randall P. Henderson to complete the term of a retiring councilperson. He was elected to represent Ward 4 again in November 2020.
Bochette received his B.F.A from the University of Florida, then went on to complete his M.A from InterAmerican University, and Ph.D. from Pacific Western University.
Councilman Bochette has been a delegate to the White House for Olympic Affairs. Over the years, he worked closely with Olympic bid and host cities around the world as a senior advisor on management, budget, transportation, housing, security, infrastructure, and programing. He has been responsible for multi-million dollar budgets and complex work forces.
Bochette was elected to serve two terms as the Secretary General to the World Olympians Association, overseeing 200 national bodies with over 100,000 members. Additionally, he served as President of the Pan American Olympians Association, and sat on the Athletes’ Commissions of the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympians.
Bochette won the Decathlon at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Havana, Cuba in 1982 and was presented with a Gold Medal in the arts by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch during the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Bochette was inducted into the University of Florida Hall of Fame in 2008, the State of Florida Track Hall of Fame 1998, and received meritorious citations from the Senate of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, and was the USSA International Sport Artist of the year in 1996.
He served on the United States Sports Academy Board of Trustees and the University of Florida College of Fine Arts Advisory Board. He is the co-founder along with Al Oerter of the Art of the Olympians Museum, and was appointed Chairman of the American Sports Museum and Archives in Daphne, Alabama.