Ex-CFO Atwater joins Ballard Partners

August 24, 2020

NSF Staff

Former state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, who left office early in 2017 to take a job at Florida Atlantic University, is joining the Ballard Partners lobbying firm. Atwater will run the firm’s new Financial Services Group, the firm said in a news release. “Jeff Atwater has one of the most distinguished records in public service in the history of our great state, having served in the Florida House, Florida Senate, as CFO, and as a senior executive in one of Florida’s top public universities,” Brian Ballard, the firm’s president and founder, said in a statement. Ballard, whose firm’s offices stretch from Tallahassee to Washington, has close ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump. Atwater announced last month he was stepping down as vice president and chief financial officer of the Boca Raton-based university. Atwater, a banker who started his political career on the North Palm Beach Village Council in 1993, was elected to the state House in 2000 and moved to the Senate in 2002. He served as Senate president for the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions. He was elected state chief financial officer in 2010 and re-elected four years later.