Top 10 High Paying Jobs in Brevard County, Florida

Brevard County, Florida is named by Forbes.com/Forbes Magazine as the worst place for employment and the very best place to retire in America. However, I have found increasing numbers of jobs in Brevard County in Healthcare, IT, and positions related to the Aerospace Industry, the US Mission to Mars, and privatized space flight. Renewable Energy jobs are in creation from out of Melbourne FL in the form of solar farms across the Southeast and near Brevard County.

The federal and local governments as well as contractors and various commerical concerns are serious about advancing the role of space flight in America's future and new businesses and jobs are emerging based on this intent. The cities and towns of Brevard County are good for all stages of life and work.

When the US Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it awarded funding to US states and counties, in including Brevard County, for a variety of purposes.

Major goals of recovery and stimulus included:

• Creation of new jobs
• Induction of new economic activity and growth
• Demands for new accountability and transparency in government spending

Economic Stimulus money found its way to Florida and Brevard County and interestingly, enough Ohioans have moved to Florida to reduce the number of US congressional seats warranted in Ohio in 2011. Migrants are not all retirees, either, but a large proportion are mid-careerists and younger families or individuals. This movement to Florida is true even though Ohio operates and expands its own Space Corridor in the southwest wedge of the state from Cincinnati to through West Chester, Dayton, Fairborn, and the cities in between. Brevard County is growing space-age jobs faster than Ohio.

Ohio operates the Ohio Space Corridor in the entire southwestern wedge of the state, but many Ohioans have chosen the private and public sector aerospace manufacturing and IT jobs in Florida. Overlayed upon this corridor is the Dayton-Fairborn Aviation HIstory Trail, marking the history of aviation and aerospace flight in Ohio and supporting businesses from the very beginning of the 20th Century. Still, space-age jobs call job seekers from Ohio to Florida and other southern points.

• Cape Canaveral
• Cocoa and Cocoa Beach
• Melbourne - National Solar Power plans a $1.5 billion renewable energy project in nearby counties. Solar farms are a specialty that the company is spreading across the Southeastern USA.
• Palm Bay
• Titusville - This is the county seat and prominent in Kennedy Space Center and NASA activities
• West Melbourne

NASA Projects After the Space Shuttle

Click edit above to add content to this empty capsule.

• State Pledges $7M for SpaceX to Expand Cape Facilities

  State funding will help SpaceX expand Cape Canaveral facilities so it can launch more frequently in the next few years.

• GRAIL Launch9/2011 - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B - completed their final inspections and were weighed one final time at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Fla., on Tuesday.

• Employ Florida databases showed 6,400 jobs open in Brevard County in August 2011. At the same time, Internet giants SimplyHired and Indeed job search and trending engines showed 8,900+ when nearby Orlando was added to the market area. Orlando is only about 30-35 miles west of Brevard County.
• The highest demand/highest paying jobs are (Note that IT jobs at #'s 4-7 will be in Healthcare, Aerospace, and Govt.):

1. Registered Nurses - RNs, including Travel Nurses - Protected high demand through 2016. Average annually salary $65,000+ in 2010.
2. Occupational Therapists
3. Physical Therapists
4. Software Engineers - Average advertised salary over $84,000
5. Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts and Engineers - Avg. salaries over $128,000
6. Computer Programmers
7. Systems Engineers, Project Engineers, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers - many of these are in Melbourne
8. Sales Reps, Salespeople and Sales Supervisors - Sales Reps are highest-paid in this category
9. Event Specialists
10. Dental Assistants

Additional High Demand Jobs

1. Assistant Managers
2. Administrative Assts
3. Physicians - Over $200,000 salary. See Concierge Medicine below.
4. Public Health Officers
5. Teachers K-5 are projected to be in high demand also through 2016, because of the influx of population to Brevard County.

1. Harris Corporation
2. Siemens
3. GE Energy and GE Transportation
4. Piper Aircraft
5. Rockwell Collins
6. Mainstream Engineering
7. Hewlitt Packard
8. Superior Technical Resources
9. Northrop Grumman
10. Lockheed Martin Corporation
11. Yoh
12. L-3 Communications
13. General Dynamics
14. Raytheon
15. Aurora Flight Sciences

Because of the uptick in Medical Tourism in Florida and other states known for travel and retirement living, the rise of Concierge Medicine in Brevard County is adding to the local economy. It is pursuring Aerospace in its contribution to that economy with the growth of Healthcare overall in Brevard cities and towns. This is a system in which a family or individual pays an up front access fee for continuing physician access, many reporting the fee to be $1500 per year ($125/month). In return, physicians are able to spend more time with patients and report offering better care. Concierge Medicine is joined by increases in Cosmetic Surgery, hair removal and other skin care services like laser care, and related medical and quasi-medical businesses in Brevard County.

In addition to the medical services above that can be termed "luxury medicine", Brevard County also operates a walk-in clinic with reasonable fees and discounts:

Community Walk-In Clinic
2105 Palm Bay Road NE #1-W (southern part of the county)
Palm Bay, FL 32905; Phone 321-327-5910

Space Coast Area Transit or SCAT provides some of the best transportation and programs on the Eastern Seaboard, increasing the mobility of the population, including youth. If youth work and ride a bike, they can use SCAT free-of-charge when they show their Brevard County Library Card. This saves time and money from a young person's budget and schedule. It also saves the environment by providing easily affordable mass transit all through the summer months, up to the beginning of the school year. Using the library card for transportation remind students to keep reading during summer months in order to prevent learning loss and to experience the fun and excitment of good reading materials, from graphic novels to classics.

All Brevard County students from all school systems can ride their bikes to a bus stop, load bikes on the bike rack at the front of the bus, and retrieve it when they get off at their destination. Even surfboards can be stowed if enough space is available.Students can bus to the beach with their boards and back again, rather than to stay in the house or roam the streets.

I have another idea - take a mobile library bus to the beach. Students and adults might like to read something while they are having refreshments between water activities throughout the year.