KEY WEST, Fla. — John R. Padget, an international businessman who became one of the Florida Keys’ most consequential education advocates and philanthropists, serving as Monroe County schools superintendent and vice chairman of the Florida State Board of Education while pouring millions of dollars and decades of work into programs for local students, has died.
Born in Tully, New York on Jan. 28, 1937. He was four months shy of his 90th year.
Padget passed away Tuesday evening at Lower Keys Regional Medical Center following a massive heart attack. Long-time friend, collaborator and philanthropist Bryan Green at his side.
“John spent all day Sunday in Marathon meeting and talking to all the Take Stock students who had just returned from overseas travel and studies at Georgetown and UCLA all funded by his foundation, Golden Fleece,” Green told Above the Fold. “He spoke passionately about creating a pathway of travel, study and entrepreneurship programs being launched this year.”
Padgett was preceded in death by his lifelong partner and business collaborator, Jacob Gelt Dekker, in 2019. A celebration is planned on what would have been his 90th bday in January.
For nearly three decades, Padget was a familiar presence in Key West civic and education circles, using wealth accumulated during an international business career to create scholarships, career training programs and incentives for students from Key West to Key Largo.
His influence was perhaps most visible in Monroe County classrooms.
Padget brought the Take Stock in Children scholarship program to the Florida Keys in 1998, challenging a gathering at Key West’s Casa Marina to establish the statewide program locally and backing the effort with matching money from his philanthropy. The program pairs economically disadvantaged students with mentors and promises college scholarships to participants who remain in school, maintain their grades and stay out of trouble.
More than two decades later, the Monroe County Education Foundation continued to describe Take Stock as its flagship program. Padget remained listed in 2026 state corporate records as the foundation’s president emeritus.
His philosophy was summarized in a short statement posted with his Education Foundation biography: “Empowering Monroe’s students to break out of their previously predictable paradigms.”
Padget later founded Monroe COMPUTE$, funded through the Golden Fleece Foundation he created with his longtime partner, Dutch entrepreneur Jacob Gelt Dekker. The program paid students cash incentives for earning computer, technology and industry certifications.
When the initiative began, Monroe County students earned 82 industry certifications. Within several years, that number had climbed above 700 annually, according to district officials. The program expanded beyond Microsoft certification to Adobe, Autodesk, QuickBooks and other technical credentials.
By 2022, Monroe COMPUTE$ had pledged more than $100,000 in student incentives, with individual awards ranging from $50 to $500. A companion program, Monroe SKILL$, expanded the concept to career and technical education outside information technology.
His involvement continued late into his life. In 2025, Monroe County school officials again publicly credited Padget and the Golden Fleece Foundation with supporting technology education and career certification programs. Teachers said the incentives had encouraged students to enroll in technical courses and in some cases helped prepare them for jobs directly out of high school.
Padget also directed foundation money toward automotive and marine mechanics training and an initiative intended to increase the number of Black educators working in Monroe County schools.
His formal tenure running the school district was comparatively brief.
Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Padget Monroe County superintendent in 2003 after Superintendent Mike Lannon resigned. State Senate records show Padget served from July 2003 until November 2004. He subsequently sought a full term but lost the 2004 general election to Randy Acevedo.
During that period, Padget became involved in a proposed redevelopment of the historic Harris School on Southard Street. A later account said Padget helped negotiate a proposal for the Rodel Foundation to acquire the deteriorating property for about $6 million and commit another roughly $6 million to restoration, with plans involving arts uses and housing. The proposal disappeared after the change in school leadership, and the School Board later sold the property to another buyer for less.
Padget’s education work eventually took him from the Keys to Tallahassee.
He was appointed to the Florida State Board of Education in 2009 and confirmed by the Florida Senate in 2010. Gov. Rick Scott reappointed him in 2013, and the Senate confirmed him for a term through Dec. 31, 2016. His fellow board members elected him vice chairman in May 2013.
Then-Education Commissioner Tony Bennett said at the time that Padget had demonstrated a commitment to student achievement and to building relationships between schools and businesses.
Padget was an advocate of charter schools and career-oriented education. In 2012, while serving on the state board, he visited Sigsbee Charter School and Key West Collegiate High School as part of National Charter School Week.
In 2016, amid prolonged academic problems in Jefferson County, Padget publicly suggested state officials consider converting the entire school district to charter schools. Jefferson County subsequently became the first Florida district to turn operation of all its traditional public schools over to a charter operator.
His government service also included the Lower Florida Keys Hospital District. State records show Padget served on the public hospital district from 2009 through 2012. He also served as a trustee of Florida State University’s LeRoy Collins Institute and on the board of the University of Florida’s Askew Institute.
Long before those roles, Padget built an international business career.
He graduated from Cornell University in 1958 after studying agricultural engineering. Contemporary Cornell fraternity records list his hometown as Tully, New York, and show a college career that included the crew program, Big Red Band, engineering organizations and fraternity leadership. He later earned a graduate degree from Cornell and an MBA from Harvard University.
Padget served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1966, according to records compiled by the Florida Senate during consideration of his state appointment.
He went on to found Padget Associates B.V., a private-equity investment company based in Amsterdam, and spent much of his business career in Europe.
With Dekker, Padget built and invested in businesses ranging from car rentals and automotive service centers to one-hour photo processing, fitness clubs, cosmetics, licensing and mobile-phone retailing.
The pair were associated with European operations of Budget Rent A Car, One Hour Photo Shops and Kwik-Fit automotive centers before eventually leaving active business life. A 1999 Cornell fraternity publication described Padget as a semi-retired venture capitalist splitting his time between Amsterdam and Florida.
A Dutch business profile credited the partnership with dramatically expanding a Budget Rent A Car operation in Europe before its eventual sale and described Padget as the more grounded business counterweight to Dekker’s entrepreneurial instincts.
Their partnership extended far beyond business.
Padget and Dekker became major philanthropists in the Netherlands, Curaçao and the United States. In Curaçao they helped finance the ambitious Kura Hulanda project in Willemstad’s historic Otrobanda district, where deteriorating buildings were restored as part of a hotel, museum and heritage complex focused in part on the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
In 2006, the Netherland-America Foundation honored Padget and Dekker as “venture philanthropists” for their work strengthening ties between the United States and the Netherlands.
Their philanthropy continued through the Golden Fleece Foundation. In 2017 they helped establish the Dekker-Padget Dutch2USA Internship Program, providing Dutch students opportunities to work and study in the United States. The Netherland-America Foundation reported that Golden Fleece contributed at least $250,000 to its programs in 2023, and the internship initiative was being expanded again in 2026.
Padget’s influence in Key West extended beyond education.
Beginning around 1998, neighborhood meetings were regularly held at homes along Frances Street, including Padget’s. Those informal gatherings brought together residents, city commissioners and other civic leaders to discuss neighborhood and citywide issues.
The meetings eventually helped produce the Key West Neighborhood Association, with Padget among those Hometown! Key West credits with playing a major role in its formation. The organization became part of the foundation for Hometown’s long-running candidate forums and civic-engagement efforts.
Padget and Dekker continued hosting Frances Street neighborhood meetings at their home for years, with discussions ranging from city government and school taxes to public health and preservation of the Key West Cemetery.
In 2017, the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys selected Padget as the inaugural individual recipient of its Partners in Paradise Award, recognizing him as an entrepreneur, education advocate and philanthropist whose work had significantly affected the Keys.
His philanthropy continued largely through institutions rather than a single building or monument bearing his name.
Generations of Keys students instead encountered it in scholarship contracts, mentors, technology classes, certification exams, automotive programs and the checks or gift cards waiting when they passed.
Plans had not been announced.
This is an evolving story. Watch this space.