All-Time Influential David Odahowski President and CEO, Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation “Make Central Florida a better place for all of its citizens,” insisted Edyth Bassler Bush. An actress-turned-philanthropist who married 3M executive Archibald Bush in 1919, she moved permanently from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Winter Park following her husband’s death in 1966. Edyth Bush died in 1972, and for the past four decades, David Odahowski has carried forth the lofty mandate of her foundation—which distributes more than $5 million annually and has, over the years, given at least $128 million to some 920 nonprofits. Among the most notable: $750,000 toward building the Winter Park Library and Events Center, a project that was controversial in some quarters and might have faltered without the foundation’s highly influential imprimatur. Odahowski graduated from Hamline University School of Law, in (coincidentally) St. Paul, and had directed another private philanthropic organization before relocating to Winter Park. His tenure here has seen the establishment of the Bush Executive Center and the Bush Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Center, as well as renovation of the Archibald Granville Bush Science Center at Rollins College. The foundation was named by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce as the Community Organization of the Year in 2018, while Odahowski (who always deflects credit for personal kudos) was honored as the chamber’s Community Champion of the Year in 2020 and its Lydia Gardner Citizen of the Year in 2021. In 2026, the foundation will host the Florida Philanthropic Network Summit, a professional association that Odahowski helped to found. Attendees will hold their meetings at the foundation’s 17,000-square-foot, state-of-the art headquarters—known as “The Edyth”—which opened in 2022 and has created an incubator for big ideas in the heart of Winter Park. #winterparkmagazine #winterparkfl #mostinfluential