Photographed by Carina Mask at IPIC Delray Beach
Beneath the cufflinks, watches, ties, and pocket squares are stories of advocacy, service, and mentorship. Meet three men of Boca Raton who had big plans for their future—and instead found a path that was greater than they could have ever imagined.
The Connector: Jay Brandt
It wasn’t Jay Brandt’s first awards ceremony with the George Snow Scholarship Fund. As the nonprofit’s vice president of development since 2023, he’s been through multiple rounds of presenting hundreds of deserving Palm Beach and Broward students with college scholarships.
But this summer, the ceremony was different. One student, Nicole Novodvorets, was receiving the Mayra Brandt Memorial Scholarship—the inaugural presentation of this scholarship, named for Brandt’s late wife. Onstage, he presented Nicole with the scholarship; she’ll be attending Nova Southeastern University as a pre-med student, and, like Mayra, she is a graduate of Spanish River High School. “It was amazing,” Brandt says. “Very emotional, but she was so sweet. … It meant a lot to me, and I know we’re going to stay in touch.”
His time at the Fund is a continuation of his path as a servant leader. During our interview, half of his office was stacked with duffle bag Scholar Packs, filled with school supplies, comfort items like blankets and socks, a toiletry kit and shower caddy, dental kits, and other necessities for college.
“I’ve always wanted to have a career that is impactful, and I knew education was that foundation,” Brandt says. “We look at all of these kids, and they have such potential, and just need that little bit to just push them over the edge and get them going.”
Born and raised in Bay City, Mich., Brandt moved to Boca Raton in the middle of his sophomore year, when his dad—who worked for a pager company—was transferred here. He came “kicking and screaming,” he says, but luckily, it was the start of baseball season at Saint John Paul II Academy, and Brandt made the team and found lifelong friends as well. He continued playing baseball at Lynn University for four years, namely middle relief and spot pitching. After elbow surgery, he did a fifth year with the Fighting Knights and earned his master’s degree.
He followed in his father’s footsteps and went into sales at VoiceStream after graduation, a company that would later be acquired by T-Mobile. While he was successful in the business, it wasn’t gratifying—he wanted to find a path that was less transactional. “I think we’re all on a mission to help other people. And so, for me, I’ve always had to work with places or for places that are meaningful and have a beautiful mission of helping others,” Brandt says.
As a member of the Lynn Alumni Association Board, he was encouraged to apply for the school’s Director of Major Gifts. He held that role for 15 years, then went on to serve as executive director at St. Jude Catholic Church & School, where he managed marketing, fundraising, and personnel. “Even though they’re very different, from a university setting to a church setting to this, it’s all relationship-based,” Brandt says.
Alongside Lynn University President Kevin Ross, he’s also a member of the band Wolfhawk. Throughout the year, the band plays fundraisers as well as gigs such as Celebration of the Arts and the Boca Raton Bowl.
Brandt maybe didn’t realize it, but there were signs that he would end up at George Snow. He first met Tim Snow, the son of the nonprofit’s namesake, through Leadership Boca in 2003, and in 2020, Brandt volunteered as a scholarship reviewer after his nephew received a scholarship; it helped him see firsthand how a deserving student with no financial means could be given a chance through the scholarship. In 2022, Brandt took to the dance floor as a competitor in the nonprofit’s annual Boca’s Ballroom Battle. “I’m pretty sure I was the last one they chose, but anyways, I was honored to do that,” he laughs. “Going through that process, it kind of rekindled my interest with George Snow, and Tim was talking about never having a development professional on staff. He had kind of been doing everything and kind of joked that he hates asking for money, and so we started talking.”
By marrying his sales skills with relationship building, Brandt has been able to help area nonprofits grow. “I have no problem asking [for money] because I’m not asking for me,” he explains. “Like if I was asking you for money for myself, I’d have a huge issue with it. But I’m asking for a cause that I believe in.”
While he was earning his master’s degree, he worked as a bartender at TGI Friday’s (a skill he’s revived for fundraisers such as the Junior League of Boca Raton’s Raising the Bar). This was also where he would meet Mayra. “About a year later I was proposing to her,” he says. The two had a son, TJ, and daughter, Layla. After 23 years of marriage, Mayra died unexpectedly at the age of 43 in 2024.
“I’ve had multiple people tell me that they’ve gone to a lot of funerals but [had] never seen a church packed like that. It was standing-room-only, and you know, a true testament to what she was to people,” he says. And of his children:“They’re doing amazingly. They are really resilient. This never goes away, but you’re walking alongside it.”
As an integral part of the Boca Raton and Delray Beach fitness spaces—Mayra owned a CrossFit gym—her loss was palpable not just in the Brandt home but throughout the community. A fellow gym friend, Brandon Shepherdson, launched a 100-mile-run fundraiser, which funded the Mayra Brandt Memorial Scholarship, administered by the George Snow Scholarship Fund.
Brandt had wanted to do something in his late wife’s honor, but the loss was still too raw, so having a friend to partner with made it possible. “You’re kind of envisioning, like, what’s the right timing, and when can I handle doing something like this?” he says. “[I’m] proud to say we raised $27,000.”
At the time of this interview, Brandt hadn’t yet met Nicole or presented the scholarship. He was excited but also nervous about the feelings that would come with seeing his wife’s name on the screen. “I am an emotional person,” he said at the time. “It’s gonna be a great thing, and this was part of why I was kind of holding off doing a scholarship, because it’s gonna be an emotional day.”
But, he added, “it’s gonna be a great day.”
As it turns out, it was just that—a great day, not only for Brandt but for the 350 students from across Palm Beach and Broward counties who know they have a support system behind them as they head off to school this semester. And, for now anyway, those duffle bags have been cleared from his office.
The Coach: James Taylor
Thousands of kids have gone through James Taylor’s basketball programs in Boca Raton, from tiny dribblers in summer camp to elite athletes with their eyes on going pro. As a retired professional athlete, Taylor knows a few things about basketball.
His inspiration for his programs came from an unlikely visit to Belarus.
Taylor was living in the Eastern European country as a professional basketball player. There, he participated in community outreach events, and that included a visit to an orphanage. The children there were impacted by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster; it’s believed that Belarus absorbed 70 percent of the radioactive fallout.
“[It was my] first time meeting young people who had been a part of something that catastrophic … losing family members, appendages in places that appendages shouldn’t be in, all those long-lasting effects,” Taylor says. “But it was there when I saw the excitement, the joy, the effort of these young people to want to learn this sport and learn this game, and I found myself very emotionally invested in teaching them and the connection.”
When he returned to the U.S., that experience was at the forefront. Taylor says he kept hearing, “you need to tailor athletes,” and after some brainstorming, Taylored Athletes, a youth sports program, was born.
Far from Belarus, Taylor’s story begins in Haines City, Fla., population 27,000. The youngest of three children, he dabbled in tackle football, then at the age of 12 discovered basketball. “[My dad] was in construction, so I always had plywood, always had two-by-fours, and I found the rim, and that became my safe haven.” His freshman year of high school, he was asked to participate in a varsity holiday tournament, then was invited to join the team.
During this time, his elder cousin, Joel Butler, took him under his wing, an example that he carries with him now as an adult who mentors young athletes. The Oakland Neighborhood Center gym was his safe haven from trouble, and perhaps counterintuitively, it was people he knew from the street who kept him on the right path. “They wouldn’t let anything happen to me. They wouldn’t allow me to skip school. They wouldn’t allow me to hang out after the streetlights came on. They would always run me off the streets and tell me to go home.” And they may have slipped him a $20 bill if he had a good game.
His senior year, Taylor was class president. There were scouts from Bethune-Cookman University, Ball State University, Marquette University, and Lynn University knocking at his door. At the same time, he got news that wasn’t in the playbook: He was going to be a father. Three months before graduation, his daughter, Destiny, was born. “That was the scariest thing that I’ve ever gone through in my life, as an adolescent, yet it became the one thing that forever transformed my life for the good. … Destiny Taylor became my muse. Everything that I’ve done from that point on until now has been to make her happy.”
Taylor accepted an offer to play at Lynn University; just three hours from home, he could easily see his daughter. He was also excited for the chance for a different kind of life.
“It was something about when I got off of the turnpike on Glades Road and I started to travel east toward the beach, looking at the manicured homes on the side of the road, the big, tall palm trees. I just felt like I was in paradise, and I deserved to be in this community.”
Lynn describes his tenure as “prolific.” He graduated as the program’s leading all-time scorer, charting in the top five of all-time for games played, winning the Sunshine State Conference Freshman of the Year, and helping propel the team to its second NCAA Division II Elite Eight and national semifinals. In 2011, he was inducted into the Lynn Athletics Hall of Fame, and in 2022, the Sunshine State Conference Hall of Fame. He was also one of 100 entrepreneurs honored by the White House’s Empact100 group.
After Lynn, basketball took him to the NBA Development League and playing professionally in Australia and Belarus—and that orphanage. Through Taylored Athletes, he was on a mission to transform young people’s lives through the power of sports. It started with one-on-one private training; then he moved into the Wayne Barton Study Center in Pearl City. Taylor says it brought together children from all walks of life, united by their interest in basketball. “I didn’t realize it at first, but we were creating this huge bridge for the underserved and the wealthy to all come together to learn from one another, to become friends.” It also showed Taylor that regardless of a child’s wealth, they all need positive role models.
Taylored Athletes has partnered with the City of Boca Raton for over a decade to manage weekly basketball training as well as holiday camps, covering the fundamentals as well as skills for advanced players. All coaches are former or current collegiate and professional athletes. Next, Taylor is looking at expanding into youth football—inspired by his 11-year-old son’s interest in the sport.
For almost a decade, Taylor also was involved with the Palm Beach County Sports Commission, supporting the Kids Fitness Festival of the Palm Beaches and the Holiday Basketball Classic of the Palm Beaches. In 2023, he was named the commission’s director of sports, having a hand in any and all sporting events throughout the county, including this past summer’s FIFA World Cup teams who stayed and trained in the county.
“We’re putting heads in beds and butts in seats,” he says. “One of the most important things that I love is that I get to help foster connections, relationships, the community, sports tourism, and economic development, and also bring people together. Regardless of political affiliations, religious affiliations, sports is the great equalizer.”
The nonprofit arm of the business, the Taylored Heart Foundation, allows the community to financially support student athletes from low socioeconomic backgrounds and prepare them for their future careers. As someone who originally thought the only path to success in sports was making it to the NBA, Taylor’s initiatives also open opportunities for youth with an interest in sports, such as internships, sports management programs, refereeing, and having someone to advocate for them. That has come in the form of another venture for Taylor: serving as an NIL agent for college athletes. (Name, Image, Likeness allows student athletes to benefit from their celebrity; previously, this could lead to removal from the NCAA. —Ed.)
“Sports has taught me discipline. It has taught me failure. It has taught me success. It has taught me to celebrate other people’s success as well. … It has taught me patience and delayed gratification.”
The Communicator: J.P. Hervis
At any given moment, J.P. Hervis’ phone is dinging. There are emails, phone calls, and news alerts, but also a text group filled with gun safety advocates from Change the Ref, Everytown, Moms Demand Action, March For Our Lives, and Brady, to name a few. Whenever there’s a shooting, from a gunman at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to mass shootings on the streets of American cities, Hervis’ phone is ablaze with notifications.
“I work with the communications departments of some of these organizations cohesively,” he says. “We’re all trying to do the same thing.”
A former TV reporter turned media consultant, Hervis and his team at Brandstory Communications have worked with myriad clients, from law firms and land developers to nonprofits like the Miracle League and the American Association of Caregiving Youth. With his background in news, he helps uplift the stories and voices of people on a mission for change, whether it’s gun violence, swimming safety, literacy, or substance abuse.
“Everybody mourns a different way, but a lot more people are now mourning in an advocacy role, and their voices are the strongest,” Hervis says. “I can drop what I’m doing, move appointments, drink a couple of Red Bulls, stay up late, and build a news conference.”
Born and raised in Miami to Cuban immigrants, Hervis grew up immersed in sports; his dream was to become a sports anchor. His attitude at the time was “[hard] news is depressing; I don’t want to knock on some guy’s door who maybe just lost somebody tragically. I want to talk about football.” After graduating from the University of Florida, he sent 44 resume tapes to stations around the country and landed a job at WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, W.Va., and then at WLBT in Jackson, Miss. Finally, he landed his dream job at WSVN in Miami. “This is the station I watched growing up,” he says. “Everybody was trying to work at [Channel] 7.”
From covering news in tiny towns in the South to the Magic City, Hervis learned he was actually really good at talking to people who had just been through the worst. Giving a platform to the voices of people affected by gun violence, natural disasters, and general news became his niche.
“Sports is a great escape, but when you make your escape your job, what are you escaping to?” Hervis points out. “I would say, ‘Hey, your voice matters … and if you raise your voice, emotion is the tie that binds us all together as people.’… It was just the reality of the power of storytelling and the power of communication.”
After a few years in Miami, he moved to Palm Beach County to become the WPBF morning anchor. Unfortunately, it was also the Great Recession, and he was laid off. For many in this field, it’s more than a job; it’s a part of their identity. Hervis remembers the grind of “dedicating everything to yourself and being told you’re good at something, and you’re climbing a ladder and climbing a ladder and climbing a ladder, and then there’s no ladder anymore.”
He made the switch to public relations, and in 2011 launched Brandstory Communications, representing nonprofits and businesses across different fields, including the Haggard Law Firm. That introduced him to people who were impacted by drowning, gun violence, medical malpractice, sexual abuse, and more, including on Feb. 14, 2018, when 17 students and teachers were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The firm represented some of the parents whose children were killed, including Manuel and Patricia Oliver, parents of Joaquin, 17. When the Broward County School Board attempted to minimize its responsibility for the tragedy, Hervis planned a press conference right in front of the school board’s office in Fort Lauderdale.
“Anybody can hold a press conference in their office,” Hervis remembers. “Go stand in front of the building of your adversary.”
Over the next year, Hervis worked directly with the Parkland parents to elevate their voices as they demanded change and justice for their children. For the one-year anniversary, Manuel painted a four-story mural in New York City and made the rounds on the biggest news stations in the Big Apple. Hervis was in work mode, but he also knew that this day was the anniversary of the worst day of the Olivers’ lives.
“I was shaking because I didn’t know what was going to pop out of the elevators, because I was just thinking about [how] they’re waking up today, and it’s one year since they kissed their son, and Manuel drove Joaquin to school. [Joaquin] had his flowers for his girlfriend, and the last thing Manuel said to Joaquin was, ‘Tell me what she says…’ I’m just like, what are they going through, man? Those doors opened, and their chin was up and their chest was out, and they’re going, ‘J.P., let’s do this.’”
In 2025, Change the Ref, founded by the Olivers, released its first issue of 30 Under 30, a play on the Forbes list that tells the stories of young people who lost their lives to gun violence. For the Miami press conference, Hervis organized the media in front of U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s office building and had a cameraman film the family delivering the magazine to Scott’s office. The senator wasn’t in at the time.
In 2022, Hervis called Manuel and asked what he wanted to do to commemorate the anniversary. He said he wanted to cancel his interview with CNN that morning, because he had other plans. Hervis made “the scariest call of my life” to the news giant but promised that there was something else in the works they would want to cover—Manuel climbed a construction crane outside of the White House and unfurled a banner of his son and a message to then-President Joe Biden demanding gun reform. He was arrested.
But it’s not just the Olivers. Hervis is also putting a spotlight on the father who visited 30 baseball stadiums this summer to raise awareness of drowning after his toddler died in a pool. He’s coaching the family members who lost loved ones in the Jacksonville Dollar General shooting in 2023. And he’s uplifting the voices of kids who are balancing school and full-time caregiving for their parents and grandparents.
“If I can get a bunch of people to stand on my back who can raise their voices and have more of an effect than I can directly, that’s what I’m here for,” Hervis says. “Our country is built on the collective voices wanting to make a change. So, you know, pick your issue or issues and get at it and apply whatever you can.”
For a look behind the scenes of the photoshoot for this story, check out this exclusive Web Extra.
This story is from the September/October 2026 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
