Current office and a Lakeland-centered career
Scott Franklin represents Florida’s 18th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. A Republican, he first entered Congress on January 3, 2021, and began a third term in January 2025. His earlier career includes naval aviation, insurance and risk management, and local elected office in Lakeland. The current House directory lists him on Appropriations and Science, Space, and Technology. S1S2S3
Franklin was born in Thomaston, Georgia, on August 23, 1964, and graduated from Lakeland High School in 1982. Lakeland subsequently became the center of his business and local public-service career. These connections are distinct from the boundaries of his current congressional district, which should be checked by address when a resident seeks representation. S1
Education and professional development
Franklin graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor’s degree in 1986 and earned an M.B.A. from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1994. His official biography also identifies the Air Command and Staff College and Wharton’s Executive Leadership Development Program. The latter is professional development, not an additional Wharton degree. S1S3
The educational sequence connects military preparation with later business management. It is useful to distinguish completed academic degrees from service schools, executive courses and community leadership programs rather than combining them into an inflated list of credentials.
Naval aviation and reserve service
The House historian dates Franklin’s active Navy service from 1986 to 2000 and Navy Reserve service from 2000 to 2012. His official biography describes a naval-aviation career with carrier deployments and operations in the Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo, along with recalls following September 11, 2001. These details are attributed to the official public biography rather than an independent personnel-file review. S1S3
The active and reserve periods explain the office’s description of a 26-year military career. They should not be represented as 26 uninterrupted years of full-time active duty. That distinction also allows the overlapping development of a civilian insurance career to be understood without treating the chronology as contradictory.
Insurance, risk management and community work
Franklin led Lanier Upshaw in Lakeland as president and chief executive for 20 years, according to his official biography. The company merged into BKS Partners on January 1, 2020, where he served as a managing partner. These are specific professional roles rather than generic claims that he “worked in business.” S3
His public biography also lists involvement with Lakeland economic-development, airport, aviation-education and civic organizations. Those associations help explain the local context in which he later served as a city commissioner. They should not be interpreted as endorsements of every position he took in Congress or as current board appointments unless the source expressly says so. S3
Local government and election to Congress
The House historian records Franklin’s Lakeland City Commission service from 2018 to 2021 and service as mayor pro tem in 2020. Mayor pro tem is not the same as a separately elected term as mayor. He was elected to Congress in 2020 and began service in January 2021. S1
His career therefore moved from military and business work into local government before federal office. Local commission decisions, federal appropriations and private insurance management involve different authorities. A constituent’s request should be directed according to the problem, not simply to whichever officeholder has experience in the subject.
Current committees and leadership
Franklin’s official committee page lists Appropriations assignments on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; and Energy and Water Development. It identifies him as vice chair of the Agriculture-related subcommittee. He also chairs the Environment Subcommittee of Science, Space, and Technology. S4
These responsibilities connect his federal work with agricultural programs, military facilities, veterans, research and environmental information. The committees’ work is legislative and oversight-oriented. It does not authorize the representative to award a private insurance claim, set an individual premium or promise a federal grant to a specific applicant.
His official biography records a 2023 appointment to the Naval Academy Board of Visitors. That is an additional public-service connection with the institution where he studied, separate from his House committee assignments. S3
A public-action example: risk assessment
On April 21, 2026, Franklin and Representative Gabe Amo announced introduction of the ACCURATE Act, formally the Advancing Consistent and Credible Use of Risk Assessment Tools and Evaluation Act. The announcement links the proposal to federal risk-analysis methods and cites Florida’s Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology as a model. S5
This is a concrete connection between Franklin’s risk-management background and his committee responsibilities. It remains important to describe the record accurately: the cited announcement establishes introduction of a proposal, not its enactment or proof that every federal model already follows the proposed standards. The office’s prediction of benefits is different from an independent evaluation of results. S5
The example also shows why Florida experience can inform a national proposal without making a state insurance body a federal regulator. A reader should follow the bill and agency records before using the proposal as guidance for a current insurance or disaster-assistance decision.
Official contact
Franklin’s Washington office is listed at 2301 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, with telephone 202-225-1252. His official biography lists district locations in Lakeland, Lake Placid and Lake Wales; the district telephone is 863-644-8215. Confirm current appointment arrangements before visiting. S2S3
This profile records the current holder checked on October 28, 2026. It distinguishes military, business, local-government and congressional roles without treating an election campaign or an announced future plan as an office already held.