Education
Zimmermann attended State University of New York Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, where he graduated with a bachelor"s degree and a master"s degree in education.
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Carl Zimmermann
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He worked for several advertising agencies for nine years before moving to Florida in 1984. Zimmermann teaches television production at Countryside High School in Clearwater. He is known for building a nationally recognized, award-winning television/Broadcast journalism program that is now celebrating its 27th year.
The program at Countryside High School is known as Universal Product Code-television, short for Upper Pinellas County television, and has produced as many as 100 graduates that went on to successful careers in the television or film industry.
Every year he takes students to the Sundance Film Festival for a week. When incumbent Republican State Representative Gus Bilirakis vacated his House seat due to term limits and ran for Congress, Zimmermann ran to succeed him in the 48th District, which included a few precincts in Pasco County and northern Pinellas County.
Zimmermann narrowly lost to Nehr by 1,485 votes, winning 48% of the vote. He ran against Nehr again in 2008, and again lost, winning 49% of the vote.
When the districts were redrawn in 2012, Zimmermann opted to run in the 65th District, which closely matched the 48th District in the territory it encompassed.
Foreign the third time, he faced Nehr in a general election. The Tampa Bay Times endorsed Zimmermann, praising him for having "passion for public education and a better sense of what works in the classroom, including favoring end-of-course exams instead of the FCAT". In the legislature, Zimmermann tentatively supported legislation that would allow trained employees to carry guns in the school they were assigned to, as he was "swayed by the argument that rural schools cannot afford to wait the extra minutes it might take for law enforcement to arrive in the case of a mass shooting".
He lost his seat in the 2014 General Election to Republican challenger Chris Sprowls by a vote of 34,417 to 31,264.
