Next time you're in downtown Sarasota and hoofing it to a show at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, save the shoe leather and hail a pedi-cab.

Your bike-pedaling driver may turn out to be longtime Tallahassee resident Wayne Harris, who has chucked the corporate life to try something new.

Harris, 59, is former vice president of technology and development at the Tallahassee Area Chamber of Commerce. He's also a former co-worker at this newspaper.

What I've always admired about him is he reinvents himself more than anyone else I know.

Harris came to Tallahassee to attend Florida State in 1965. Over his 40 years in Tallahassee, he has been a construction worker, teacher, home remodeler, legislative analyst, newspaper reporter and editor, stock broker, freelance magazine writer and Chamber executive. He even ran for City Commission in 1990 - which, aside from being caught in a military uprising in Greece in 1969, was the "worst experience of my life."

Every time he got comfortable in a job, he was off to something else. "I've always feared boredom more than poverty," he said. "I have no self-discipline when I'm not interested."

His new gig may be his most adventurous. Pedi-cabs are bicycle-powered rickshaws, or covered surreys, which can carry two people. They offer customers leisurely, inexpensive transportation that uses no fuel save the driver's energy.

Harris said pedi-cabs are booming in urban downtowns with year-round tourist attractions, such as San Diego, Denver and Austin. Dozens of them swarm around the theater district in New York City.

"They wouldn't work in Tallahassee because the downtown is not far enough along - and it's too hilly," Harris said.

He fell into pedi-cabs by happy accident. An avid bicyclist for 20 years, he was discussing his future last year with a friend who asked, "What would you really like to do for a job?" Harris' joking response: "I wish I could find someone to pay me to ride my bike."

Not long afterward, he went back to his native Sarasota for his 40th high-school reunion - and found that an entrepreneur had started a pedi-cab company there. After some research, Harris bought the company. He's moving back to Sarasota on Tuesday. He has plans for a dozen cabs, national advertising and plenty of customers in a downtown filled with attractions but limited parking: "The Four H's are my friend: heat, humidity and high heels."

The divorced father of an adult son, he laments leaving Tallahassee. But, hey, he's not afraid of change. "If it doesn't work out, I can segue into something else," he said. "I always have."