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After starting his higher education career at Nicholls State University, things have come full circle for Ronnie Rodriguez, the next chief financial officer at the Thibodaux institute.
Rodriguez spent his first four college semesters at Nicholls in the midst of getting pulled out of school for Operation Desert Storm as a member of the Louisiana National Guard. He finished his college career at Northeastern Louisiana University – now ULM – in Monroe, receiving a bachelor’s degree in accounting. But the Slidell native has never forgotten the support and the start he received in the Bayou Region.
“And I think it’s great the Nicholls Worth, they kept up with us. Me and another guy who was actually in the same National Guard unit that had been activated, the Nicholls Worth and all of the staff they kept up with us, they wrote us, they put pictures in the paper, so it’s a connected group,” Rodriguez said. “ … I just love the area, the staff, the faculty, everything about it. It’s a great place.”
Rodriguez will assume his position at Nicholls on Oct. 13 after spending the last 13 years at Delgado Community College, most recently serving as the vice chancellor for business and administrative affairs. He was responsible for all fiscal, personnel and facility operations of the college including budget and finance, human resources and planning.
Rodriguez previously served as controller and assistant controller at Delgado.
Although Rodriguez admits he’s sad to leave the community college near City Park, he said an opportunity like this only comes once in a career.
“So I had to take it in and look at it, and everything kind of worked out,” he said. “The ability to transition from one institution to the other is also something you’re not fortunate to have so you can transition from one job to the other. Everything just seemed right about the opportunity.”
Rodriguez will be taking the place of former CFO Mike Naquin, who retired in August after more than 35 years of service to Nicholls.
Nicholls’ soon-to-be new CFO expects to sit down with university President Dr. Bruce Murphy early in his tenure to go over some of the goals the president wants the administration to tackle.
“I think with all institutions right now there’s the state funding challenge, and it seems like there are some initiatives out there that we’re going to take up,” Rodriguez said. “ However, to address some of his goals is going to be what we’re going to discuss on the first few days that I’m there, so I’m sure we’ll be meeting as an executive cabinet to see how we go forth.”
Before serving Delgado, Rodriguez worked as a legislative auditor for more than seven years in the Financial, Compliance and Information Systems Audit divisions. He performed financial and compliance audits of state and local governments and provided information technology audit support as a certified information systems auditor.
“I also had the opportunity to come in and look at Nichols from the external auditor point of view,” he said, noting he did the same with Delgado.
Rodriguez said he met a lot of great friends and made lots of great relationships during his first stints in Thibodaux during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and even though he keeps in touch with them because they’ve since moved away, he can’t wait to return to the bayou region.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to move Nicholls even further forward,” he said. “I think the president has some ideas, and we’re going to work together as a team to accomplish that and make it a better university – even greater than it is.”
