Locals placed onto board

Two local seafood industry participants have been appointed to the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, as it moves forward from a tumultuous year of division and angst.

Gov. Bobby Jindal announced the appointments more than three months into the new year. 

The board assembles projects and supplies direction for the promotion of Louisiana seafood. Over the past year there have been severe disagreements over use of money for promotion supplied by BP in connection with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Additionally, some board members have been miffed because of Louisiana Ethics Board restrictions on their own personal use of such money for their own personal businesses.

Allen “Andy” Gibson of Tidelands Seafood in Dulac is a re-appointment; David Maginnis of Jensen Tuna in Houma was also named.

Gibson and Chef John Folse are the only members of the board returning from last year. Their return, said director Ewell Smith, has benefits.

“Institutional knowledge is very important to have,” Smith said. “We also have new people coming on board and that’s a fresh perspective and the potential for new ideas.”

Smith said it is his hope that the board will, this year, expand on the vision of a founding member, the late Mike Voison of Motivatit Seafood, an industry leader who dedicated his work to the promotion of Louisiana’s seafood industry.

“Mike had this vision for our board 30 years ago…,” Smith said. “It is so important that this new board to share the vision he had.”

Other members are Larry Avery of Sulphur, co-owner of Gulf Island Shrimp Seafood;Peter Totorich of Mandeville, Senior Director of Perishables for Associated Grocers, Inc.; Keith Watts of Pontchatoula, owner of K.W. Crabbing LLC.; Tommy Stoddard of Hackberry, owner of Louisiana Alligator Wholesaler, Inc.; Peter Sclafani of Baton Rouge, owner and executive chef of Ruffino’s Restaurant; Sal Sunseri, of New Orleans, Vice President of P&J Oyster Company; Byron Despaux, of Barataria, is a commercial fisherman; Sherbin Collette of Henderson, is owner of Collette’s Seafood and the Mayor of Henderson and Frank Randol, of Lafayette, president of Randol, Inc., a crawfish firm.