Outgoing president touts LaShip, other tenants for creating jobs, making parish money

Don Hingle, a fixture in the area business community since coming to Houma 10 years ago to become regional manager for Whitney Bank, stepped down as president of the Terrebonne Port Commission earlier this month.

Hingle, 48, had served two years as president. Port Commissioner Dan Davis is succeeding him.

“We’ve taken the port from being a hole in the ground taking in money to now earning money for the parish,” he said.

The highlight for the port under Hingle was the groundbreaking in March for Edison Chouest Offshore’s $100 million LaShip shipyard. Scheduled for completion in 2009, the yard will construct vessels longer than 350 feet to service deepwater rigs in the Gulf. LaShip will occupy around 25 acres and could create as many as 1,000 new jobs.

The port received $24 million in grants from the state to develop LaShip, including a $12 million capital outlay grant and $4 million from the Governor’s Rapid Response Fund.

“It’s become a huge economic development for the parish,” Hingle said.

Edison Chouest officials cited the port’s location on the Houma Navigation Canal as one of the main reasons for building there. Another factor was the proximity of the port to other oil-related industries. LaShip has already signed a contract with nearby oilrig platform builder Gulf Island Fabrication.

In addition to LaShip’s $21,000 a month dry dock lease, Hingle’s tenure as president saw the signing of seven leases to tenants.

The amounts ranged from an additional lease for Double R barges at $203 a month to one for Synergy Shipbuilding at $17,337 a month. Other leases were for Performance Energy, Knight Well Services and Thoma-Sea Boat Builders.

The port owns the land and rents it to the tenants. Currently the number of tenants is seven.

“The lease is determined by square footage and depends on if it’s on the waterfront or not,” Hingle said.

Tenants on interior lots without water access are charged less, but the difference is only pennies a square foot, Hingle said.

Though earlier tenants received more inexpensive rates, the port gradually was able to charge them closer to market rates, he said.

While Hingle was commission president, the port received $9 million from the state Port Priority Fund to help construct dry docks for Thoma-Sea and $390,000 from the Louisiana Recovery Authority for enhancements to the Downtown Marina, in addition to the LaShip grants.

The marina is managed by the port but owned by the parish.

The port also received $700,000 from the federal Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration in September to install sewer service to tenants, who have had to use a number of separate sewage treatment plants.

Hingle is involved in other government and business activities. He recently stepped down as president of the South Central Industrial Association and serves as a Terrebonne Economic Development Authority board member.

“TEDA and the port work well together,” he said.

Hingle called Port Executive Director David Rabalais “a huge catalyst to get tenants.”

Rabalais said the port is paying back Terrebonne Parish through job creation and sales taxes for subsidies given to the port.

“We’re paying the parish back for the money they gave to raise us,” he said.

Especially because of LaShip, Hingle sees a rosy future for the port-with a caution.

“It’s going to get better,” he said, “as long as the economy doesn’t collapse.”

Tugs move their loads through the Intracoastal Waterway near Terrebonne Parish’s port. In 2008, the port saw Edison Chouest Offshore announce plans to build its $100 million LaShip shipyard, creating as many as 1,000 new jobs in the parish. The port also received $24 million in grants from the state to develop the project. * File photo • Tri-Parish Times