TEDA time ends for Arnette

Jane Arnette, who had served as an interim executive manager for the Terrebonne Economic Development Authority, has ended her work there and will return exclusively to a full-time position that she simultaneously held as executive director with the South Central Industrial Association.

“Jane was supposed to be with us two months [when she came on in January under a volunteer arrangement] and I talked her into staying an additional two months,” said TEDA Board of Commissioners Chairman Don Hingle.

The move was made late last week with no official announcement. “I am no longer with TEDA. I have too much to do with SCIA,” Arnette said in an email message.

“I’m quite sure the [TEDA] staff will continue on its current path until a new CEO is in place within a month or so,” Arnette said in a follow-up statement. “I need to get back to assuring the goals and objectives of SCIA are secure. I wish TEDA the best of luck in its pursuit of maintaining economic development for Terrebonne Parish.”

Hingle said that there had been an unofficial understanding between SCIA and TEDA that if the workload began to become cumbersome for Arnette, she would return her focus on her paying job.

“When it got to be an interference with SCIA we all just said, ‘Pull the plug.’ So she said, ‘Time to pull the plug,'” Hingle said.

Arnette had been filling a job vacated with the termination of former TEDA CEO Mike Ferdinand at the end of 2010.