Environmental expert named senior planner
January 16, 2012
Richard N. Bollinger
January 19, 2012Thibodaux attorney Paul Aucoin doesn’t have the time for fishing trips or golf outings customary for a man in his profession.
That’s because when he’s not spending time with his family or commuting back and forth each day to his law office in Vacherie, he’s serving in leadership roles on nine different boards stretching from St. Charles Parish to Houma to Baton Rouge.
“Everything I do is fun,” Aucoin, a 65-year-old Vacherie native, said. “That’s my hobby n all of these boards. To be involved in all these different things, I’m a lucky fella.”
Aucoin’s range is evident in the boards’ missions: He tackles housing with the state Housing and Community Development Corporation, business growth with the St. James Economic Development Board, business loan allocation with South Central Planning, tourism with the River Parishes Tourism Commission and higher education management with the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors, who recently elected him as the board’s parliamentarian.
“One day I’m watching a movie shoot with Brad Pitt, the next thing you know I’m entertaining a (business) prospect to come into St. James Parish and then I’m picking a president for a university,” he said.
The UL System Board of Supervisors is perhaps the most prestigious of his duties. Aucoin was appointed to the board in February 2007 by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and is entering the final year of his first term. “Every time I see her, without fail, I have to thank her for putting me on that board,” he said.
But not every aspect of serving on a board governing higher education in Louisiana is pleasant. The UL System, in doing its part to shrink the state’s budget gap, ordered mid-year cuts to each of its nine institution’s state support of 5.1 percent. Nicholls State University, one of the nine schools, absorbed a $1.1 million cut.
Aucoin said he doesn’t foresee the funding concerns being alleviated in the near future, which will result in universities raising tuition. Louisiana public schools are behind their southern peers when it comes to charging tuition, and legislators have approved gradual hikes as long as universities meet performance-indicating benchmarks.
“It’s unfortunate, but it’s better than the alternative, and that is to keep cutting, cutting and cutting the budget, and pretty soon you don’t have a university anymore,” Aucoin said. “You have to get the funding where you can, and that’s always going to be a problem, that balancing of tuition increases versus state budget.”
Now the board’s parliamentarian, Aucoin will be in charge of ensuring his fellow board members follow the proper policies and procedures. His task won’t be overbearing (“Very seldom does the parliamentarian have to say what the rules we follow should be or keep the order,” he said), but he considers the peer-elected position one of honor because of the supervisors’ esteem.
“I respect that board and that system so much that I don’t care what they elect me to, it’s an honor,” he said.
In his private practice, Aucoin practices general law. He primarily handles cases of personal injury, but he has dabbled in cases against pharmaceutical companies.
Paul and his wife, Rita, have two children: Shelly Aucoin-Zainey, who married the son of U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey, is a lawyer, and Leah, who was the queen of Washington D.C.’s 2011 Mardi Gras, is studying pharmacy at Xavier University.
One of Aucoin’s personal missions is to solve the dropout epidemic that plagues secondary and post-secondary schools throughout the nation.
“Who can reach the kids to tell them, ‘Don’t drop out, you’re making a mistake?’ I haven’t found the answer to it,” Aucoin said.
Although he doesn’t know what will solve the issue, he believes business leaders can take a step in the right direction by following a European mindset.
“Europe thinks they have it solved better than we do,” he said. “They use serious internships. They claim ours here are filing clerks. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s to have that meaningful internship and not just, ‘I need an intern this year,’ and you put that fella in a room to file papers.”
