As life barrels along, take time to enjoy the ride
February 3, 2015
NOIA continues fight for oil and gas industry
February 3, 2015
Allen Danos Jr. was a man who helped shape the oil and gas industry as we know it here in Bayou Country, but will be remembered by his family as a man who let nothing stop him.
As very young men, he and his brother took over for their belated father, Allen Danos Sr., in the operations of Danos & Curole Marine Contractors. Allen was 24 and his brother, Hank, was 21.
Their father, along with his partner, Syriaque Curole, built Danos & Curole from a small single-tug boat operation to a large off shore labor provider.
It was 1970 when Allen Danos Sr. passed away. Allen was in his first year of law school. That year, the brothers bought out Curole’s share in the company and began a rapid expansion that took the Danos’ to new levels.
The brother’s expanded into providing labor to the energy companies throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s as well as fabrication and construction services. Business grew, but during the oil glut of the Seventies and Eighties, Danos decided to take a chance at the marine business.
Danos built their first “lift boat” in 1980. It was a watershed moment for the company, which then added a third line of service, marine services, to their offerings.
In 1992, Danos further diversified the company in the face of lowered returns on oil.
“That year, the company made its first venture into the international arena,” said Marcel Danos, Allen Danos’ son. “At that time, in the early nineties, the oil market was quite a bit depressed, so that was an opportunity to move some assets around, keep some boats and people employed and enter a new market for us.”
It was that year that the company secured a deal to provide lift boat services with two vessels in Nigeria for Chevron.
“He always said it was kind of like a gamble,” Rene’ Danos David said. “It turned out to be an awesome adventure and a great investment for the company.”
By 2002, the company had doubled the fleet in Nigeria.
In 2005, Danos sold the marine services division, and in 2006, Allen Danos retired from a “long and prosperous career,” Marcel Danos said.
Throughout his life, Danos gave back to the community. He was a great philanthropist who had a great appreciation for higher education. Despite being an LSU graduate, he contributed much of his time and personal money to Nicholls State University. He served on the Nicholls Foundation Board and the Business Advisory Board.
“He just recognized the importance that Nicholls served in the community,” Marcel Danos said. “He just believed in giving back. He gave up his time, his effort and his own personal money to the university.”
He raised millions for Nicholls’s renovation of their Talbot Hall theater and was instrumental in securing millions more through state funding. The theater was renamed the Mary M. Danos Theater, named in honor of his late wife in 2012.
He was also a business leader, serving as president of the Lafourche Parish Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Offshore Marine Service Association and on the Lafourche Parish Port Commission.
“He kind of had his hands in everything,” Marcel Danos said. “He tried to help wherever he could…He was an example for everyone to live by.”
He was a devoted father, as well. He had four children. Danos, being the forward-thinking type, always prepared his children for life’s challenges.
“We didn’t realize how much he taught us and how much he prepared us for things until now that he’s gone,” Rene’ Danos David said. He would often have the family run fire drills complete with rally points.
He could even have fun with his drills. After retiring, Danos spent much of his time with his family. Sometimes, while fishing with his grandson in Cut Off, he would feign a heart attack.
“They would just be out in the middle of the Little Lake and my daddy would grab his chest and pretend to have a heart attack,” Rene’ said. His grandson would then have to act as if he were calling emergency services and bring the boat back to the launch, “to make sure that if ever it happened, my son was going to be prepared.”
Aside from being a thoughtful father, he was a fierce competitor. He was a state champion wrestler for Holy Cross High School. He always stayed active, playing tennis with his wife in the tennis court he had in the back yard.
The couple held an annual tennis tournament amongst friend at their home for years. The Annual Coonass Tennis Tournament, as the Danos’ called it, was a two-day competition and a staple amongst their friends.
“Everybody had matching shirts, there was a plaque, it went from team to team,” Rene’ said. “It was some fun times.”
Danos loved his French heritage. An avid speaker of French, he would drop whatever he was doing to parler in the vernacular he so cherished.
He actually heard some French being spoken when he was either eight- or 10-years-old and couldn’t understand it. He approached his mother and told her that he wanted to learn French. She said, ‘OK’ and stopped speaking to him in English.
Thus began a life-long love of the language that he fostered into his later life.
He spent a month in Novia Scotia to study in a French immersion program. He even made a contribution to the university to make the buildings on campus wheelchair-accessible. He continued his lessons over the phone three or four mornings a week after returning home.
He wanted his grandchildren to know French as well. He would recite the prayers of Hail Mary and Our Father in French to his granddaughter.
“Every night from the time she was a young girl till he died, he would call her to recite that prayer,” Marcel Danos said.
Allen Danos sits in the town square of St. Remy in the South of France with his family behind him. Danos cherished the French language. Pictured from left are granddaughter Anna, daughter Alyce, grandson Luke, grandson Eli, daughter Rene’, wife Mary, and granddaughter Sarah.
