Alaska, Australia or Louisiana: Inside the SpaceX Deal

Well, one of Katie Anna, one of eight regional economic development organizations in our state, you know, they say that all politics are local.

And I think in a lot of ways, even with the wonderful job that Susan Bourgeois and her team do at Louisiana Economic Development, economic development is really local in a lot of ways, right? And you're managing that for I think a ten parish area.

Nine parish area around Lafayette, the Acadiana region.

Tell us more about the organization.

Tell us about its membership, its structure, its mission.

What do you do day to day?

Yeah.

Day to day, we work – it's very simple to put it this way.

We work on the creation and preservation of jobs.

We have – 2015, we were formed.

So a little over 10 years ago, the organization was formed.

It was formed out of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

You know, the lifespans of your traditional chamber of commerce are just – they're struggling at this point.

I mean nationwide you look at membership and that sort of thing because it's a natural progression of things, the way businesses interact with a chamber of commerce.

They expect more out of a chamber of commerce.

So I look at it as we are truly a pure economic development organization.

Right.

So there's a school of thought that everything that a chamber does is economic development.

Well, we are a nine parish, as you mentioned, one of the eight organizations across the state, one of the eight regionals that are legislatively designated as the regionals.

And, you know, we lean in hard to that economic development.

We have to live somewhere.

So our office is in Lafayette.

But the majority right now, the majority of our time is spent in Vermilion Parish.

And we have really – I mean always loved Vermilion Parish, but this is – working through this SpaceX project has really put Vermilion Parish near and dear to our hearts.

So we'll have a lot more activity there related to SpaceX and other things, but we've had a lot of successes across all of our parishes.

Well, one of Katie Anna, one of eight regional economic development organizations in our state, you know, they say that all politics are local.

And I think in a lot of ways, even with the wonderful job that Susan Bourgeois and her team do at Louisiana Economic Development, economic development is really local in a lot of ways, right? And you're managing that for I think a ten parish area.

Nine parish area around Lafayette, the Acadiana region.

Tell us more about the organization.

Tell us about its membership, its structure, its mission.

What do you do day to day?

Yeah.

Day to day, we work – it's very simple to put it this way.

We work on the creation and preservation of jobs.

We have – 2015, we were formed.

So a little over 10 years ago, the organization was formed.

It was formed out of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

You know, the lifespans of your traditional chamber of commerce are just – they're struggling at this point.

I mean nationwide you look at membership and that sort of thing because it's a natural progression of things, the way businesses interact with a chamber of commerce.

They expect more out of a chamber of commerce.

So I look at it as we are truly a pure economic development organization.

Right.

So there's a school of thought that everything that a chamber does is economic development.

Well, we are a nine parish, as you mentioned, one of the eight organizations across the state, one of the eight regionals that are legislatively designated as the regionals.

And, you know, we lean in hard to that economic development.

We have to live somewhere.

So our office is in Lafayette.

But the majority right now, the majority of our time is spent in Vermilion Parish.

And we have really – I mean always loved Vermilion Parish, but this is – working through this SpaceX project has really put Vermilion Parish near and dear to our hearts.

So we'll have a lot more activity there related to SpaceX and other things, but we've had a lot of successes across all of our parishes.