It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

Around 71% of the earth is water. Give it a few more years of sea level rise and we’ll top 80, no problem. 

In Louisiana, we’ve lived with water a long time. And for a lot of kids, that begins with swim lessons.  At some point in nearly every child’s life, they get thrown into the deep end. It’s a good idea they know how to swim, so they don’t sink. 

And a staggering number of kids don’t know how to swim. A 2017 study found 65% of Black children, 45% of Hispanic children and 40% of white children don’t know how to swim. 

Colleen Baczyk, founder of City of Lafayette Aquatics - better known as COLA - has been swimming against that tide for 20 years. The program began with just five swimmers in 2002 and now reaches around 250 kids children each year through competitive programs and summer swim lessons.  

COLA runs the Southwest Louisiana Swim League, working with high school and middle school swim teams in the area. And Colleen has been a competitive swimmer herself since she was 5 years old and is also a chiropractor with Barczyk Chiropractic Group. 

If you’re scared of the ocean but not heights, then maybe the open skies are a better place for you.

Lafayette is home to Acadian Aviation, one of the few full-time flight training schools in the state. The flight school was founded by Raja Gharazeddine. 

Raja got his pilot’s license at 30, bought his first plane at 34 and left the restaurant business in 2007 to launch Acadian Aviation. Over the years, Raja’s students have shifted from people looking for a high-flying hobby to people looking for careers.

Acadian Aviation partners with Fort Polk to help military aviators get civilian credentials. In 2022, Raja kicked off a partnership with LSU Alexandria to offer a professional aviation program, one of only two in the state. 

Acadian Aviation also offers charter flight services out of Lafayette Regional Airport.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1515, Pope Leo X tried to cancel the bible. Well, Gutenberg’s bible.  

It’s hard to imagine now, but back then printed books were considered a threat. Literacy among the wider population could undermine the influence of the Church. 

In all, Gutenberg produced 180 copies of his Bible. Today, 280 characters on Twitter is how you change the world. So what room is there for the study of letters? And what about the original tweet: Short Fiction? 

Jim Lambert spent a career in law before putting his shoulder to the wheel of the metaverse and starting to write short fiction. Jim took creative writing courses with the late, great Ernest Gaines at UL, and published his first compilation of short stories, Sub Rosa, in 2021.  

Jim specializes in a kind of “hidden history” — finding nuggets of under-documented history and spinning them into fictionalized narratives.

In a very non-fictional world, Jim is also a spiritual mentor for inmates at Louisiana’s Angola Prison. 

Speaking of second acts, according to Jordan Kellman, Dean of UL’s College of Liberal Arts, adult enrollment has boomed at UL Lafayette. A key component of that is the Complete LA program which gives discounted tuition to adults looking to finish their degrees. 

These late bloomers are attending an institution rising in prominence. UL, as you may have heard, attained R1 status, recognizing it as a top research university. 

Dr. Kellman holds a PhD in the History of Science and French History and has served as liberal arts dean since 2012.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.

And you can hear recent lunchtime conversation about the benefits of a UL education  with the Dean of the grad school and the benefits of dropping out from entrepreneur Josh Goree.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you always feel like somebody’s watching you? Well, it’s not just a dream — it’s the 21st century. 

Information is power, and there’s money to be made from gathering it. Or keeping people from taking it. 

Here’s a new buzzword for you: surveillance capitalism: the marketplace for information captured often without your knowledge - or consent - and traded for dollars. This has been enabled by innovations like cloud computing and the world wide web itself. 

But the reality is, trading in information isn’t new, it’s just scaled up. Think about the old gumshoe. Private investigators have been around for a long time. P.I.

Ronald Gaspard has been in the research game for a long time himself — running Acadiana Research since the early 1990s. What began as a $10/hour gig has become a full-time career. He cases cheating lovers and insurance fraudsters, serves subpoenas and conducts courthouse research or, as he puts it, “Anything else that’s legal and makes a few dollars.” 

Ronald is an Abbeville native, a military vet and former auxiliary sheriff’s deputy.

So, if everyone wants your information, what do you do if you don’t want them to have it? Cybersecurity is no longer a niche service contracted by large firms with troves of sensitive data. Anyone can justify state of the art information protection to block data hacks that come in all shapes and sizes. 

Hunter Thevis is COO of S1 Technology, provides that kind of protection and more. As a managed service provider, S1 can do top-to-bottom IT support and specializes in a white glove approach. 

Hunter founded the company with a group of IT specialists from the Acadiana area in 2021 and it’s grown steadily. Their customer base is primarily here but as they’ve grown they’ve picked up clients in Houston and in Alaska.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan  at our website, itsacadiana.com.

And check out lunch table conversation about just what the world wide web knows about you with AI guru Frankie Russo. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s no doubt that Lafayette is in an economic transition. Changes in energy are driving changes in the world. And Lafayette has, since the 20th century, been an American energy hub. 

You don’t have to look far locally to see the changes. The infamous oil bust of the 1980s nearly bankrupted the entire city. Banks closed. Bumper stickers read, “Last one out turn off the lights.” 

Fast forward: the 2014 bust hurt a lot. The metro area lost some 20,000 jobs — a nation-leading number. But here we are. The lights are still on. Why? Well, the top employment sector in Lafayette isn’t energy any more. 17% of Lafayette’s workforce work is in healthcare. It’s by far the largest employer in the market. Direct mining jobs? 10%. And that’s ⅓ of all mining oil and gas jobs in the state. 

So how did that happen? Well, Adam Smith would credit his invisible hand. Others might credit the work of economic development organizations like the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, helmed by Mandi Mitchell.

LEDA

LEDA is a tax-funded agency that’s a bit like the economic gardener for the parish. It’s responsible for workforce development, business recruitment and is frequently tasked with analyzing economic impacts of big community projects or initiatives. 

Mandi served for years as an assistant secretary in the state’s counterpart to LEDA - Louisiana Economic Development - and was instrumental in landing the deal that brought an Amazon fulfillment center and hundreds of jobs to Lafayette Parish. Mandi is a Lafayette native, a certified economic developer and the first woman and person of color to run LEDA. 

One Acadiana

So if you’re doing economic development well, that means you’ve got a lot of ribbons to cut. Traditionally, that’s the role of your chamber of commerce, but Lafayette’s chamber of commerce is a different kind of animal. First, it’s not local — it’s regional, serving nine parishes — and second, it’s proactive. It shapes local and state public policy and advocates for business and free enterprise throughout the region.

Troy Wayman is President and CEO of One Acadiana and has shaped the organizations' second act since its founding in 2015. Troy has spearheaded initiatives emphasizing the need for a better quality of life to attract business and talent — a program called Vibrant Acadiana — and an initiative called 55 by 25, which aims to improve educational attainment across. 

Troy is also a certified economic developer, and his organization serves as the voice of some 600 employers in the Acadiana region. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com. And you can also check out more lunchtime conversation about Acadiana economic development. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Louisiana isn’t just a sportsman’s paradise it’s a birders paradise. Maybe even an animal lover’s paradise.

Birdy

There are 25 rare bird species tracked by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries: The American Oystercatcher, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, the swallow-tailed kite, the Crested Caracara. Some good news: the bald eagle, is no longer threatened. 

So, who is doing the protecting? Well, it’s not just Wildlife and Fisheries. The effort takes some civilian help. The state permits people like Julie Rabalais to operate avian rehabilitation facilities to rehab injured birds that are federally protected. 

Through her nonprofit, For the Birds of Acadiana, Julie has rescued and rehabilitated 400 birds. The work is meticulous. She cares for dozens of birds at a time, sometimes feeding them every 15 minutes for 12 or 14 hours a day. 

Before her life in bird rehab, Julie ran a clothing boutique and is also a master gardener. Julie grew up in Michigan but moved to Lafayette in 2004. 

Sit Happens

Some animals need attitude rehabilitation. Aggressive or fearful dogs can be problematic not just for their owners but for other people. These are pets most likely to end up in the care of animal control. 

You might think, "Well, don’t they need a little bit of tough love?" Not so, says Vikki Bourgeois. Vikki specializes in “positive reinforcement” training methods that she offers through her company Sit Happens. 

Vikki is one of only three Certified Behavior Consultants in the state of Louisiana and a Certified Trick Dog Instructor among accreditations. 

Sit Happens is based in Scott, where Vikki offers “board and train” programs. She’s also a veterinary technician and was born and raised in Gonzales.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com where you can also hear more lunchtime conversation about rescuing birds in Acadiana.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Try this: Google “Lafayette dance studio.” You'll find 20 listings in Lafayette. For comparison, there are 12 McDonald’s. 

Dance is a pretty big industry here. The operators even have political clout. The Heymann Center was shut down briefly during the pandemic until the dance community raised hell. But most of those studios are for young people. And dance, or any type of movement, is a lifetime pursuit. 

There’s comparatively fewer opportunities for adults to age into a life with motion, especially if you’re not looking to two-step. For professional dancers, opportunities can be hard to come by, unless you want to open a dance studio and teach. 

Clare Cook is founder of the nonprofit arts center Basin Arts, the only professional dance company in Lafayette. And she’s used Basin as a venue for artists of a variety of disciplines to show their work. 

Clare is a Lafayette native, but got her MFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She still teaches and choreographs across the country and abroad.  

Now, let’s talk about dance as exercise. Exercise crazes like Zumba or Barre3 are rooted in the physical discipline and exertion of dancing. But it can go much deeper than toning core muscles. 

Disciplines like the Franklin Method or Pilates emphasize a mind-body connection in the practice and aim for something much more holistic than physical fitness. Alyce Morgan has taught Pilates at her studio Embody Zest for over 20 years and is now a certified Franklin Method instructor. 

That approach uses imagery and movement and what they call “experiential anatomy” to reorient your mind, body and posture.  Alyce makes her work approachable. You can take an “Old Tight Guy Pilates” class and she often takes her instruction out of the studio and into the world with public classes in local parks.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com. And check out lunch table conversation about Acadiana's own dance therapy, Cajun and Zydeco dancing.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All musicians want to be actors and all actors want to be musicians. That’s how you get David Bowie in the Labyrinth and the Bacon Brothers.

To be fair, everyone wants to be in the movie business. Over the last couple of decades, changes in technology and tax incentive programs by state and local governments have made that somewhat easier for folks to do, without necessarily moving to Los Angeles full time. 

Wherever you do it, it’s not going to be easy though. And it can be lonesome too, if you’re embarking on a passion project.

Brennan Robideaux has spent years pouring his time and life savings into one project: a documentary about pole vaulting Armand Duplantis, said to be perhaps the best to ever to do it and who grew up here in Lafayette. 

The movie is called Born to Fly and Brennan tracked Duplantis before he won gold and set records in the 2020 Olympic games, following him around the world to document his rise in a candid feature built on 700 hours of footage. 

Brennan grew up in Lafayette and opened a production company — Robideaux Creative — in 2018 to take on commercial work and other projects. 

Brennan’s name might sound familiar to you because of his dad: former legislator and Lafayette mayor Joel Robideaux. Film maker Griff Furst credits the former mayor’s cultural economy program with helping his company Curmudgeon Films make a home here in Lafayette.

Griff grew up in Van Nuys, California and in the entertainment industry, tagging along with his dad, actor Stephen Furst (a successful film producer though best known for his early work as an actor as "Flounder" in National Lampoon's Animal House), onto sets from a young age. 

Today, Griff makes movies both behind and in front of the camera. Griff has acting credits in films like the Magnificent 7 and Terminator Genysis and has directed several sci-fi thrillers under the Curmudgeon umbrella — movies as diverse as Ghost Shark and Cold Moon. 

Louisiana’s production tax credit first brought Griff to Lafayette in 2008. He met his wife, a Lafayette native. They now split time between Lafayette, New Orleans and L.A. And he continues to run productions both in Louisiana and around the country.

Conditions compelled us to record this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana on Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette.

Photos by Astor Morgan at our website, itsacadiana.com. And here's another interesting lunch table conversation about the Acadiana entertainment industry, specifically how the live music biz had to adapt to living with a pandemic.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 1990s were a fertile but culturally awkward decade — the playground of Gen Xers and grunge and flannel.  It was also the birth of the internet as we know it.

Companies like Yahoo and Google came of age during the dotcom boom, and so  did a generation of IT professionals. They were the first wave of workers in the digital economy. Today, that generation is in charge. Information Technology is the backbone of practically every company, or perhaps an Achilles heel.

Christiaan's guests today were part of that movement in the 90s and built some of Acadiana’s first technology enterprises. And they’re also brothers. 

Wayne Lobb and his brother Doug founded Cloudgin, an IT solutions firm that helps local companies set up and maintain their computing networks. The firm is boutique, it does no marketing and offers round-the-clock concierge services for around a dozen clients. 

Wayne went west in the 1990s and spent time in California during the dotcom boom, coming back to Lafayette to set up shop. Wayne is an avid kayak fisherman and has kept his operation small to keep an even keel in his work-life balance. 

Wayne’s brother Doug Menefee struck a different path. After founding Cloudgin, Doug became an itinerant IT consultant, helping a string of local firms set up their IT operations and working fulltime as a CIO for hire under the moniker DyslexiCio — a nod to that fact that Doug is Dyslexic. Doug had a hand in the very first live streams of Festival International and was an early advocate for cloud computing. 

In 2022, Doug took a job with Boulder GX, a Texas-based company working on ways to make medical lab testing faster and easier.  

Conditions compelled us to record this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana on Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette. 

You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website, itsacadiana.com. And you'll find more lunch table conversation about Acadiana IT businesses here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s the difference between an artist and an artisan?

You might say one makes things for expression and the other for use. But in reality, the line is blurry. It’s a distinction without a difference for the people who are actually making things. 

Art and craftsmanship have always been in conversation. Creating for expression was made possible by creating for necessity. Ancient Mesopotamians discover glassmaking. Syrians blow it into household goods. Eventually, you get Dale Chihuly.  

But plenty of artists and artisans flow back and forth across whatever imaginary line human beings need to draw between categories. 

If you visit artist Francis Pavy at his studio in Lafayette’s Freetown neighborhood, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a workshop. Best known as a painter, Francis has shown his work internationally but he’s also a wonder with a C&C router, carving blocks to make his iconic paintings with motifs of Louisiana mythology, pop culture and 20th century design. 

Francis grew up in Lafayette and began his career in glass making, moving into painting in the 1980s. Recently, he and his wife Cathi, a designer, launched an imprint for creating fabrics. Each textile features hand-designed patterns with orders filled on demand. Their line now includes eight different designs, meticulously crafted in a digital processing method Francis created to accommodate his style in fabric. 

Since long before there was an Acadiana, this region has been blessed with a vibrant maker culture. The Atakapa-Ishak Tribe that populated Southwestern Louisiana and East Texas were known for their trading posts where travelers and craftsman could trade their goods. 

That’s the tradition Erica Fox and her partner Kimberly Abadie-Moore tapped into when they launched Attakapas Collective, a cooperative that serves as a retailer and platform for local artisans, especially indigenous people and women of color. 

Erica and Kimberly saw opportunity in the time people have spent creating during the pandemic and put the collective together as an outlet. The shop opened in Downtown Lafayette in 2021, just around the corner from Pavy Studio actually, and now represents 34 artisans who produce local goods like tapestries, jewelry, metalworking and more. 

Erica is a songwriter and a Lafayette native. She spent 14 years in L.A. as a commercial artist signed to No Limit Records before moving back to Lafayette.

Pandemic conditions compelled us to record this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana by Zoom. Next week we hope to be back at our regular lunch spot, Tula Tacos on Jefferson Street in Downtown Lafayette.

You can find photos by Astor Morgan from this show at our website. And there's more recent lunch table conversation about Acadiana art (and karate!) here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you were born in or after 1984 you haven’t lived in a world without the Karate Kid. Before that date, Karate wasn’t always a fixture of youth activity in U.S. But, believe it or not, it was in Crowley, Louisiana! Way back in the 1970's, thanks to Acadiana Karate.

Today, Stacey Knight Mejia and her husband Pablo run the dojo at a space in Lafayette. Pablo originally took over the business in 1978 and expanded it from its home in Crowley.

Today, Acadiana Karate offers instruction in mixed martial arts with methods based in a variety of disciplines: Judo, Tai Kwan Do, Jujitsu, Akido, Kung Fu and American Shotokan. 

Besides the local shift from Crowley to Lafayette, one nationwide change over the last two decades is the number of women training and competing in martial arts. Today, around 30 or 40% of Stacey’s students are women and girls. 

Stacey is a lawyer by training, but left the legal profession to make a career out of karate.

Speaking of gender gaps, there’s been much written about representation in the world of art. A recent data analysis of 18 U.S. art museums found that 87% of their collections are men. There’s been important progress, however, in leadership roles. In 2005, around 30% of museum directors were women. Today it’s 47%. 

LouAnne Greenwald figures into the number. She directs the Hilliard University Art Museum, and has worked to connect the museum and UL with the rest of the community.  Since taking over in 2014, she’s established educational programs, increased staff and rolled out free Wednesday programs that help open the museum’s doors. 

LouAnne has a long history in arts, collections and fundraising, working as consultant in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, where she also cut her teeth as curator and educator for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website. And check out more lunchtime conversation about Acadian martial arts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.