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New Beginings
So many things have changed since IT happened on August 29, 2005. And though you could fill a whole magazine with stories of heartache and loss, we have found an equal number of tales of new opportunities. Here, Inside Northside takes a look at some of the positive new things that blew in with the hurricane’s winds—new challenges, new opportunities and even new babies!
A New Sense of Gratitude
Randy Raggio
by Stacey Paretti Rase
Although he is currently an assistant professor at LSU and obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio State University, Randy Raggio is a serious northshore native. A sixth-generation Mandevillian and a third-generation alumnus of Mandeville High School, he is well known locally for being one of only three people to have ever successfully swum across Lake Pontchartrain.
Randy and his wife, Noel, were living in Ohio, however, when Katrina struck Randy’s hometown. Although thousands of miles away from home, Randy says he felt an instant connection to the New Orleans area, as members of their church and the mothers of children in their daughter Jenna’s playgroup jumped into action, donating everything from cash to a truckload of boxes full of baby supplies to be sent to the devastated region.
“I was overwhelmed by all of it,” says Randy. But he also believes that living so far away enabled him to gain a profound perspective on the situation, which called him to action. “I realized that I didn’t have a home to rebuild, like so many others. I didn’t have any anxiety or worry. So, I decided that I had to do something to get involved.”
It was then that Randy had the idea for the “Louisiana Thanks You!” campaign—a grassroots effort to enable those who have the desire to express their heartfelt thanks for the countless of hours and the billions of dollars that have been directed toward our state in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “We will never be able to acknowledge each individual from around this nation and around the globe who has contributed, whether financially, physically or through their prayers,” he says. “The goal of the campaign is to build a coalition of individuals, along with government, corporate, recovery and tourism leaders, to raise our voices in unison to express our gratitude. There is no special interest involved. This isn’t political. It’s not just an ad campaign or a tourism pitch. I want this to be ongoing. And I believe our message is more likely to reach all of those who helped if we work together.”
With that goal in mind, Randy first contacted Lamar Advertising, a Baton Rouge-based company that operates outdoor advertising nationwide. The company enthusiastically joined his effort by donating 90 “Louisiana Thanks You!” billboards across the country, from Harrisburg, Pa. to the Rio Grande Valley. Following that success, countless ideas began to swarm around in Randy’s head to advance the initiative. Pins were designed for grateful residents to wear. “Louisiana Thanks You!” decals were created to hang in storefronts, restaurants and other places of business throughout the state. And one million postcards with a message of thanks have been produced that will soon grace the bed of every tourist or convention-goer to our region.
“Then, I thought, wouldn’t it be neat to have our message driven around all over the country?” says Randy. Thus, the idea for a license plate expressing our state’s gratitude was born. Working with state senator Tom Schedler, Randy campaigned the state legislature for the passage of an official “Louisiana Thanks You!” resolution. Lawmakers were happy to join in the statewide effort, passing SB47 in June, the bill authorizing the official prestige license plate for the cause.
Randy had the opportunity to appear at the state capitol to personally thank the members of the legislature for their support of the program. In his comments, he quoted Adam Smith, who called gratitude “a civic virtue, absolutely essential for the healthy functioning of societies.”
“When we receive something, we say, ‘thank you,’” Randy adds. “It’s the right thing to do.”
For more information on “Louisiana Thanks You!”, go to www.LouisianaThanksYou.com.
A New Determination
The Ballard Brothers
by Stacey Paretti Rase
Paul, Steven and Scott Ballard were brothers with a dream. As co-owners of the northshore-based franchise WOW Café & Wingery, the men had seen their idea of a fun, casual, family-friendly restaurant take off in the New Orleans market. The next logical step on the ladder to their success was a national expansion. The trio set their sights high and managed a deal with the campus service division of Sodhexo Foods that would place 100 WOW Café & Wingery franchises at universities throughout the country. The Ballards knew that the arrangement would surely catapult the WOW brand into the future. They also knew that the deal’s success hinged on the smooth opening of the series’ first location in Plattsburgh, New York. The catch? That store’s opening was slated for Thursday, September 1—just three days after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall.
“That was the seed store, and it was a test, of sorts,” recalls Scott. “We knew that everyone would be looking at us, wondering if we could really pull it off.”
“The manager-to-be of that store was actually in Covington doing training with us when we evacuated,” remembers Steven. “We got him on the last flight out of New Orleans on Sunday night. When he got home and started watching everything unfold on the news, even he told us [later] that there was no way we were going to open that store on time.”
Undaunted by the odds stacked against them, the brothers drove their families to stay with relatives in Atlanta before taking off in a van together. They didn’t have much more with them but a map and a newfound determination to see their restaurant succeed. “Our goal was, come hell or high water (no pun intended!), we were going to get that store open on time,” says Scott.
“We had a commitment, and we had to see it through,” adds Paul. “And when we finally got up there, after that long drive, some of those guys were literally in tears. They couldn’t believe we had actually showed up!”
The fact that the guys made it there in time wasn’t the only thing that wowed the group (pun definitely intended). The restaurant’s first quarter numbers showed a 22 percent increase in sales over any previous year in the location’s history. (The university had been operating various restaurants there for thirty years.) “We thought that was great,” says Paul. “But we also thought that we could do better.” Over the school’s Christmas break, the guys rethought things, tweaked the menu at that location and came back to pull out a 40 percent increase in the spring quarter.
The brothers remember their long van drive together following the storm being a real turning point for their outlook on the business. “We had to decide then and there if we were a national company first, or if we would concentrate on taking care of our businesses here locally to get back up and running,” says Paul. “We realized that we had to do both—there was no other choice. So we did what we had to do in New York and then got our butts back home to get rolling here.”
“We were always really positive about it,” says Scott. “I mean, you can find people who are equally as optimistic as us, but you’ll never find anyone more optimistic than us!”
Once home, they visited all of their local franchises and assured each owner that they would do whatever necessary to assist them in rebuilding and reopening. “We told them that we were all in this together,” notes Scott. “We thought it was our responsibility to get them motivated to reopen.” The enthusiasm paid off—though fourteen stores in the New Orleans area were closed down following the storm, nine were reopened within the first two months and all were expected be up and running by the storm’s one-year anniversary.
The guys admit that the storm and their success in New York did light a fire of new determination in them. After seeing so many lose so much, the Ballards now place an extra emphasis on the people who keep their operation running. When they now speak of their business, they find it natural to speak in superlatives. “We want the best 401k plan, the best work environment, the most competitive pay in the market,” says Paul. “We will do whatever we can to take care of our employees. That’s what drives us everyday.”
That, and the promise of a fantastic future. Earlier this summer, the WOW franchise was in eight states. By this year’s end, the business will have laid roots in sixteen. So, where do they go from there?
“Just look out front,” laughs Scott, motioning to the building’s sign outside the WOW offices in Madisonville. In bold lettering, the sign reads, “WOW International Headquarters.”
New Opportunities
Michael Saucier, President of Gulf States
Real Estate Services
by Stephen Faure
One northshore firm is up to its eyeballs in the reality of post-Katrina reconstruction. St. Tammany’s Gulf States Real Estate Services, led by its president, Michael Saucier, is involved in managing several projects, including the biggest reconstruction project in the area, the Louisiana Superdome renovation. 
Gulf States is a multi-tasker when it comes to real estate development. The firm’s mainstay is project management, and for Gulf States that can entail every aspect of a real estate development, from land acquisition to construction to sales, leasing and property management. “We’re the developer per se in about 25 percent of our development projects, and develop the rest for a fee,” says Saucier.
Saucier believes that planning a true “Metropolitan New Orleans” is one of the most significant issues facing the area. “Hopefully, the Slidell-Lacombe, Mandeville-Covington, Hammond-Ponchatoula, Laplace and Metairie areas will be part of that new reality. All of these areas are within roughly a 45-minute commute to its natural major hub [New Orleans],” he says.
Residential real estate opportunities arise, as friends, families (and strangers) from Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes relocate on the northshore, unable or unwilling to return to devastated neighborhoods. Businesses having to make similar decisions also present new opportunities. “Many (if not most) business and residential interests do not trust the government’s ability to protect them in such a risky natural environment,” Saucier notes.
“For good projects or ideas to become a reality, a lot of stars must line up. Katrina, combined with external factors influencing the cost of materials and labor, has definitely made the project delivery system more difficult and challenging.”
Challenges include the pinch on resources placed on us by post-Katrina demand. “Basic project delivery has become extremely difficult, due to shortages of white-and blue-collar labor, as well as rising construction costs and interest rates.” Saucier observes that other professionals Gulf States works with, including attorneys, engineers, surveyors, and governmental entities, have employees and resources that are stretched to the limit.
Gulf States’ biggest project by far is its management of the Louisiana Superdome renovation. Storm winds tore off huge sections of the Dome’s roof, causing water to course through the building, which sustained extensive internal and external damage. Contractors led by Broadmoor Construction, along with the design team headed by Trahan Architects of Baton Rouge, are in charge of more than 100 separate jobs that make up the huge undertaking, which is being financed by three separate entities. Saucier believed Gulf South, as a local business, was perfectly suited for the high-level management task of keeping track of the work flow in this $185 million effort.
“We aggressively pursued this project for business and civic purposes and were fortunate to land the contract. The major risk here was that we were walking into a high-level management position in a very difficult project and, more importantly, a project that had many months of previous work history,” Saucier says. (Saints fans note: The project is on track for the September 25 Monday Night Football home opener against the Atlanta Falcons.)
Other projects Gulf States Real Estate Services is involved in include Providence Ridge, a mixed-use community being developed at I-12 and Airport Road in Hammond; The Haven, another mixed use endeavor in Robert; and the South Tangi Multiplex, a commercial development in Hammond.
A New Orleans native and LSU civil engineering graduate, Saucier states, “Our slogan is ‘Turning Ideas into Reality’—and now reality has to be met head-on.” The realities faced by Gulf States and its clients are the post-Katrina challenges and opportunities that go hand-in-hand on the northshore. But he adds that another reality is “…that time is not on our side. Problems and opportunities must be dealt with head-on by all if we are to persevere.”
A New Baby
The Ladner Family
by Stacey Paretti Rase
Like thousands of others who were displaced from their homes following the storm, Covington’s Michelle and Cooper Ladner found themselves living temporarily with nearby relatives. Many memorable times were shared during the six months the couple lived with Cooper’s parents in Mandeville, but they remember the days between hurricanes Katrina and Rita most. They lived without power for an extended period of time and shared the home’s space with other relatives who lost their residences in Bay St. Louis. “We managed,” says Michelle.
Apparently, they did—a change of scenery wasn’t the only thing new that blew in with the hurricane’s winds for the couple.
“We were in the middle of watching the first LSU game of the season,” remembers Michelle, “when I desperately wanted a Sunkist.” It was that craving that set her off immediately, as she had had similar yearnings for the fruit drink while pregnant with the couple’s first son, Mason. The craving suggested what a test later would confirm—that Michelle was indeed pregnant and had conceived sometime between hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The couple had been trying to conceive for quite a long time prior to the storms, with no success. “I think the hurricane actually took my mind off it,” says Michelle.
Nine months later, they welcomed new baby Chandler to the family and were able to bring him home to their newly renovated house in Crestwood Estates. Awaiting there was new nursery furniture. (Mason’s bedroom set had been lent to relatives on the coast and got washed away in the storm.) Also new is Michelle’s outlook on life. “Things can be replaced,” she says. “But for all we’ve lost, Chandler is a source of hope for our family.”
In years to come, the story of Chandler’s conception will surely be told many times in the Ladner family. As will the story of his birth. Ironically, Michelle’s first signs of labor were felt during the first tropical storm of 2006. Michelle laughs, saying, “I will tell Chandler one day that it all started with a storm and ended with a storm!”
A New Home—and Dog!
The Neese Family
by Stephen Faure
Making the best of an awful situation proved to be a long journey for the Neeses, but this St. Bernard family has found a happy trail’s end on the northshore. Born and raised in St. Bernard Parish, Diane and Rickey Neese had been comfortably settled into their Meraux home of three years when “IT” happened.
The good times had and deep roots put down in St. Bernard were reduced to fond photographic memories captured in the treasures Dianne had the foresight to pack in preparation for evacuation on August 27, 2005. Pictures of their wedding they held in the Meraux home, the progress of the work they put into the house, their plants, their pets and the house covered in snow on Christmas day in 2004.
Dianne and Rickey are also in possession of some not-so-fond photographic memories, the kind produced in evidence of what nine feet of water can do to the home you love. Rickey’s boat, once on a trailer in the backyard, now straddling their neighbor’s fence. Ceiling fan blades drooping down into the living room as if melted. A chair embedded in the sheetrock wall four feet off the ground. Photos of Rickey’s mother’s house, the one he grew up in, sitting in a canal after floating 300 feet from his family’s property. 
The Neeses’ Katrina evacuation (including three dogs and Rickey’s mom, Elma) took a circuitous route: Baton Rouge, Dallas, St. John the Baptist Parish and finally St. Tammany Parish—first, in a Slidell FEMA trailer park, and finally, dogs and Elma still included, to their new Cross Gates home. Dianne, an employee of the Department of Agriculture’s National Finance Center in New Orleans East, was temporarily transferred to Dallas while the Center’s Michoud facility was brought back to speed. Rickey, a maintenance engineer at the Omni Royal Orleans, returned to work just days after the family’s’ initial evacuation to a friend’s home in Baton Rouge.
“We had the 82nd Airborne, FEMA, SBA officials and ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] officers at the hotel the first couple of weeks. I drove in from Baton Rouge; a New Orleans policeman escorted me in. There was no one on the interstate, so sometimes we drove 90 miles an hour,” Rickey remembers.
Thanks to Lockheed Martin employees at Michoud who worked during and after Katrina to keep the space shuttle’s external tank facilities dry, the National Finance Center’s building in the same complex was also spared damage from flooding. As a result, Dianne was back working in October. By that time Rickey and Elma had moved from Baton Rouge to his cousin’s home in St. John the Baptist Parish.
Although quite grateful for the generosity of friends and relatives who opened up their homes to them, Dianne says “By that time, we really wanted to be back in a place of our own. We thought about rebuilding in Meraux, but there was no hospital, no grocery stores, no fire protection, no police protection and no levees.”
It was the “little things” they were looking for and found in St. Tammany: running water, green grass growing on well-cared for lawns, and functioning grocery stores and pharmacies on the corner. In December 2005, they moved into their first St. Tammany home. Although cramped, with three adults and three dogs, it was still a place of their own, a FEMA trailer in a Slidell mobile home park.
When her co-worker’s sister and brother-in-law decided to sell their Cross Gates home and move to Colorado, Dianne expressed interest in buying the spacious home. “It’s big. The neighborhood is quiet, it’s close to the stores and the doctor’s office,” she notes, adding that other family members and friends are in St. Tammany and close by in Mississippi now.
“We started sleeping here the day they left with the truck. We had no furniture, but they left us a mattress and some chairs,” Dianne recalls, sitting in her new dining room, with rain beating down outside. She’s taking a break from painting, and has lately been enjoying filling in all that space with new furniture. “We weren’t going to spend one more night in that trailer.”
So who’s that little dog that’s scared of the thunder and hiding under the table? “That’s Katrina,” says Dianne. Katrina? “Yep. We were packing the car to evacuate from Chalmette and she came into the garage. We spent an hour going around the neighborhood trying to find her owner. No one recognized her. She must have been abandoned the day before. It was funny, because we already had two dogs that were pretty set in their ways. They got along fine with her, like they had been raised together. She’s been with us ever since, and we had to name her Katrina.”
A New Source of Direction
Bert Fontcuberta and MapMan, LLC
by Billie Holden
Bert Fontcuberta often refers to his company, MapMan, LLC, using lighthouse imagery. When asked why, he smiles gently and says simply, “I think of it as a source of enlightenment to help navigate during dark, difficult times.” And indeed, at no time was there a need for such a beacon of light and hope as there was after Katrina struck the Gulf South on August 29, 2005. 
As a child growing up in Mandeville, Bert drafted thousands of maps for his father’s surveying company in Metairie and fell in love with mapping. The catalyst for starting his own map company began while Bert was working as a reserve police officer for the City of Covington. Bert learned of a tragedy where a life was lost due to emergency responders not having the proper map resources to allow them to reach a call location. Bert started MapMan, LLC, in 1998, creating the Navigator, a series of map books charting the streets of Louisiana. Bert created his maps, including the St. Tammany Navigator, with the main intent of navigating emergency responders, such as police, firefighters and ambulances crews, to their destinations as quickly as possible.
At the time Katrina struck, Bert only had approximately 600 St. Tammany map books in inventory. The demand for his maps was so enormous that he went through his entire inventory in just a few days. It was important to Bert to meet the needs of the emergency responders, first and foremost. As soon as Mele Printing was functioning again, “I was one of the first to get on the press for updated map books,” he says. “I could have easily chosen to have the books printed faster with an out-of-state company, but we pride ourselves on creating a completely local product. With Mele’s help, I was able to get local emergency responders an updated product quickly.”
Post-Katrina, due to the influx of people to the northshore, MapMan has grown tremendously over the past year by updating and creating new Navigator products, hiring more staff, and forming new partnerships. Danny and Stephanie Shipp say the information has been invaluable to their business. “We came to the northshore to perform visual inspections on the repair process of homeowners’ properties. Locating these properties was extremely difficult,” Danny remembers. “There was downed timber everywhere, making normal driving conditions very challenging. Street signs were missing; therefore, learning to navigate and locate these addresses was next to impossible. We had stopped for directions in numerous locations, but due to the newness of the re-population, not very many people had any helpful information.” After much frustration, the Shipps were turned on to the St. Tammany Navigator by Slidell’s fire chief. “We were very relieved when we were directed to an address we had been in search of for three days in less than two minutes!”
Bert’s wife and MapMan’s co-owner, Virginia, also works full-time for a local CPA firm. They’ve also hired their daughter, Alissa Pierce, away from her job in Baton Rouge to work as their office administrator. Her expertise in data research has been a tremendous asset to MapMan. Soon after hiring Alissa, they also hired their younger daughter, Hope Fontcuberta, a Southeastern student, to work part-time to assist in bookbinding and quality control. “Alissa and Hope represent the third generation of mapmakers in the Fontcuberta family,” Bert proudly says.
The Washington Parish Navigator, published in 2006, assisted FEMA with trailer deployment. The St. Tammany Navigator, published in 2003 and updated September 2005 and August 2006, was widely used during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita relief/recovery efforts and gained national recognition from several national agencies and firms such as the Shaw Group.
As the introduction to the MapMan Navigator map books states: “Whether you are looking for a friend’s house, the house or property of your dreams, a job site, an emergency call location, or just at the crossroads of your life and need some direction, the Navigator is here for you.”
For more information on MapMan, LLC, please visit www.LaNavigator.com.
