CEO of One Acadiana visits Abbeville Rotary Club

The president and CEO of One Acadiana visited Abbeville to educate business owners and former business owners  from the parish about what is the future of One Acadiana.

Jason El Koubi, the CEO of One Acadiana, was at the Rotary meeting in Abbeville to explain the future of One Acadiana. 

One Acadiana is a brand new 9-parish economic development  program. The program, which operates on a $3 million a year budget, was created to try and recruit businesses to Acadiana, while at the same time making sure businesses in the area remain.

More than 1,000 companies or individuals in Acadiana pledged a total of $15 million over a five-year period to fund One Acadiana. 

Three companies from Vermilion Parish who have invested are: Broussard Brothers, Duhon Brothers and Gulf Coast Bank.  

Vermilion Parish is one of the nine parishes in the region.

El Koubi told the Rotarians that One Acadiana’s goal is to  try and improve  the product in Acadiana.

“We know we are in a competitive landscape,” said Koubi. “We know other regions and communities are not sitting still.  The more we can do to improve our infrastructure or quality of life, the more competitive we will be.”

He explained while Acadiana needs to improve on the regional level, local parishes also need to step it up. He praised the hiring of Anne Falgout, the parish’s new economic development director.  By having One Acadiana,  it will make Falgout’s job better when it comes to trying to recruit a business into the parish.

He said without One Acadiana,  Falgout would be a “one-person team” with marketing and promoting Vermilion Parish.

“This whole thing is about having enough horse power for local leaders,” he added. “It could be to help local business people, local economic development people or local chamber leaders. We want to make sure we have a way to inform everyone.”

El Koubi  spoke about the strong points and the weaknesses of Acadiana.

The strengths are”

• National leader in oil and gas exploration and production.

• Several local economic development organizations.

• Three higher education institutions.

• Vibrant culture and strong pride of place.

The Weaknesses are:

• Over reliance on oil and gas industry for growth.

• Relatively weak regional economic development capacity

• Crisis in some public education systems.

• Insufficient funding for infrastructure investment and maintenance.

It will be One Acadiana’s mission to tackle the weaknesses and turn them into strengths, he said.