IN THE NEWS

Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette Area People in Business for April 23, 2017

Apr 23, 2017


Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center has named Jason Rogers as assistant vice president of nursing, responsible for the nursing units within the hospital’s Heart and Vascular Institute. This includes all adult intensive care units, progressive care and cardiovascular nursing departments.

Rogers has served as the senior director of nursing for intensive care units and will maintain his responsibilities as the service line administrator over neurology.

The Baton Rouge native is a registered nurse who holds a master’s degree in nursing from Chamberlain College of Nursing and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Southern University.

Baton Rouge General has named Dr. Vasudev Tati as director and Dr. Sara Robichaux as associate director of its Internal Medicine Residency Program for the upcoming academic year, which begins in July.

Tati joined the General as a program faculty member in 2011 and three years later was appointed associate program director in charge of curriculum.

Robichaux is a member of the program faculty, having started in 2011 as one of the first Tulane residency students at the General.

R. Marshall Grodner, a member of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC's Baton Rouge office, has been elected treasurer of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers.

Grodner’s practice focuses primarily in commercial transactions, secured transactions, commercial finance, opinion letters, commercial real estate and gaming law.

Brian Landry has been named vice president of political affairs for the Louisiana Chemical Association and Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance.

Landry was vice president of political action for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry in addition to working as a floor lobbyist directing a number of issue councils for LABI. Landry is a native of Carencro, with a degree from LSU in marketing and political communications.

The Water Institute of the Gulf has named Ehab Meselhe as vice president for science and engineering; Denise Reed as vice president for strategic initiatives; Jennifer Butler as vice president for administration and chief financial officer; and Amy Wold as director of communications.

Meselhe was the institute’s director of natural systems modeling. Reed was chief scientist. Butler served five years as the institute’s director of grants and contracts. Wold spent 16 years at The Advocate reporting on coastal restoration, protection and sustainability.

Thomas K. “Tommy” Huval has been appointed to the board of directors of Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corp. by Gov. John Bel Edwards.

He is regional president of the retail division at Brown & Brown Inc. and serves as its senior vice president. Huval represents agents licensed to sell workers’ compensation insurance in Louisiana with executive-level experience.

LAFAYETTE AREA

MidSouth Bank has named Nicholas Richard as director of accounts receivable access and Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture lending.

Richard was vice president and middle market lender for Whitney Bank in Lafayette and previously accounts payable manager at Lafayette-based Schumacher Clinical Partners. Richard earned both an MBA and bachelor’s degree in accounting from University of Louisiana Lafayette.

Christine Allen has been named by Fertility Answers as in vitro fertilization lab director, overseeing laboratory staff and protocol of its Baton Rouge and Lafayette in vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction technologies programs.

Allen served as the scientific and technical laboratory director of sperm and oocyte banks at California Cryobank. She serves as the clinical director for Elite IVF, a worldwide egg donation agency.

A native of Brazil, Allen will complete her Ph.D. studies at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Department of Toxicology, Brazil, in August. She earned her masters degree from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, and received advanced training in preimplantation genetic diagnosis at the Reproductive Genetic Institute in Chicago. She is an American Association of Bioanalysts board-certified embryologist and andrologist.

NEW ORLEANS AREA

Timothy A. Hemphill has been named chief financial officer by the LSU Health Foundation New Orleans.

Hemphill, a certified public accountant, was chief administrative officer for the New Orleans Business Alliance, a public-private partnership of New Orleans and business community interests.

He was the alliance’s inaugural chief financial officer. Previous experience includes at Italian Wine Merchants, a global purveyor of luxury European wines with its flagship store in Manhattan, and as client account manager at Spielman Koenigsberg & Parker CPAs. Hemphill graduated from the E.J. Ourso College of Business Administration at LSU in Baton Rouge and Brother Martin High School in New Orleans.

Forman Watkins & Krutz LLP has named Charles Abbott, Byron Kitchens and Amy Maccherone as partners in its New Orleans office.

They were with Cotten Schmidt & Abbott. Abbott's practice is focused in commercial, products liability, premises liability, mass tort and tort litigation. Kitchens focuses his practice in commercial, environmental and contract disputes, as well as class actions and mass tort actions. Maccherone focuses her practice primarily on chemical exposure, product liability and climate change litigation.