The Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region has worked tirelessly to encourage leaders at Tulane and LSU to work out their differences with respect to a governance model for the New Orleans academic medical center.  Facilitated by DHH Secretary Alan Levine, a draft memorandum of understanding was hammered out last week and offered to both university boards for approval at special meetings called for that purpose only.

The negotiation teams were made up of the most senior leaders from both institutions–including the presidents of the universities as well as the chairmen of their respective university boards.

The Tulane Board of Administrators ratified the document as drafted.  The LSU Board of Supervisors made unilateral changes before approving a version to which Tulane had obviously not agreed.  We call on the LSU Board of Supervisors to reconvene as soon as possible and affirm the document that their leaders developed.

A state of the art medical center which provides cutting edge research, residency training and excellent health care for all is crucial to an improved quality of life for our citizenry.  A new teaching hospital will have an enormous, positive economic development impact on our city.

We urge the LSU Board of Supervisors to do the right thing for all parties: Reconvene, adopt the memorandum as originally agreed to and improve the quality of life for the people of Louisiana.

Gregory Rusovich

Chairman

Bob Brown

Managing Director

Ron Forman

Academic Medical Center Task Force

New Orleans Business Council

New Orleans

New Orleans-based Pan-American Life Insurance Company is among the 500 largest Hispanic-owned corporations in the United States.  Led by Business Council member, Jose Suquet, Pan-American ranks 16th on the Hispanic Business 500 with more than $400 million in annual revenue.  This is an improvement of seven positions in the 27th annual ranking of Hispanic businesses from number 23 in 2008.  Pan-American is also the top-ranked Hispanic company in Louisiana.  Founded in 1911, Pan-American has full operations in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with substantial regional activities in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Not since 2007  had a New Orleans-based company initiated a publicly traded stock offering.  That all changed on May 28 when Westway Group, Inc. began over the counter trading.  Its ticker symbol is WWAY.  It is seeking listing on the NASDAQ within the next few months.  Led by CEO, Peter Harding, the firm operates two business divisions-one for the storage of bulk liquids and the other for the manufacture and sale of animal feed supplements.  Westway has facilities in North America, Europe and Asia.  The corporate strategy includes both organic growth and further acquisitions.  Westway has 50 employees in its One Canal Place corporate office and 385 worldwide.

 In a unanimous 7 to 0 vote, the New Orleans City Council on Thursday, June 4 passed an ordinance to allocate $2 million to provide first year funding for the New Orleans Economic Development Corporation, the soon to be formed Public/Private Partnership (PPP) which will drive economic development efforts for the city.  The Business Council was represented at the  City Council hearing by Chairman Gregory Rusovich, Task Force Leader, John Hope, and Managing Director, Bob Brown.  The ordinance offered up by request from Mayor C. Ray Nagin and sponsored by Councilmembers Arnie Fielkow and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, sets the stage for the appointment of a board of directors, the hiring of an executive and the launching of a focused, well coordinated strategy for business recruitment, retention and expansion in New Orleans.  The $2 million will be matched by $400,000 from the business community, with much of that being contributed by members of the New Orleans Business Council.

Led by the Horizon Initiative, a broad coalition of business organizations worked through a fifteen month process to establish the organizational framework and operating principles for the new enterprise.  This group included the Asian Chamber of Commerce, the New Orleans Black Chamber of Commerce, the Black Economic Development Council, the New Orleans Board of Trade, the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 

The City of New Orleans scored a major sports and economic development victory at the NFL Owners Association spring meeting on May 19 when Super Bowl XLVII (# 47) was awarded in a stiff competition between New Orleans, South Florida (Miami) and Phoenix. Three of the five members of the presenting team were Business Council members: Bob Brown, Ron Forman and Rod West. West had a particularly prominent role serving, along with Stephen Perry, President and CEO of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, as one of the two team members allowed to speak during the fifteen minute presentation to the Owners Association and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Business Council member and Saints Executive Vice President, Rita Benson-LeBlanc, along with long-time Saints owner, Tom Benson, had taken a lead role over a very long period in providing their fellow team owners with ample information on the city’s superior capacity to host what will be a record-tying 10th Super Bowl.

The anticipated economic impact of the 2013 Super Bowl is more than $300 million.