Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois will begin a statewide tour of the eight economic development regions in Monroe Tuesday.
Gov. Jeff Landry announced the tour last week in a press conference where he rolled out a plan to integrate Louisiana businesses with large investments in the state. The tour is part of the LED’s Nine by Ninety plan to attract new investments and growth in existing businesses, with one prong of the plan to visit 800 “driver companies” by the end of the fiscal year.
Bourgeois said LED selected the businesses she will visit through conversations with legislative partners on which companies are “moving the needle” in each development region. After the tour, LED will assess the information gathered and determine how to address the needs of Louisiana businesses.
“After eight of these, I suspect we’ll have a little bit of pattern, but after 80 of these, we will really know what Louisiana businesses need, are struggling with and are paying attention to,” she said. “And after 800 of these, we will have massive data points to be able to take back to the governor and legislature and say, ‘Here’s what they said.'”
Throughout the tour, she plans to promote the statewide business directory SourceLouisiana.com, launched last week to connect Louisiana vendors with projects in the state.
In Monroe, she will meet with Louisiana Plastics, a packaging material company, and J&J Construction, which are both working on the Meta data center in Richland Parish, to discuss how the state and other businesses can support the project. Bourgeois will also give a press conference at the Hotel Monroe on how local tourism partners are reaping the benefits of the data center development. Executives involved in the project tend to meet at the hotel’s rooftop bar.
Bourgeois will go to Shreveport on Wednesday. Bourgeois will meet with Metro Aviation, which outfits aircrafts for emergency medical services, and Sumitomo Forestry, which owns a sawmill in north Bossier Parish. Her Shreveport area itinerary also includes attending an event with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Bossier Chamber of Commerce and the ribbon cutting of Bienville Lumber, a company that is looking to expand its footprint and jobs, she said.
She’s set to make a Baton Rouge stop on Sept. 29, participating in a panel discussion with representatives from CodeGig, a software firm; PetKrewe, a pet costume startup; 28Bio, a neurotechnology company; and Opportunity Machine, the Lafayette incubator for tech companies.
In the weeks following, she will make her way down the state with the goal of covering each region by mid-October. With each stop, Bourgeois and her team will discuss with business leaders on their company’s plans for expansion, how the LED and the state can support them and the barriers they’re facing. She said the goal of the tour is to ensure the Louisiana business community knows the agency is there to support them.
“The importance of these visits is really talking to the leaders of each of these companies,” Bourgeois said.