10/12 Louisiana: The Roundtable
MEET THE PARTICIPANTS
WHEN THE ANCIENT Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that “The only constant in life is change,” he could just as easily have been talking about industry in south Louisiana thousands of years later. As 2024 winds to a close, the region finds itself in a constant state of adapting to complex challenges while grappling with how to harness new technologies.
With this dynamic situation in mind, 10/12 Industry Report invited five local thought leaders to share their ideas and insights surrounding the key issues facing the petrochemical industry today, as well as the opportunities that they see for their sectors and this area moving forward. From artificial intelligence and energy grid diversification to debt markets
and expanding development, these leaders offered real-life examples of how they are tackling pressing issues and revealed what is driving their successes as they work to position our state for future growth.
Comments made during the roundtable have been edited and condensed for clarity and for space. Read and share the online version.
Brian Haymon CEO, Loadstar Product Handling
Evan Scroggs President & Managing Principal, Lee & Associates
Lionel Johnson Jr. Mayor, City of St. Gabriel
Kathy Trahan President and CEO, Alliance Safety Council
Jerry Jones Owner, Bradley Murchison Kelly & Shea, LLC
Clay Young Moderator
In St. Gabriel, probably the most challenging issue is diversifying the energy grid. As facilities are trying more low-carbon products and even low-carbon energy, there is a transition that needs to happen. Diversifying the electric grid is not just about saving and creating jobs in St. Gabriel but in industry as a whole. It presents a variety of challenges and opportunities. The challenges are geopolitical and geo-economic; we don’t want instability in our region and throughout the world. But the opportunities are simply to create clean energy and to prevent leaks and flares and things of that nature. I embrace modernization and expansion that is an environmental win.
Public opinion around the environmental impact of industry is a huge challenge, and it needs to be addressed with more education about recent advancements in monitoring and reducing emissions. Industry needs to stand up and speak about the measures taken to ensure the safety of our communities. We have the technology to be able to monitor and address almost everything that could possibly occur. Emissions have not led us to stop driving cars or barbecuing. There is a need for more balanced and informed conversations. I think industry as a whole and the workers of our industry tend to stay silent on this, and there needs to be a groundswell to shift public perception.
—Kathy Trahan
OLionel Johnson
Ithink it is the political climate. There is opposition from those who want to inhibit growth of the industry, and often we ignore them, but I believe that is the wrong strategy. They are hitting social media. They are hitting schools. The kids who are hearing this today will be parish council members in 15 years. They will be mayors. They will be decision makers, and if they have been told for years that industry is bad, that is going to influence the future. I think industry is going to have to figure out a way to get just as assertive in its messaging. We have to get better at telling the good side of the story of the industry and debunking the negativity.
What do you see as the most pressing issue facing your industry as you move into 2025?
ne emerging issue is producing energy to support growth and new technology. AI, for example, requires huge amounts of energy. We need to be open to new sources like Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) and other alternative forms of production, even as we continue to expand and harden the grid. A related emerging issue is competing for talent. Too many younger workers see ours as an industry of the past. We need to showcase our technology and commitment to produce clean energy. Local communities also need to see us not as old-world polluters, but as drivers of economic growth that can improve education, healthcare and other outcomes, especially for those living close to industrial areas. We have to increase our investment and present ourselves in a much more positive light, and then show people the good we are doing. We must change the narrative.
—Brian Haymon
—Jerry Jones
Debt markets continue to be a challenge for us. I work with companies that would be service providers to petrochemical, and what they need is warehouse space. Getting warehouses built is becoming more and more of a challenge because the debt markets are very tight right now. There is plenty of equity in the market for deals, but debt has been a challenge. Getting funding for speculative development wasn’t that big of a challenge 24 to 36 months ago. Now, it’s kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack. Population decline is also a real challenge, and it goes hand in hand with the ability to attract debt into the market. A lot of institutional groups want to invest capital or deploy debt in areas that are experiencing population growth. Louisiana is missing out on a huge opportunity to be a strategic location for supply chain logistics for companies, especially with the new container port south of New Orleans. Look at our interstate connectivity, our rail connectivity. Baton Rouge is the only MSA along the I-10 corridor that has three north/south interstate corridors within 80 miles of it. I like to say that I-10 and the Mississippi River, that’s Main and Main and we are sitting on top of it. So there is a ton of potential there.
—Evan Scroggs
It’s amazing how AI has changed the way business is done just in the last 24 months. We use it for market research and forecasting. We’ve used it to help give us an idea about future tenant demand. Probably the most compelling way I have seen AI implemented locally is to help solve supply chain and logistics questions. You can provide it inputs— where the product is manufactured, who the end consumer is, which ports it is being exported from, where it’s being imported to, how many warehouses your supply chain infrastructure allows for—and it can help determine the best footprint or the best location based on those inputs. That’s been pretty fascinating to see. But we are just scratching the surface.
—Evan Scroggs
Ithink from an environmental standpoint, it is going to make us better at monitoring emissions. When you have a 400-mile pipeline, a lot of things can happen in 400 miles, and I think AI is going to help us minimize fugitive emissions. I think it is going to help us forecast maintenance needs. A piece of equipment has a lifespan, and I think it is going to be able to monitor wear and tear and give us a better ability to decide when it’s time to take a piece of equipment out of service. But we must address the energy demands that AI is going to require. The great news for Louisiana is that natural gas is still a clean way to produce electricity. Louisiana has all the natural gas we need, and we can build all the power plants we want. But still that takes time, and we are going to have to have that energy. The other thing that I think will come with increased AI is increased cybersecurity issues. Where there is opportunity, there are bad guys that are going to take advantage of it. You have to address both of them simultaneously.
—Jerry Jones
LAoadstar has adopted AI to improve our safety and operating performance. Each month, our supervisors conduct hundreds of observations of employees performing tasks in the field. We used to collect the paper observation forms and look for trends. Now the observation data is collected electronically and fed into an AI software that identifies gaps—the people, tasks or other things we are not observing as often as we should. The software generates a weekly to-do list for each supervisor so our observations are more comprehensive and our management has a more accurate picture of how our guys are performing in the field. In another AI application, we hired a local firm, DisruptREADY, to develop AI software that applies complex pay and billing rules to invoices and payroll. It used to take one person three days to process a two-week pay and billing cycle. Now it takes about three hours. It’s been a game changer in terms of efficiency.
Artificial intelligence has become an essential technology in the corporate world. How are you incorporating it into your own industry?
—Brian Haymon
Ibelieve government has a role to play. I have projects that are in place that I call legacy projects. I know I won’t see them through, but I know I will get them started. I think our state leaders need to have legacy in mind. We have to have a futuristic approach. I completed a Ph.D. program in public policy, and the last year and half, I saw the university grapple with how to handle AI. So not just in this industry but in all industries, I think we need to start embracing it, understand the opportunities, and understand the challenges with security. Our statewide leaders have to have the foresight to address these things together, understanding that with term limits, they won’t be the one that might get all the credit for it, but it will be a part of their legacy.
I has become an essential component in our operations. “AI is going to take your job” is what you hear, but the people who know how to use AI will be able to do the work of two to three people. We use human-assisted AI in our online training courses for facial recognition and the flagging of anomalies. Prior to COVID, we had this technology ready for the power sector, because it is so geographically dispersed. Since then, we have transitioned it to other sectors. With human-assisted AI, humans are still an important part of the process. In our solution, AI flags potential deviations from the rules during online training, but humans make the final call on whether the student will get credit for the course based on testing parameters set by the course provider.
—Kathy Trahan
—Lionel Johnson
One thing that has become a common thread over the last year goes back to workforce availability. Companies can’t find the people they need. That was not a problem pre-COVID, at least not at the level it is now. On the positive side, there’s the rapid expansion of carbon capture utilization and storage. CCUS can be a gamechanger for Louisiana. That wasn’t on the horizon 10 years ago. And it picked up in the last year like I never expected. So I think we see some challenges in 2024, and I also see some great opportunities that are out there. I am learning more now than I was 20 years ago because there is just so much more that you have to absorb. This is probably one of the most exciting times in the energy industry, and I think Louisiana stands in a position to be a major player in this game.
—Jerry Jones
We continue to see younger workers emerging as leaders and decision makers. They bring their own expectations for our industry and its future. Some have told me they see our industry as too conservative and risk averse. They sometimes encounter an attitude of “if it ain’t broke” that can stifle creativity and innovation. In the site logistics space where Loadstar works, barges, railcars and trucks are handled much the same as they have been for decades. Change is surely coming. Will our industry adapt, or will we lead? This is one reason why innovation is a core value at Loadstar. We have introduced virtual reality and AI, and we are just getting started. We want to help our customers figure out the changes that work best for them and then go make it happen.
—Brian Haymon
SItreamlining the onboarding process for our contractors has been one of our big wins. We work with the one resource that nobody can get more of—time. We look at every process and say, “How can we shave time off of this?” We measure by ZIP codes—where people live versus where they work versus where they train—to show the time and emissions we are saving them by training them where they are. At the same time, technology and the infrastructure to support online training has gotten better, so we are able to deliver richer training experiences. When we talk to industry partners and stakeholders, we look for that common thread—how we can eliminate redundancies and how we can provide them just-in-time resources that give them what they need.
What is the biggest change you have seen in your sector so far in 2024, and how has it affected your organization?
W—Kathy Trahan
hen I started with Lee & Associates in 2023, we were really the only national commercial real estate company in town, and since then there have been a few other national groups that have opened offices in New Orleans. That is a big change. I don’t know if it has really affected our organization. I do think it is going to have an effect on smaller boutique brokerages that may run into limited resources and capacity to handle the research required to stay competitive. For us, it’s affirming that we were ahead of the curve and seeing where the industry was going.
think the biggest changes for us have been investment and development. Several local facilities are doing modernization projects and expansions. We have one new facility coming on board. All of them are environmentally friendly. We are talking about billions of dollars in investments right here in St. Gabriel. We have plastics. We have fertilizers. We have herbicides. We have insecticides. So we are talking about protecting crops, protecting people and protecting water. I embrace modernization and expansion that is an environmental win.
—Lionel Johnson
—Evan Scroggs
We are focused on utilizing technology and data that we have collected to help our members meet rapidly changing needs. We are going to continue to use technology to scale as an organization, and that scaling will provide additional data to feed that engine. We’re also going to be proactively embracing a userobsessed approach. How do we make it easy for people to access our training? Also, we are really seeing a big push for more just-in-time resources. How can we support our contractors as talent exits industry? With so many Baby Boomers leaving, there is a big gap that needs to be backfilled, and we want to collect that information and provide them with the resources they need to help get projects completed on time and on budget.
—Kathy Trahan
We are looking to add two partner-level brokers to our company over the next six months as we continue to grow. We are also going to be opening a New Orleans office in the next 12 to 18 months. Another focus for us is continuing down the I-10 corridor. We have an office in Lafayette, we are in Baton Rouge, and we want to lock down New Orleans, but we’re also looking over toward Mobile. There are a lot of similarities between the Mobile market and New Orleans and Baton Rouge combined. It is a port city, with a lot of trade through there, good infrastructure, and it’s a place that we want to focus on. So it’s all about continued growth, both geographically and by adding good talent and good brokers.
—Evan
Scroggs
St. Gabriel is positioned where we have parcels of property that are wanted by industry. We still have enough green space for expansion and continued growth. We are positioned perfectly off the I-10 corridor and along the Mississippi River, and we can seize our role in meeting that demand. On the macro level, I see that as more jobs, environmental wins, and opportunities for increasing the quality of life not just for the people of St. Gabriel, but for the people who work and live in the region.
—Lionel Johnson
IWhat is on the horizon for your organization?
Fossil fuels will always be a part of the equation in Louisiana, but we are going to have to see an all-of-the-above approach: fossil fuels, solar, wind, CCUS. And as a law firm, we are going to be players in all of that because that is where the energy industry is going. Lithium mining is going on right at the Arkansas-Louisiana border. We are getting several manufacturers that make components for lithium battery manufacture. There are opportunities in the battery world that Louisiana hasn’t even touched on yet. So We are looking at all sectors in energy, and it is ever changing. That is both exciting and terrifying.
—Jerry Jones
think Loadstar will continue to enjoy healthy growth. Customers trust us to handle their critical operations safely, and we will do our best to continue to reward their trust. We will build on our work in VR, AI and other technology to develop creative solutions. Loadstar is honored to have twice been recognized as a Best Place to Work, and we think our ability to attract and retain great people will continue to set us apart. We are locally owned and operated, and we will remain that way for generations to come. We aspire to be an industry leader and to make our world a better place.
—Brian Haymon