People & Flashes

PEOPLE & FLASHES

Quality Companies USA, a Youngsville-based oil and gas contractor operating in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the U.S., was awarded the ISO 9001:2008 certificate for its commitment to continuous improvement and quality.

Quality Companies USA, a Youngsville-based oil and gas contractor operating in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the U.S., was awarded the ISO 9001:2008 certificate for its commitment to continuous improvement and quality. Quality Companies, which last year ranked No. 18 on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 private companies in the region ($123 million in 2014 revenues) comprises Quality Construction and Production, Quality Production Management and Traco Production Services. ISO 9001:2008 is an international standard for quality management systems, which include a set of policies, processes and procedures to help an organization meet customer requirements. As part of the certification, an accredited third party auditing organization validated that the internal quality management system of Quality Companies USA complies with the ISO 9001:2008 standards set forth for the industry.

Safety Management Systems, through a recent transaction with Petrofac, is establishing a Houston training facility to begin offering major emergency management training and additional health, safety and environmental training. SMS, a sister company to Acadian Ambulance, is a provider of highly rated and comprehensive training programs for the oil and gas industry. It offers additional training facilities in Shreveport and San Antonio, Texas, as well as providing on-site training for customers around the world.

Sara Tannehill Zuschlag has been promoted to partner at Andrus, Boudreaux, Landry & Coussan, a full-service real estate law firm. Zuschlag is a 2009 graduate of Southern University Law Center and a 2004 graduate of Northwestern State University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Donald W. Hebert in St. Landry Parish and continued her legal career practicing in civil defense before joining Andrus Boudreaux in 2012. She now primarily focuses on residential and commercial real estate transactions.

Global Data Systems has again made the World Teleport Association’s list of the Top Teleport Operators for 2015. The “Fast Twenty” ranks all teleport-operating companies based on year-over-year revenue growth in their most recent fiscal years. GDS rose from No. 6 to No. 2 on the WTA Fast Twenty with a 68.89 percent rise in satellite-based revenue year over year. For the first time GDS was also included on the WTA Independent Top Twenty, coming in at No. 20. Last year GDS ranked No. 37 on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Private Companies in the region with $42 million in 2014 revenues.

Kristy Doucet-Touchet has joined Home Bank as vice president/human resources director. Her background includes roles as HR director, senior recruiter and advertising and brand manager. She most recently worked for Quality Companies USA in Youngsville. She has an MBA from UL Lafayette, serves on the board of the Acadiana Society for Human Resources Management and will serve as the president-elect for 2016. Touchet also holds Professional in Human Resources and SHRM-CP certifications. Home Bank also announced that Angela Badeaux has joined the company as first VP/property and facilities manager. Badeaux has more than 27 years of banking and facilities management experience; for 25 years, she served in several key roles for Teche Federal Bank, including identifying locations and designing and building branches.

She most recently was VP-corporate real estate/property manager for IberiaBank. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University’s Graduate School of Banking and is a Certified Training Professional from UL Lafayette. Additionally, Natalie Lemoine has joined the bank as VP/marketing director. Lemoine has more than 18 years of marketing experience. As VP/media director of the Graham Group, she helped clients develop innovative marketing and media approaches for building their brands with a focus on increasing their customer bases. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations from Loyola.

Capital One Bank is investing $18,000 in South Louisiana Community College’s application software development program. The bank’s funds will be used for program recruitment, certifications and programming devices for hands-on skill development. The two-year associate’s degree program at SLCC began in 2014 and gives students skills in application development, game development, and computer programming. Courses are focused on teaching various programming languages such as Java, Python, and C++, as well as languages like HTML that build websites. “With more than 23,000 software jobs being created in Acadiana by 2030, this program meets the growing and critical demand for entry-level application software developers in the workforce,” Sam Harb, SLCC dean of business, IT and professional studies, said in a press release. “With companies like CGI, Perficient, and Enquero coming into Lafayette and bringing immediate, well-paying jobs, the benefits of this program are endless.” The median annual wage for these developers is $63,000, making this a high-wage, highdemand program. The Capital One grant will provide three-fold funding: marketing dollars to recruit students interested in ITrelated fields to the new program; JAVA certifications for up to the first three cohorts of Application Software Development students; and Android devices for student developers to write, test and deploy applications into the target platform environment.