Ports Association of Louisiana

Port of Lake Charles: Newly Elected Board Officers

The Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District at its June meeting elected a new slate of officers for 2007/2008. The seven member Board elected the following officers; Mr. Davidson Darbone, president, Mr. Harry Hank, vice president and Mr. Stephen Hebert, secretary/treasurer. The offices took effect July 1, 2007.

Mr. Darbone was appointed to the District’s Board in October of 2005 and is the president of Grand Oaks, Inc. of Lake Charles. David worked for PPG Industries for 17 years until 1995. He is also currently the president of the local Home Builders Association, a board member for the Louisiana Association of Home Builders, a member of the Lake Charles Kiwanis North, and All Coming Together (ACT). Mr. Darbone is the first African-American elected to serve as president of the Board of Commissioners to the Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District.

Mr. Hank was appointed to the Board in September 2004 and has resided in Lake Charles, LA, since 1971. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. Harry retired from PPG Industries in 1998 after 37 years of service as a Works Manager at the Lake Charles facility. He has been actively involved in community service both before and since his retirement.

Mr. Hebert of Westlake, LA, was appointed to the board in February 2007 and started his working career in 1970 with “3001” the Geospatial Company. Stephen was named as a Director of “3001” in 2001, and in 2004 he was named president. He managed the first federally funded countrywide GIS programs for property ownership mapping, which included one of the first commercial applications of Global Positioning System (GPS) surveying. He also managed the first all digital, comprehensive river charting project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the first statewide digital orthophotography mission for the U.S. Geological Survey and the State of Louisiana.

In the late nineties, Mr. Hebert implemented a newly designed airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensor created for “3001”, and supervised “3001’s” pioneering efforts in the market of digital photogrammetric mapping cameras.