Former LPG spokesman fills post with LPSO

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office announced Monday the hiring of Brennan Matherne, former public information officer with Lafourche Parish Government.

Matherne, who turned 31 years old today, will serve the sheriff’s office in the same capacity with an emphasis on reorganizing the website and developing a social media presence while fulfilling media requests and serving as a spokesman.

Sheriff Craig Webre said he was “delighted” with Matherne’s hiring and cited his Lafourche heritage as an asset in that he knows the culture and people he serves.

“I’ve had the good fortune of watching Brennan’s career develop from his early days in media to his work in parish government, and he truly possesses the enthusiasm and philosophy we are looking for,” the sheriff said. “We recognize that we live in the information age and that communications and information delivery mechanisms have evolved significantly in the last decade. Brennan will help this office to remain relevant and competitive in that arena.”

Upon graduating Nicholls State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication, Matherne started his career in radio as the news and sports director at Coastal Broadcasting of Larose, or KLRZ 100.3 FM and KLEB 1600 AM.

Matherne leapt the fence and joined the public sector in 2005 when he began working for Lafourche Parish Government. He served as the director of parks and recreation under Parish President Charlotte Randolph and was the public information officer in emergency situations before he became the parish’s fulltime spokesman and webmaster in 2009.

Most notably, Matherne handled public relations for the parish after hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and was interviewed by national media during the intense coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill last year.

“The experience I had last summer is certainly nothing I’d ever want to experience again, but the experience I got from it was invaluable as I move forward,” Matherne said. “That was easily the biggest amount of experience, just dealing with the sheer number of media requests and who it came from, certainly, provided a lot of experience.”

Matherne will replace Sgt. Lesley Hill, who left the sheriff’s office to open Hill’s Country Store in Williamsfield, Ohio. Hill served as the sheriff’s office spokeswoman for three years.

Although the scope of his post is similar in regard to his tasks with LPG, Matherne said “90 percent” of his job will be keeping the gate of public information.

“The major difference that I’m looking at that just after having been here for such a short time is the news cycle over here is a lot bigger than it was at the parish,” he said. “Whereas we might have had one to five press releases a month at the parish, we can have that many in a day here.”

As far as revamping LPSO’s social media and online presence is concerned, Matherne said he wanted to integrate Twitter, Facebook and educational videos via YouTube into the website, which he said would be reorganized.

“We’re going to make everything user friendly so even for the average citizen that doesn’t know a lot about the sheriff’s office and the inner structure of the office, you can still go to the website and make simple requests through the website to get to where you want to go,” he said.

Matherne said he wanted to publicly thank Randolph and the Parish Council for giving him a start in the public sector, which paved the way for his career development.

“I definitely appreciate all of the experience I got there,” he said. “I’m definitely going to miss all of my coworkers there. Ultimately, this was just an offer I couldn’t pass up and this is a place I hope to work for many years.”