LPSB hires new IT manager

The Lafourche Parish School Board approved the superintendent’s recommendation to hire William Gautreaux as the new information technology manager at a specially scheduled meeting last Monday.

Gautreaux, who said he first used a computer 31 years ago when he was working as an accountant for Lafourche National Bank, has experience in preparing and recovering technological capabilities in anticipation and the wake of disaster.

Gautreaux, 56, worked in the banking industry for 34 years, and all of it with the same company. He was promoted to chief operating officer and chief financial officer and survived three mergers. He said he’s a loyal employee and expects to stay with the school board as long as he can.

“I take pride, and if I want to work for you, it’s kind of like a marriage,” Gautreaux said. “You’ve got me for life. …You’re dealing with a stable industry, so to speak. There is always going to be students that have to be taught. If you perform, obviously, you can work here for life.”

Gautreaux said he hopes to install safeguards that ensure the students, teachers and faculty will be able to have a sense of privacy by using methods he learned while safeguarding Capital One’s database.

“I do believe, and I’ve met multiple folks, I think they have an outstanding group of people that work here,” he said. “My mindset, here, is who is our customer? The customer is the student, the teacher, the faculty. That’s who we serve. We serve the public, too, but my main goal is to understand why we’re here, and it’s to improve our education system.”