Lieutenant governor to chair advisory council for Tulane resilience academy

Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser will chair a Leadership Advisory Council that will help identify and select  participants and provide oversight for a fellowship program designed by Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy.

The Disaster Resilience Leadership Fellowship Program will identify emerging Gulf Coast leaders and equip them with the knowledge and tools needed to more effectively develop and implement plans that strengthen the resilience of their communities to future oil spills and other disasters.

“This program is important to help represent our coastal communities and provide leadership and insight to support them during emergency preparation and a disaster,” said Nungesser, who served as Plaquemines Parish president during the 2010 BP oil spill.

“This program is important to help represent our coastal communities."

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser

The fellowship program includes two in-person, week-long, residential executive leadership training workshops that promote peer-to-peer learning and networking. In addition, each DRL Fellow is responsible for creating an action plan that identifies a resilience-building activity that will ensure sustainable livelihoods and protect the Gulf of Mexico region’s invaluable resources.

In partnership with the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities, Tulane’s Disaster Resilence Leadership Academy has contextualized its global Disaster Resilience Leadership Fellowship Program curricula to identify and address leadership challenges that face Gulf communities. The consortium was established in 2015 with a three-year grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to assess and address the public health, social and economic impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

As chair of the advisory council, Nungesser will help recruit council members willing to serve a one-year term and who are experts from government and non-government organizations, universities/technical schools, businesses, and local community groups. The council will identify and invite Disaster Resilience Leadership Fellows from Jefferson, Lafourche, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and Terrebonne parishes and provide oversight of the fellows’ progress and effectiveness as they move through the program.