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Celebrate our coastal stewards...​

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Restoring and protecting the natural treasure of Louisiana’s coast is a duty embraced by many people with diverse backgrounds. They are volunteers, students, researchers, sportsmen, governmental and business leaders, and sometimes simply coastal residents who care enough about the future of our state to take action.

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Every year the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana is proud to honor these individuals and organizations demonstrating extraordinary commitment with a Coastal Stewardship Award. These awards are CRCL’s highest form of recognition for those who go above and beyond for our coast.  

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This year's event is taking place on May 12th in Baton Rouge at the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens.  

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2022 Coastal Stewardship Award Winners

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R. King Milling

Lifetime Achievement Award 

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Morgan Crutcher

The Morgan Crutcher Distinguished Achievement Award ​

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Lucas Bissett

Coastal Stewardship Award

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Chett Chiasson

Coastal Stewardship Award

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Mark Hester

Coastal Stewardship Award

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Amanda Moore

Coastal Stewardship Award

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Charles Sutcliffe

Coastal Stewardship Award

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Melissa Martin, Raegan Creppell, Jonathan Foret, and Genie Ardoin

Hurricane Ida Award

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Matt Rookard

Hurricane Ida Award

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Cameron LNG

Hurricane Laura Award

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Allie Johnson

Youth Volunteer of the Year

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Jacqueline Richard

Volunteer of the Year

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Rosina Philippe

Friend of CRCL

2020 Coastal Stewardship Award Winners

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Coastal Stewardship Award

Laurie Cormier is the program coordinator and coastal zone manager for the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury’s Division of Planning and Development Grant Department. Cormier serves the parish as an assistant planner and mitigation specialist, is the administrator of the Parish’s Local Coastal Zone Management Program, and is one of the two western Louisiana representatives on the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Cormier also serves as the administrative coordinator for the Chenier Plain Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority. The CPCRPA is the levee board with members from Calcasieu, Cameron and Vermilion Parishes. Ms. Cormier helped to set up the Chenier Plain Alliance, an enormous coastal eco-region sprawling from southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas. She is co-chair of the environmental affairs committee for the SWLA Economic Development Alliance and was instrumental in the development of the Louisiana Southwest Informational Floodplain Team, the newest Louisiana Community Rating System user group, which serves as a forum for sharing ideas, best practices and developing tools for managing floodplain/coastal development.

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The Meraux Charitable Foundation, represented on the evening by Chris Haines, has been a significant supporter of coastal restoration for over a decade, providing innovation, enthusiasm and generosity. The Meraux Charitable Foundation has a long record of investment and support of coastal initiatives. The foundation originates and supports new ideas, connects coastal stakeholders with decision-makers and NGOs, consistently and constructively participates in restoration processes as a key stakeholder, and provides an extraordinary physical space for dozens of coastal meetings and events every year.

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Jacob Neu grew up fishing, crabbing and shrimping along the Louisiana coast with his family. While in college, Jacob’s passion for the coast led him to create a service event called “Clean the Coast” where students volunteer their time to remove trash and debris from Rockefeller Refuge. This service event grew to include students from both UL Lafayette and McNeese. The event receives support from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He works at Sellers and Associates, an engineering consulting firm, on various types of municipal infrastructure projects, structural engineering projects, and projects related to preserving the recreational use of Louisiana’s coastal areas.

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John Nyman is a professor in LSU’s School of Renewable Natural Resources who has published more than 80 journal articles addressing wetlands. From west of Calcasieu Lake to the mouth of the Mississippi River, he has worked with and learned from graduate students, hunters and fishers, landowners, and employees of NGOs, and state and federal agencies.

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Natalie Snider is the senior director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s coastal resilience program. She works to ensure sound science is used to plan, design, implement, and adaptively manage projects and policies, with a focus on system dynamics to meet the challenges of climate change to our coastal ecosystems and communities. Snider also serves on the executive committee of Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of local and national conservation organizations working to restore Louisiana’s vanishing coast.

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Amy Wold is the director of communications at The Water Institute of the Gulf. She is responsible for working with research teams to provide quality reports and deliverables to clients and translate technical science issues for policymakers, industry representatives, and the public. Prior to that she was a newspaper reporter covering science, environmental, and coastal issues both on the West Coast and in Louisiana. She wrote award-winning stories in Washington state on estuary environments and fishery resources. After coming to Louisiana, she covered coastal restoration, flooding protection, and the increasing amount of research on Louisiana’s coastal land loss problem. She worked at The Advocate newspaper as an environmental reporter for more than a decade. In that time, Amy got the chance to cover some of Louisiana’s major news events, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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Ticket Information

Tickets are available for $50.  It includes a night of celebration, music, heavy hors d'oeuvres, beer and wine.  We will also have a silent auction and raffle.  You can purchase ticket HERE.   The deadline to purchase tickets is May 6, 2022. 

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Hotel Information

A room block has been secured at the Drury Inn and Suites in Baton Rouge for the rate of $126 per night. Please use GROUP CODE 10007353 to make a reservation if you are interested. The hotel address is 7939 Essen Park, Baton Rouge, LA 70809. Reservations can be made by calling 800.325.0720 or by following this link: https://www.druryhotels.com/locations/baton-rouge-la/drury-inn-and-suites-baton-rouge.  The deadline to make reservations is May 13, 2022.

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Previous Winners

For a list of previous winners of Coastal Stewardship Awards, click here.

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2022 Sponsors

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Delacroix
Corporation

Supporters

Sponsorship Opportunities 

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The 26th Annual Stewardship Awards offers unique sponsorship opportunities. We take great pride in creating a memorable event for our coastal champions, and we want you to be a part of it. Our sponsorship prospectus is here. Contact CRCL for more information, marissa.wendte@crcl.org or 504.439.3301.