CRCL announces 2025 Coastal Leadership Institute cohort

30 professionals from across Louisiana participating in development program

October 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana has announced the 2025 cohort of its Coastal Leadership Institute, a professional development program that provides participants with the deep knowledge and skills necessary to be leaders in coastal restoration. The class is comprised of 30 residents from across Louisiana’s coast working in careers including engineering, arts, education and economic development. They will join eight sessions over the course of a year, with guest speakers and in-the-field experiences that will introduce them to the different facets of Louisiana’s coast: ecology, culture, industry and policy.

Once they have completed the program, they will join an alumni network of CLI participants.

“Our Coastal Leadership Institute empowers people who want to become leaders in the movement to restore coastal Louisiana,” said Ethan Melancon, CRCL’s government affairs director. “We’ve already seen how this growing coalition can effect positive change, and we look forward to seeing what this next group will do.”

Members of the 2025 Coastal Leadership Institute Cohort are:

• Amy Hebert of Thibodaux. She is executive director of Friends of Bayou Lafourche, outreach coordinator at the Bayou Lafourche Fresh Water District and co-owner of Amplify Events & Promotions.

• Ann Fairly Pandelides of Lafayette. She is manager of the LO-SPAT Project at UL Lafayette.

• Breon Robinson of Lake Charles. She is coastal organizer of the southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas regions at Healthy Gulf. She is also co-founder of The 337 Vote Project.

• Bridget Malbrough of Houma. She is a program specialist at the Coastal Technical Assistance Center (CTAC).

• Bryant Domingue of Lake Charles. He operated a commercial duck hunting club in Cameron Parish for 40 years, hunted alligators and raised cattle in the marsh.

• Clay Ledet of Hahnville. He is coastal zone manager for St. Charles Parish.

• Cobb LeBouef of Abbeville. He works in the energy industry across the coast and Gulf.

• Daniel Jatres of New Orleans. He is infrastructure projects administrator for the city of New Orleans.

• Derek J. Hill of Chalmette. He is a commercial fishery deckhand.

• Ebony Woodruff of Chalmette. She is an attorney and a former member of the state House.

• Gibbons Addison of Baton Rouge. He is an attorney at Jones Walker.

• Holly Peterson of Baton Rouge. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at LSU.

• Jaimee Williams of Baton Rouge. She is a structural engineer at Stantec.

• Jake Mendoza of Baton Rouge. He is an assistant project manager at SWCA Environmental Consultants.

• James Collier of New Orleans. He is a photographer at Paprika Studios.

• James Hiatt of Lake Charles. He is executive director of For a Better Bayou.

• Jay Ducote of Baton Rouge. He is president of JDD Consulting.

• Jesse Landry of Baton Rouge. He is director of the LASTEM Region 3 STEM Center.

• Julio Bermudez Clotter of New Orleans. He is founder and board president of Raices Nuevas.

• Lester Patin of New Orleans. He is marketing manager at The Roosevelt hotel.

• Maanasa Davuluri of New Orleans, a coordinator at Hasbin Wilby.

• Marguerite Green of New Orleans. She is the statewide director of the Louisiana Food Policy Council.

• Matt DeCotiis of New Orleans. He is a partner in CICADA.

• Meaghan McCormack of Chalmette. She is CEO of the St. Bernard Economic Development Foundation.

• Misha Mayeur of Metairie. She is a producer and host at Gulf Rising Podcast.

• Natasha Whitton of Baton Rouge. She is an associate professor at Baton Rouge Community College.

• Rachel Boese of New Orleans. She is founder, tour guide and researcher at Southern Renaissance and Crescent City CPG.

• Rachel Fontaine of New Orleans. She is a designer at Bywater Branding Services.

• Russ Gisclair of Cut Off. He is a project manager at Danos Coastal Restoration.

Judge Edwards of Abbeville. He is on the Vermilion Parish Coastal Committee and is a former member of the CRCL board of directors.

People from across Louisiana are welcome to apply to the Coastal Leadership Institute. Nominees represent a range of ages, from early to mid-career or retired, and work in a variety of industries, such as energy, tech, healthcare, renewable energy, nonprofit, media, politics, education, faith-based and legal. Participants attend nine monthly sessions in different locations across Louisiana’s coast. The application period for the next cohort will open in July. Scholarships are available.

Corporate sponsors of the Coastal Leadership Institute are CITGO, Colonial Pipeline and Wells Fargo.   

Since its founding in 1988, CRCL has been a prominent advocate for policies to restore and protect the state’s coast, where about 2,000 square miles of wetlands have vanished in less than a century. Its 1989 paper “Coastal Louisiana: Here Today and Gone Tomorrow?” called for the creation of a state restoration and protection agency, the urgent implementation of large-scale restoration projects and the creation of permanent funding mechanisms to pay for the work. CRCL works with communities, organizations and industry across Louisiana’s coast to engage them in restoration efforts. It also hosts the biennial State of the Coast conference, educates students through its Future Coastal Leaders program and presents the annual CRCL Coastal Stewardship Awards.

Through its Oyster Shell Recycling Program, CRCL has recycled more than 15 million pounds of shell, keeping the resource out of landfills and using it instead to build reefs that create habitat for new oysters and that slow the rate of land loss. The organization has planted more than 1 million trees and plants across Louisiana’s coast through its Native Plants Program.

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The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to unite people in action to achieve a thriving, sustainable Louisiana coast for all.