Baton Rouge, La. (October 23, 2017) – Audubon Louisiana is pleased to announce the appointment of Van R. Mayhall, Jr. and Larry Avery to its advisory board.
“As Audubon Louisiana broadens its reach in Louisiana to protect birds and restore the critical habitat they rely on, we welcome the addition of these outstanding new board members,” said Karen Profita, Executive Director of Audubon Louisiana. “Their years of experience and expertise in their individual fields will bring insightful perspectives to Audubon Louisiana’s board and give us the ability to increase our conservation efforts across the state.”
Van R. Mayhall, Jr. is the senior partner in Baton Rouge based law firm Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, where he practices corporate and business law and handles selected litigation. Mayhall is a former Chairman of the firm’s Executive Committee, having served six years as such. He has extensive legal experience with strategic and enterprise legal issues affecting ongoing businesses. Mayhall also advises boards of directors and senior management on such issues and for over 40 years has practiced in the areas of corporate and business law; business transactions, tax and securities, insurance regulatory, selected litigation and alternative dispute resolution.
Mayhall has written three books and says of the first two, “Inevitably, my books, Judas the Apostle”, and the sequel, “The Last Sicarius” – which take the reader on a nail-biting adventure to France and the back streets of Jerusalem and Rome – have been compared to Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons.” Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Mayhall was educated at Louisiana State University and Georgetown University. He and his wife, Lorri, have three grown children and enjoy boating on Lake Pontchartrain.
Larry Avery of Lake Charles has decades of business-building acumen and branding savvy. Currently Avery serves as a managing partner of Gulf Island Shrimp & Seafood and has been part of making Big Easy Foods a recognized brand in thousands of stores coast to coast. Big Easy Foods, a subsidiary of Gulf Island Shrimp & Seafood, sells sausage, boudin, its famous tur-duc-hen and 30 other products nationwide from its 35,000 square foot USDA plant on Ryan Street in Lake Charles.
Avery has also been involved with Crying Eagle Brewing Company in Lake Charles, which is run by his son Eric. In an industry where so many companies start out in homebrewers’ garages and gradually scale up, Crying Eagle opened with a 10,000-square-foot brewing facility, plus a spacious taproom capable of hosting private events and an outdoor beer garden fit for concerts. Larry’s wife Fran also has the entrepreneurial spirit having run a gift shop until just recently.
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Audubon's mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity. Audubon Louisiana works daily to engage, conserve, restore and protect important areas shared by birds and people. See more at LA.Audubon.org.
