Episode 3

Summary

In this episode of Connecting Ascension, hosts Katie Decker and Chad Bourque interview Mayor Robert Ryland Percy III, who shares his extensive background in law, military service, and community involvement. The conversation explores his early career, the influence of family values, and his vision for the future of Ascension Parish, emphasizing the importance of community engagement and leadership.

Takeaways

• Mayor Percy has over 40 years of experience in law and military service.
• He emphasizes the importance of problem-solving in both law and military careers.
• Family values and mentorship played a significant role in his upbringing.
• Gonzales has transformed into an economic hub over the years.
• Community service is a vital part of his life and career.
• He believes in the potential growth of Donaldsonville as a key area.
• The library system in Ascension Parish is one of the best in Louisiana.
• Success for him means Ascension Parish continuing on its current positive trajectory.
• He encourages younger generations to get involved in local governance.
• Gonzales is becoming a multicultural hub, reflecting its diverse population.

Sound Bites

"The best things in life are free."

"It's about service, helping other people."

"Gonzales is an economic hub."

"We have a growing multicultural hub."

Transcript

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Connecting Ascension (00:00)
Thank you for tuning in to our third episode of Connecting Ascension, a Chamber podcast. I'm co-host Katie Decker. And I'm co-host Chad Bourque. And today we have a very special guest. Mayor Robert Ryland Percy III brings over 40 years of experience as an attorney specializing in governmental law, civil litigation, and commercial transactions. A retired rear admiral in the United States Navy, he proudly served for 37 years.

holding key leadership roles, including commander of the Naval Expeditionary Logistics Support Force. Currently, he serves as board chairman of the Baton Rouge General Medical Center and is actively involved in the Ascension Parish Library and Gonzales Area Foundation. Mayor Percy holds degrees from LSU and the University of Guam and is widely respected for his commitment to service. He resides in Gonzales with his wife, Patty,

and together they have five children and 13 grandchildren. Mayor Percy, welcome today. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. So Chad, do you want to kick us off? Yeah, I'd love to know kind of about the early part of your career and everything that you did coming in before you got into kind of the law and political sphere. So just want to take us through that a little bit. OK, well, I grew up in Baton Rouge.

Actually, I was in the seminary for four years in high school. And about my senior year, decided that that was definitely not the way for me. And my first day at LSU, I knew I'd made the right decision. So I went through LSU as an undergraduate. During that period, it was the late 60s and the Vietnam War was on and you were gonna go pretty much one way or the other.

Right, and so I got into a program in the Navy called the ROC program where I could go to OCS in two different periods. And so when I graduated from LSU, I wanted to go to law school at that time, but the Navy decided otherwise. Right. And I ended up going overseas for four years, had two kids on the island of Guam, and then came back, went to law school. And...

decided I wanted to, was a little older at that time naturally and didn't want to go to work for a big firm. So I decided that I wanted a smaller community type law practice. my wife was from down here in Ascension Parish. And so I saw an opportunity. So we moved back down here in 1975, 76, and I opened up my law practice on top of the tractor shop out on Airline Highway. And I've been here ever since. Wow, such a long journey.

So can you walk us back a little bit to, I'm really curious about your Guam days. Did your wife Patty go with you to Guam? And I know y'all had your two kids there, so of course I'm Yes, she was able to come with me. And on the Naval Hospital Guam, my first two children were born there. They're Guamanians, they have nice palm tree on their birth certificates.

And they're proudly Guamanian. If you ask them, they'll tell you that that's where they're from. so, we had two kids there. We were able to travel a little bit. It was during the war, so things were shut down and you had to be careful. But like I said, back then, just about everybody was going. And so we were fortunate as to how that worked out. And then when I got back and I had decided I wanted to go, I'd always said I wanted to go to law school.

But while I was in law school, I realized that I really had an affinity for the military. Surprised to me. And so I decided to stay in the reserves. And so for the rest of my career, up until about 10 years ago, I was really back and forth between practice and law here and taking off of the Navy periodically, sometimes longer periods than others. How do you think, I guess, the...

parallels or you know working in the Navy and some of those leadership positions, how does that help you now and in all of the different service type things that you do and the law firm itself I guess? Well actually when I they were a couple of judges when I was a young man that we used to go camping every summer and they went with their families and I was sitting around the campfire at night you know what's being a lawyer like?

And both of them said exactly the same thing. It wasn't this love of the law or anything else. They said, it's a really good way to help people solve their problems. So if you want to be a problem solver, it's a great profession to go into in a lot of different ways. And then when I got into the military, I found the same thing. If you're going to step forward in the military, you're solving big problems, but you're solving problems.

So the two careers were not that different, right? And as I move forward in both careers, bigger jobs, bigger problems, right? Basically, it's a matter of solving problems. And so they were really interconnected. I never identified myself so much as a lawyer, as a hope of problem solver. Is there a problem that stands out to you in your past history of like, that was a good problem that I got to solve? Well,

Tons of them. Tons of them. It's hard to say. It's hard to say because you go back and there are just so many issues that you've dealt with that to pick out one is difficult. Difficult. not impossible. Right. What about maybe like a mentor? If there was somebody, you talked about the judges and things like that, but...

Maybe just, you know, we're talking to our viewers and things like that about some takeaways maybe that your mentors gave to you or some lessons that you learned from them as you were growing up, even the Navy or other. Actually, I would go back and I'd say my biggest mentors were my parents. They met at LSU in college and they were both athletes. She was a diver and he was a swimmer. And then he went off to World War II.

Both of them raised us and she was a career teacher and he was a civil engineer. their real goal in life, we had eight kids. know, it was being good parents, but not just good parents, but they coached swimming, they taught swimming, their whole careers all summer. we were doing the same, we were working for them, the rest of it. That's how we earned our vacation money.

But I mean, and my father always said, you know, the best things in life are free. Don't get wrapped up in the money. It's not about that. You know, it's about service, it's about, you know, helping other people, it's about helping moving things forward. And I mean, they really instill that in us. And I've always appreciated that. So if you ask me who my mentors were, it would be them. That's great. And I think that goes back to

part of the Louisiana culture as well of being very family oriented. Can you tell us a little bit about your family today? mean, 13 grandchildren, I'm sure they keep you busy. Well, even my brothers and sisters, as I said, they were eight of us. at least twice a year, I mean, spread all over. At least twice a year, we try to get together for Christmas and then at least once during the summer to get the whole clan together.

And then every year the clan's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I can't remember half the kids' names. Come here, knucklehead. I know who they are and I who their parents are. That is so nice. Yeah, that's awesome. How many people, you do this at one house? gotta bring out a... Well, usually it's somebody's house.

Sound like you're have couple of the gang and we're gonna have swimming pools and things like that. So there are a couple of them that step forward and do it most of the time. Everybody brings stuff. But it's great to see everybody. To kind of transition a little bit from looking at your law background and then looking at where you're at today as interim mayor, can you tell us a little bit about what your law experience looks like and then how did the transition kind of happen?

Well, a lot of my practice while I was here was governmental, mostly with the city, the assessor's office, the sheriff's office for quite a number of years and things like that. it was governmental. so that always, it fit well with what I was doing. And that's what, you know, that's kind of what I made my career on. I also did real estate and closings and on the civil side, probably more.

civil litigation, know, corporations and things like that and litigation. That's kind of what I majored in accounting. And I got a master's degree in administration before I went to law school through the Navy. And so that really fit and during the period that I was practicing, there weren't a whole lot of lawyers in town that really were focusing on the commercial, you know, where I worked family and criminal and things like that.

I was fortunate in that it was a field I could get into down here and the parish was growing. When I first moved down here, in the mid 70s, maybe 30,000 people in the whole parish. Wow. And now it's 130 and the first plants had just come in and people were just starting to move here. So during my career, the parish just boomed. Like I said, 30 something thousand people.

to what are we now, 130. And so it's really... And really continues to grow today. Right, and so I got here at the right time. You started with just yourself in your law practice. Where is that at? What does that look like now? Well, one of my mentors, don't know, know, Rolf McAllister with the business report, his father was Rolf Senior. during undergraduate school, I ran errands for his firm. And when I came back and...

was in law school, I clerked for him. And one day he calls me in and he says, what do you want to do? Do you want to stay here? And I said, no, I really would like to find a smaller community that I can move into and grow with. And he said, well, son, if I was you, I'd move somewhere on the Mississippi River in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, because during your career and thereafter, that's where the growth is going to be. And it just so turned out my wife was from here.

And I said, okay, I know where there's a tractor shop I can open up on top of. And so moved on down. Wow. And so that was the beginning and, you know, talk us through what that, you know, the transition, how the firm grew over time. And well, think the firm grew as the community grew. Yeah. You know, exactly what he said happened. New people were moving in and things like that.

When I first got here, there weren't a whole lot of new lawyers moving in. But after I got here, a lot of new lawyers moved in. I've had a number of great affiliations with lawyers. I I think most of the bar association in town at one time or another, we worked together. And made great friends and things like that and moved off in our own ways. But the law community has grown and is a wonderful comradeship.

along the lawyers throughout my career. She could always call another lawyer and say, look, I've never seen this before. Can you help me? And never got turned down. The lawyers were always willing to work with each other and things like that. So it was a great time to practice law here in Ascension Parish. Yeah. I'd also like to touch on some of your community involvement because you're on the board for the Baton Rouge General Medical Center.

and then you're also involved with the Gonzales Area Foundation. So what does your community service look like in your volunteer time? Well, over the years, you know, I've tried to stay engaged, you know, in the kind of a local war story. In the old days, when I moved to town, the original Rotary Club was where all the power was. Yeah. And we all knew it. I can throw out some names and... There were a number of us who couldn't quite get in. Yeah. Okay. Very standing.

We joined the Lions Club. And so for a good while there, the older business leaders were in the Rotary Club and the Lions Club with the young bucks. I can throw out names like Jeff Wiley and things like that. We were the young guys around town. And there were a lot of young professionals and young engineers and things moving in. And so we really had a...

good time and we worked worked hard we we we started bingo in Baton Rouge and started bringing money down and giving scholarships and things like that. That's awesome. You know and so like once again it was it was a great time to be here and to start my career here. Mm-hmm. What about kind of now now you know in more recent years what what did

What are you involved in? I know we talked about some of the board positions and things like that. What are your roles for those companies and those Well, I'll tell you, one of the ones I'm really proud of is the library board. I've been on the library board for about six years. And when you see the construction out in Santa Ma, and I don't know if y'all have had a chance to go to Donaldsonville and see what's been done over there. Yes.

from a historical perspective and otherwise, and Santa Monica's gonna be along the same lines. I'm really proud of where the library has gone. We probably have one of the best library systems right here in Ascension in the state of Louisiana. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, and then the Gonzales Area Foundation. know, a number of people, you know, had family members with cancer and got involved in that. And then Mary Bird kind of came in and we started the fundraisers and the galas and things like that.

And that's done a lot of good and has raised a whole lot of money for cancer research. And so I'm very proud of that. When the Baton Rouge General first was opening up out in Prairieville, they had asked if I would be on the board at the general. And I've done that for the last six years. And I've enjoyed that and watched that grow. And it's really interesting when you think about it. And I've said this a number of times.

Ascension Parish in Gonzales doesn't get the recognition it deserves. When you look at medical care down here, we're not just an offshoot of Baton Rouge anymore. When you look at the hospitals on Highway 30, when you look at the Mary Bird Cancer Center and the big expansion it's about to get into and things like that. And the doctors that moved down here when St. Elizabeth's...

used to be Riverview came in. I guess that was about 1985. And they had the public hospital at the time. And Riverview came in and it was a small private hospital and went that way for a number of years and never quite was able to grow. And then FMOL took it over and it was right at a turning point. Dr. John Fresh was one of the originals. You ought to get him on this. absolutely. I'm sure he'd have some really interesting stories.

And he could really tell you about the history of the hospital and medical care down here. wow, And so just watching that grow has been interesting. And then the other thing is, you know, since I've come into the city of Gonzales, people don't realize what's here. You know, if you just take a drive around Gonzales and you look at the recreational facilities and you look at the pool and you look at the parks,

and you look at the Pace Center. You know, I mean, it's just amazing what Gonzales has when you look at the theater, when you look at the shopping, when you look at Tanger Mall. And you know, I came from Gonzales, I mean, I came from Baton Rouge, I grew up there and I came down and I love Gonzales. But I don't think people understand how special it really is. When you look at, as I said, when I came down here and it was such a small community.

Now, Gonzales is probably 13,000, so it's doubled in size. And all of the industry is out on the river. But look at Gonzales, it's an economic center. It's an economic hub. nobody realizes that. It really is a special place. When you look at other cities, and we could name them, and I'm not going to, that are die, that were the same size as Gonzales when I came down here.

but that are going away and having trouble keeping their young people and things like that. And then you compare it to Gonzales and you compare it to the sales tax revenue. It really is not just a medical center, but it's a commercial center as well. The industry is on the river and that's in the parish. But when you look at Gonzales, that's where the commerce is. So I think it's safe to say that your vision for Ascension Parish in the next 10 or so years is just that it would continue growing and

continue developing. Yeah, and now the next place that I see is it Young Man Go West. I'd say Young Man Cross the River. Yeah, it's a Donaldsonville I think Donaldsonville is gonna in that, you know during my generation coming down here It was the East Bank and Gonzales gotcha. Okay, I really think that Donaldsonville in the West Bank is Is where industry is going to be there if they start opening up more residential and and

some nice developments and things like that and the focus is there and the history. And as I said, when you look at what you have in the library, I think Donaldsonville, as far as Ascension Parish is concerned, is big part of the parish future. So you hear that all our younger view opportunity, go jump on the opportunity. Yeah, that ended up about assumption. That's the future that your mentor told you. Exactly.

Yeah, things have changed. When I came down to Gonzales, as I said, Gonzales was, you know, five, six thousand, maybe. then when I left being city attorney and was starting to retire and kind of got out of it, I guess it was about a 10 year period where I really wasn't as engaged in what was, I live here, but I wasn't as engaged in what was going on. Coming back this time has been an eye opener.

high open for me. How much Gonzalez has changed, okay? Demographically, I mean, Gonzalez has really, when I came down here, we had trouble getting a minority member on the city council. The numbers just weren't there, okay? Now it's probably could be a majority, okay? We are really, we have really become, and Hispanic, we have a growing Hispanic population. And if you've been to the Hispanic festivals,

and things like that. mean, the city of Gonzales is really becoming a growing multicultural hub. Yeah. Okay. And then with the economy and everything else, I think Gonzales can teach other places, this is how you do it. Absolutely. This is how you do it. This is how you grow the economy. This is how you live together and work together and have a vibrant community. Well, me and Percy, we're...

We have a couple minutes left. I know we want to ask you one more question that is kind of going to be our final question that we like to ask a lot of our viewers and our interviewers, mean. But Chad, do you want to go ahead? Yeah, so one of the things we kind of want to finish every episode is what does success look like for you? And we're trying to share just that kind of knowledge with our viewers and we'll grab...

what success looks like to all of our interviewees going forward. And so, you know, I know it's maybe a broad question, but that's part of it, right, is how each person responds differently. Yeah. Well, when you first mentioned that before we started, I said, I don't really know, but while we've been talking, I just really think success looks like Ascension Parish and the City of Gonzales staying on the same track that it's on. Don't mess it up.

He talked about, you're the young people. I honestly think we'll set the table for it. Okay, now it's time and we're seeing a change in the government of Gonzales will be coming, you know, and I think in the parish, younger people are getting on the count, you know, and your generation has to be more involved than they have been in the past. But if y'all do it and y'all keep it going, that's what success looks like. Y'all turning on your generation to get engaged.

and move it forward. Don't stop pushing. Well, thank you so much for being here with Thank you. I've enjoyed it. will conclude our interview, but we appreciate your time and we look forward to seeing you around the community even more. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.