A panel of five Baton Rouge business professionals reflected Monday on what businesses can do to collectively build up the Baton Rouge community after the tumultuous summer, which illuminated the city’s longstanding racial and economic disparities.
The panelists—Patrick Mulhearn, director of Celtic Studios; Ann Trappey, president and CEO of Forte & Tablada; Charlie D’Agostino, executive director of LSU Innovation Park; Joe Delpit, owner of Chicken Shack; and Dima Ghawi, a leadership speaker and coach—took part in the Business Leadership Forum held at LSU.
The forum is one of a series of discussions taking place at the university during the two-day LSU Presidential Symposium, titled “Moment or Movement? A National Dialogue on Identity, Empowerment and Justice for All.” Adam Knapp, president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, moderated the discussion.
Knapp noted that black residents in Baton Rouge are two times as likely to live in poverty than whites and the unemployment rate for black householdss in Baton Rouge is 12.4%, three times that of white residents. He also said median household income for black residents is a little more than half of what it is for white households.
Delpit warned of the disaster that could occur if an incident similar to the shooting of Alton Sterling occurs in Baton Rouge. Delpit, a longtime businessman, says he has seen the city evolve, but there needs to be fairness.
The panelists acknowledged the progress and growth they’ve seen in Baton Rouge. They noted the city’s strong sense of community and how residents pulled together, both during and after the historic August flood.
However, they also acknowledged Baton Rouge has racial, education and economic disparities to address, and said more attention needs to be paid to quality of life indicators for which Louisiana often ranks among the worst in the nation.
“We’re quick to pull the trigger on an LSU football coach when things aren’t going right,” Mulhearn said. “There’s a lot of changes that need to be made, not only in this state, but in this community. When you get a chance to effect change, you have to take some of those chances.”
Trappey said she has been meeting with the city’s black male leadership since Sterling’s death, adding it’s essential for Baton Rouge to become a better community—and not just from an economic standpoint.
“Diversity isn’t happening. It’s not going to happen really soon unless we really get engaged at a very early age with kids, with minority children, to help them develop and understand what their potential is, particularly in STEM,” Trappey said.
Educational attainment is a race relations issue, added Trappey, who noted that only roughly 6% of STEM graduates are black men.
She said a challenge for companies trying to diversify their workforces is that they’re all trying to recruit employees from a limited talent pool. Trappey said Forte & Tablada has reached out to Southern University to help them recruit black graduates, but she acknowledged that engineering and land surveying remains a career that’s largely dominated by white males.
Business has a critical role in caring for the community and their employees, said Ghawi, a transplant who ended up in Baton Rouge after being offered a position here by IBM. She called for “conscience capitalism,” whereby businesses first take care of their employees, then the community, and then their bottom line.
Ghawi said she quickly fell in love with the Baton Rouge community upon moving here a few years ago, but has been struck by the steep racial divide in the city. She recalled being invited to the City Club for the first time and noticing that those being served were all white and mostly male. The servers, she noted, were all black.
“In order for the business to be successful and in order for the business to grow, they need to focus on the community,” she said. “This is where they’re bringing their employees from. But also, the more the business is involved in the community the more their employees will be engaged.”
—Alexandria Burris
