Sternberg book explores history of Goudchaux’s/Maison Blanche

Longtime Baton Rouge entrepreneur Hans Sternberg tells his story in We Were Merchants: The Sternberg Family and the Story of Goudchaux’s and Maison Blanche Department Stores, due to hit bookshelves in September from the LSU Press. Co-written with James E. Shelledy, a professor at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU, the book is based on 30 years of Sternberg’s journal entries and chronicles his time as chairman and co-CEO of Goudchaux/Maison Blanche from 1965 to 1992. At its peak, Goudchaux’s/Maison Blanche employed over 8,000 workers in Louisiana and Florida. Sternberg also writes about his family’s long-time history of work in the mercantile industry and why he chose to sell the business in light of difficult economic times, ultimately ending that tradition. “Everybody’s got a story to tell,” Sternberg says. “Ours was a little different. There were elements there that were fairly unique and I could tell a story that I really want my grandchildren to know.” Sternberg is now chairman and CEO of Starmount Life Insurance Company. He and his wife Donna have four children and nine grandchildren.— Emma James