Charting a Path for Success

Rural Development’s Partnership with the people of Rural Louisiana

Written by: Charlene Guzman, USDA Rural Development, Office of External Affairs

Deidre Deculus Robert, Esq. is a Louisiana native and daughter of a farmer. Her career path has led her through a series of successful roles from first female African American section chief at the Baton-Rouge Parish Attorney’s Office to general counsel of the only HBCU college system in the country. Now, as the Louisiana State Director for USDA Rural Development, she continues her passion for service and her dedication to the people of the Pelican State.

She believes the true heart of Louisiana rests far beyond the renowned streets of New Orleans. It beats beneath acres of sugarcane fields in New Iberia and among the rice farms dotting the southern lowlands. Its lifeblood flows over 40,000 miles of waterways, from rivers and bayous to creeks and canals. But most importantly, its soul lives within the more than 1.3 million rural people who make up Louisiana’s spirit and character; the thousands of rural families, small businesses, and agricultural producers who provide the everyday essentials the region depends on.

As a steward for rural communities and leader of the RD Louisiana State Office, Deidre helps to ensure these rural places and people continue to thrive. Succeeding at this mission begins with connecting communities to key resources. Programs like RD’s Single Family Housing, Value-Added Producer Grant, and Business & Industry Loan Guarantee help communities address critical infrastructure deficiencies and foster economic development. Deidre’s work in the last year has demonstrated how RD can serve as a smart partner in making the people and businesses of rural Louisiana more resilient.

People like Tim Melancon and Monica Hernandez are deeply impacted by Deidre and RD’s work. As a fourth-generation farmer, Tim and his wife Monica own and manage T. Moise Farms, LLC. Opening the farm began with a dream to provide clean, high-quality foods, and today it has blossomed into a thriving business. With the help of a $183,441 grant from Rural Development’s Value-Added Producer Grant program, the couple scaled up and crafted a new vision for their role in the community. Their simple pig farming operation has since grown to include a processing facility and a storefront specializing in all-natural, pasture-raised Berkshire pork, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised poultry, raw honey, and boudin. They are on a mission to feed their community.

Southland Steel Fabricators Inc. is another business impacting the people of rural Louisiana. Founded in 1986, the family-owned business has been a part of the fabric of Greensburg, Louisiana, for almost four decades. The company is a full-service fabrication company that provides design, engineering, and manufacturing for a wide range of projects. When they outgrew their facility, a $24.7 million Rural Development Business and Industry Loan Guarantee, helped the Lombardo family expand to a second location in Amite City. It is now one of the largest steel fabricators in the region, employing roughly 250 people from the local community.

But Deidre and the Louisiana RD staff know that for residents to thrive, addressing the affordable housing and infrastructure crisis is of utmost importance. For most people in rural America, access to affordable housing is a critical need. The Biden Harris Administration has invested $37 billion nationwide to help nearly 216,000 families and individuals in rural and Tribal communities buy, repair and build homes through USDA Rural Development’s Single Family Housing Programs.

In April 2022, Deidre’s office embarked on an unprecedented outreach campaign, including a 22-stop tour across the state and a partnership with the Louisiana Housing Cooperation. She and 47 local RD employees, targeted outreach to communities that, for years, had been struggling to find solutions to their aging housing stock. Her whirlwind tour introduced new communities to RD resources and created important partnerships that helped quadrupled RD’s customer base in Louisiana in the last year.

Deidre often remarks that when President Biden talks about his Investing in America agenda, designed to grow the American economy from the bottom up and middle out, she knows he’s talking about the people of rural Louisiana, people like Tim and Monica, who open their doors every day to feed their community and businesses like Southland Steel Fabricators whose partnership with USDA has meant hundreds of jobs for the local community. Deidre and the entire Louisiana RD staff work hard to engage these rural residents and champion the goals they have for their communities, knowing that each success charts a clear path for the next.