Providing urban and rural Louisiana with affordable high speed broadband one community at a time.
Projects
City Of Mansfield, Louisiana
The City of Mansfield, located in Northwest Louisiana, voted on Monday May 22, 2023, to approve a Binding Memorandum of Understanding with Louisiana Connected to design, build and operate a fiber-based broadband municipal broadband system.
The city council voted unanimously to partner with Louisiana Connected (www.louisiana-connected.com) to build the system, which will give every household and business in the city access to fiber which is highest level of broadband available. Mansfield is the first municipality in the state of Lousiana to build its own broadband network via a public private partnership.
Strategic Partners
Donnette Dunbar
Chief Executive Officer
Donnette Dunbar is the founder of Dash Media, one of the most respected media firms in New York City. At Dash Donnette managed media and community relations for clients on some of the largest real estate projects in the country including the billion-dollar Long Island Hospital Redevelopment and the controversial commercial development adjacent to the historical NYC landmark Cathedral at St John The Divine in West Harlem. Through this work, Donnette developed expertise in how to build consensus with community, political and business leaders resulting in successful public private projects.
A former journalist, Donnette was a part of the US launch team of The Financial Times, heading up its online arts and leisure department. She has also worked at prestigious news organizations including ABC News and The Los Angeles Times. Among the stories Donnette covered was the Rodney King riots in 1992 and Earvin Magic Johnson’s historical press conference announcing he had contracted the HIV virus.
Donnette has also built an impressive career in philanthropy. She serves on the board as Vice President of City College Center For The Arts and is a board member of Grace Outreach, a non profit that helps women of color in the South Bronx gain the educational tools needed to prosper in a society that is in constant technological and social change.
Donnette earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literature & Rhetoric from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University.
Morris Clark
Chairman
The chairman of Louisiana Connected, Morris Clark currently serves on the Board of Directors of Civitas Resources, Inc. (NYSE: CIVI) and Sitio Royalty Corp. (NYSE: STR). He also served as a Director of Extraction Oil & Gas (NYSE: XOG), a predecessor company to Civitas. Mr. Clark previously served as Vice-President and Treasurer of Marathon Oil Corporation. Prior to joining Marathon, Mr. Clark served as Senior Tax Counsel at Enron North America, as a Tax Attorney at the law firm of Bracewell & Patterson, and as a Senior Accountant with Touche Ross & Company (the predecessor of Deloitte & Touche). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Southern University, a Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School, and a Master of Laws from New York University School of Law.
Kelvin Sanders
Municipal Legal Expert
Kelvin Sanders is a native of Alexandria, Louisiana and a 1989 graduate of Tulane University School of Law. For the past 30 years, he has provided general counsel and litigation services to small, medium and multi-national companies throughout the United States. He served as the first African-American City Attorney for the City of Alexandria for three years where he managed environmental compliance, property acquisition and disposal, human resources, governmental relations, energy acquisition, public-private partnerships and property and casualty defense. Mr. Sanders also has extensive experience in community and economic development through his service as a board member on the Mt Zion Development Corporation Central Louisiana Business Incubator, Alexandria Central Economic Development District and the Inner City Revitalization Corporation.
Al Tindall
Municipal Financial Expert
A trusted adviser, Al maintains a robust public and project finance practice. His clients rely on his significant experience in public policy, public and project finance, and private equity and alternative investments to develop innovative solutions that address their individual finance objectives.
Al focuses his finance practice on state and states’ authority level issues, particularly on the development and implementation of state programs created for the benefit of local municipalities. His experience extends to serving as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel, and special tax counsel to state and local governments and public authorities across the country, including the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. For over 30 years, Al has served as bond counsel to the State of Connecticut in connection with its general obligation bonds, working with several State Treasurers in the process.
Daron West
Partner, Program Management & Broadband Support
Daron has over 20 years of experience in Construction Management and Architecture/Design Management. Daron has significant experience in providing project management & technical support on a wide array of construction types and delivery methods.
In past roles, as Principal /Vice President for regional development in Dallas Texas, his responsibilities included the direct and indirect supervision of subcontractors, project assigned professionals, field office support staff, contract/client negotiations and project budget oversight.This included oversight over 14 construction and engineering professionals who were involved in both short term and long-term construction and program management contracts with major municipalities such as the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas Independent School District (DISD) and Dallas Area Rapid Transits (DART).
Reginald Mims
Planning/ Zoning & Land Use Expert
Reginald has decades experience in architectural services, specializing in commercial, industrial and residential design, development and planning, with emphasis on land use and zoning.
He was previously employed as a Senior Planner for the City of Shreveport’s Metropolitan Planning Commission and was instrumental in the development of the current Unified Development Code and Master Plan 2030. Reginald served as Assistant Director and Interim Director for Caddo Parish Public Works, responsible for the overall operation and maintenance of Caddo Parish Public Works Departments equipment and roads. In this capacity, developed the parish wide compactor sites and recycling program currently in use.