Fall 2003

Randy Haynie

It was the summer of 1977 and the University was facing a housing crisis.

Five dorms needed renovations and quick. But an oil boom made it almost impossible to find laborers to complete the job.

Enter Randy Haynie, a 22-year-old biology major.

Haynie earned tuition money by working as a dorm counselor and University officials asked him to find help. Campus was virtually empty during the summer, except for a collection of international students.

Haynie had his crew.

“We worked 18 hours a day, using split shifts, cleaning, caulking, scraping and painting…in less than five weeks,’’ Haynie said. The mission, when first given to me and the students staying on campus that summer, was to do two dorms in that period. We tackled that project in an organized fashion and before we knew it, they kept adding dorms to the list. We completed the fifth dorm the day before students began moving in.”

In similar fashion, with organization and sheer determination, Haynie today is considered amongst the most powerful people in state politics. As head of Haynie and Associates, a lobbying firm, his extensive client portfolio includes companies across the country and close to home- Acadian Ambulance and Kraft Foods, AT&T and Lafayette Consolidated Government.

When Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans found itself in financial straits, it was Haynie who shepherded a tax break through the legislature. When the New Orleans Saints threatened to leave Louisiana, Haynie pulled off a 10—year deal complete with cash incentives to make the
professional football team stay put.

But 25 years after his 1978 graduation from then—USL, Haynie credits the connections he made at the University for shaping his future.

Impressed by Haynie’s handling of the dorm crisis, Raymond Blanco, who was then dean of students, introduced him to then—state Sen. Edgar “Sonny” Mouton Jr., who was about to launch his 1979 bid for governor. Haynie became the senator’s driver and bodyguard.

“He’d carry the gun; I’d carry the bullet,” Mouton recalled in a 1997 interview.

It was his work with Mouton and a stint as sergeant at arms in the Louisiana Senate that put Haynie in contact with this first client-the Louisiana Oilfield Contractors Association.

He was barely 26 years old and was on the fast track.

Today, he says it all began during his time at USL.

“Contacts are only as good as you make them,” Haynie said. ‘‘The many individuals I met while working on my degree at USL are still part of my personal and professional life.

“The work I did with student housing and my current work are functions of dealing with people,” he continued. ‘‘Many times people are faced with a problem, crisis or difficult decisions to make. I have learned that students and legislators are very much alike in that they are both on a learning curve on new and emerging situations and issues.

Dealing with people and their issues is at the core of the Haynie Family Foundation, which Haynie and his wife, Daynese, founded. The couple’s children, Dayna and Ryan, serve respectively as the foundation’s president and vice president. Among the foundation’s beneficiaries:
the Sans Souci building in downtown Lafayette, the Artists’ Alliance and UL Lafayette.

Three years ago, the foundation endowed a $100,000 professorship in memory of the late Elias “Bo” Ackal of New Iberia, who served six terms in the state House of Representatives.

“There is nothing more important to Louisiana than our institutions of higher learning,’’ Haynie said. “If we are going to turn our state economy around and master economic development, we must continue to focus on education.

‘‘(The importance) of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ... both present and future, cannot be underestimated,” he said.