It’s Acadiana: Out To Lunch

Hosted ByChristiaan Mader

OUT TO LUNCH finds journalist Christiaan Mader conducting business Acadiana style: over lunch. Each week Christiaan invites guests from Acadiana's business community to join him. Beyond the foundations of the Acadiana economy - oil, cuisine, music - there is a vast network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and even some of the country's largest companies who call Acadiana home. Out to Lunch is the cafeteria of the wider Acadiana business community. You can also hear the show on KRVS 88.7FM.

Hi, Tech – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana

March 1, 2017 Out To Lunch Comments Off on Hi, Tech – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana

If you’re a certain age and in business, you might have had a business mid-life crisis. It’s not about getting a tattoo and a Harley Davidson, it’s about being confronted with a massive change in the way business is done, and deciding what to do about it.

If you started out before the internet, before apps, before social media, and in some cases before the computer, the relentless onslaught of technology drives you to a point where you either throw up your hands and decide to be a Luddite, or you embrace change.

Tim Supple

Tim Supple has embraced change. In a big way. 

For years the multi-billion dollar Acadiana oil and gas business depended for its existence on a breed of hydrocarbon cowboys called Landmen. A Landman secures the leases and rights for an oil and gas company to dig wells. That’s not nearly as simple as it sounds. It can involve masses of contacts, phone calls, promises, handshakes, lunches, drinks, scraps of paper, maps, blind alleys and frequent and expensive miscalculations.

Tim Supple and his partner came up with a way to take all the disparate inputs oil and gas company landmen accumulate, and assemble them in a whole new way: online. They created a web-based version of the Acadian Hydrocarbon cowboy and called him iLandman.  In a tough time for oil exploration, iLandman  is giving over fifteen hundred subscribers a much needed edge.

Chad Theriot is on the other side of the tech revolution.

Chad Theriot

Although Chad grew up in Breaux Bridge his upbringing sounds more like a kid in Silicon Valley. Chad started working with his father in the family business, CBM Technology, at the age of 12. By 15 he was a computer programmer. Chad went on to create the first automated system that uses voice to produce a transcript for court reporters, and has designed and developed software for a wide range of companies including UPS and The Kellogg Corporation.

In 2011 Chad and his business partner bought his dad’s company, CBM, and for that reason Chad is living back on the Silicon Bayou.

Tim Supple, Chad Theriot

Meet two quietly effective Acadian tech innovators. Change is afoot in the Acadiana economy. From Breaux Bridge to Lake Charles.

Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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