BATON ROUGE—David Cresson of Baton Rouge, a longtime conservationist, avid angler and experienced manager for non-profit organizations, has been named executive director and chief executive officer of the Coastal Conservation Association of Louisiana, the state’s largest marine conservation organization. 

CCA Louisiana President Chris Harbuck of Shreveport announced that Cresson will begin working with CCA Louisiana on Oct. 1. He presently serves as president and chief executive officer of Our Lady of the Lake Foundation, the development arm of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, one of Baton Rouge’s leading health care providers. 

Cresson replaces longtime CCA Executive Director Jeff Angers, who accepted the position of president of the Center for Coastal Conservation. Sam Barbera has served as interim executive director for the past few months and will continue in that capacity until Cresson begins work with CCA on Oct. 1. 

As head of CCA Louisiana, Cresson will oversee the organization’s conservation programs, legislative initiatives, coordinate development activities with CCA’s 22 local chapters and 30,000 members and volunteers, and oversee CCA’s staff at its Baton Rouge headquarters. 

“We are delighted that someone with David’s strong credentials and interest in marine conservation has accepted the position of executive director and CEO of CCA Louisiana,” said Harbuck, who serves as the organization’s highest volunteer officer. “As a longtime active member of CCA’s Baton Rouge chapter, David is already well known to many of our members. He comes to CCA with great success as head of one of the capital region’s largest foundations.” 

A native of the New Orleans area, Cresson said his awareness of and interest in marine conservation comes from his many years of fishing along Louisiana’s coast. He began saltwater fishing at a young age with his late father, who was an avid outdoorsman and member of CCA Louisiana. 

“CCA provided the initial leadership that brought marine conservation to the forefront as an issue in Louisiana,” Cresson said. “With our rapidly eroding coast, Louisiana faces enormous conservation issues that require active participation from organizations like CCA. I’m looking forward to helping uphold the strong tradition of conservation leadership for which CCA is well known.” 

A special team consisting of CCA board members Bob Bush of Baton Rouge, Snoop Roth of Gonzales, Rusty Vincent of Sulphur, Chris Roos of New Orleans, Harbuck, and Judy Shaw of CCA America coordinated the search for the new executive director.

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