Interviewer(s): T. McGuire. Galliano, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

MJ Cheramie and his son, Tony, had been recruited by Kerry St. Pé of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program to be part of the "action team" for this project, and both had agreed to talk with us. For several days, I had been working through Tony to set things up with some of the companies old-time captains, and I interviewed MJ in his office when he returned from a trip to Mississippi (the tape has noise from phone calls and intercom paging). Tony was sitting in on the interview and added some information and opinions. I only ran one side of the tape, though the session continued with a tour of the operations and discussions about the unique Botruc design based on scale models in the conference room. Then MJ, an avid horseman as well as a hunter, had to go off to help a friend cut out some cattle.

MJ Cheramie runs L & M Botruc from the office on Highway 1 in Galliano, a business started by his father. Starting in 1948 or 1949, MJ's father borrowed money for engines from his grandfather and began building up inventory, starting with crewboats. He got contracts through Otto Candies. He took a Rhode Island ferry design to George Engine Company in Harvey and had boats built for the offshore industry. He operated three vessels built by Baroid Mud and also kept building according to the Botruc design. Through the years, the company built larger vessels as oil work went further out in the water. The company built several vessels with Bollinger and American Marine.