Interviewer(s): Jason Theriot

Affiliation: University of Houston

Berard has been involved in the oil and gas industry for 50 years, working for and owning several companies, including most notably Unifab Fabricators (1980-2000). He was born and raised in the Atchafalaya Basin and has seen Louisiana's wetlands decline over the decades. He went to private school at St. Peter's College in New Iberia and graduated from New Iberia High School in 1946. He joined the military and served with the army engineers in occupied Japan. He went to college on the G.I. Bill and graduate in civil engineering from SLI. Tennessee Gas gave him a start in the business in early 1950s. He laid pipelines, designed pipe laying equipment, built companies, modernized the Port of Iberia, and even constructed an Agrifuels Refinery in Iberia Parish. He sold Unifab in 2000 and is retired from the industry. He spends most of his time tending his ranch and writing letters to Washington D.C. on energy/environment issues affecting the Gulf Coast.

Company's history/significance: Unifab transformed the Port of Iberia into a thriving support/service center for the offshore oil and gas industry in the GOM. It was a state of art, all electric, fabrication facility which built platforms, rigs, and rolled its own pipe. Berard took his company public from the start which may have helped it survive during the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Iberia Parish Chamber of Commerce recognized Berard for bringing in $1 billion dollars into the local economy through Unifab and the Port of Iberia.