The board of commissioners for the Port of Greater Baton Rouge recently elected officers for 2017. Officers elected include Bobby Watts, East Baton Rouge Parish, President; Brenda Hurst, West Baton Rouge Parish, vice president; Angela Machen, PhD., East Baton Rouge Parish, secretary; and Kevin Stevens, East Baton Rouge, treasurer.
Bobby Watts, president, is retired from the East Baton Rouge Tax Assessor’s Office and resides in Central.
Angela Machen, PhD, secretary, is a principal in Machen Management Group. She has worked in the field of environmental health research and management at Tulane Health Sciences Center, The Center for Evidence Based Global Health, LSU, and SRC.
Kevin Stevens, treasurer, is co-owner of Blanchard’s Building Materials in Plaquemine, as well as co-owner of State Lumber and Hardware located on Highland Road in Baton Rouge.
The port governance body is a 15-member commission appointed by Governor John Bel Edwards to establish policy and provide oversight into the port's development. Port commissioners are selected from the four parishes served by the port: Ascension, Iberville, East and West Baton Rouge.