Charles Cusimano, I

Charles Vincent "Charlie" Cusimano, I​ (Oil and gas businessman who held the longest tenure on the LSU Board of Supervisors)
Born	September 29, 1927​ New Orleans, Louisiana​
Died	March 28, 2020 (aged 92) Mandeville St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana
Political Party	Democrat-turned-Republican​
Spouse	Violet Taranto Cusimano (died 2015) Children: Charles V. Cusimano, II Lisa M Cusimano Jan C. Simon Cathy C. Daigle Parents: Nicholas, Sr., and Myrtle Warner Cusimano Alma mater: Holy Cross High School (New Orleans) Louisiana State University University of Oklahoma
Religion	Roman Catholic

​ Charles Vincent Cusimano, I, known as Charlie Cusimano (September 29, 1927 – March 28, 2020), was a Louisiana oil and natural gas businessman and civic figure who served from 1974 to 2006 as a member of the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors. To date, his thirty-two years of service is the record tenure for an LSU supervisor.

Background

Of Italian descent, Cusimano was born in New Orleans to Nicholas Cusimano. Sr. (1896-1982), and the former Myrtle Warner (1896-1981), who are interred at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans.

Cusimano graduated from the Roman Catholic Holy Cross High School in New Orleans. In 1951, he procured a Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering from LSU in Baton Rouge, which he attended on a football scholarship. He lettered all four years, and played in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, in 1946 and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in 1950. Years later, beginning in 1973, he became a member of the New Orleans Allstate Sugar Bowl Committee.

He a studied law at the Roman Catholic Loyola University in New Orleans but did not become a practicing attorney. He did postgraduate work in geology at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. From 1953 to 1955, he served a stint in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War.

Business career

The New Orleans Public Service office recruited Cusimano as the development gas engineer, a post he filled from 1955 to 1957. He was charged with the implementation of the municipal transition from wet gas to dry gas (natural gas). In 1962, Cusimano became an independent oil and gas operator and formed the Energy Corporation of America, which merged in 1973 with the Equitable Petroleum Company, a firm based in New York.

Cusimano was a member of the American Society of Petroleum Engineers, the Independent Producers Association of America, and the Petroleum Club. He was a director of Gulf South Bank.

Political activities

usimano was active in Republican Party affairs and was a major fund raiser for former Governor Murphy James "Mike" Foster, Jr. Cusimano was already contributing to the Ronald W. Reagan campaign in 1980, while his son, Charles, II, was a Democrat in the state legislature though the son later switched parties.

Promoter of LSU

He was initially appointed to the LSU board by Democratic Governor Edwin Edwards in the first of Edwards' four non-consecutive terms. For his contributions to LSU as well as the energy industry in Louisiana, Cusimano was inducted in 1999 into the LSU Engineering Hall of Distinction. While a supervisor, he worked for the expansion of Tiger Stadium. For the University of New Orleans, a member institution of the LSU System, Cusimano supported the privatization of student housing for that campus. In 1995, the board granted Cusimano's request for the building of on-campus apartments, known as Privateer Place.

He worked to insure that all religions are welcomed on the LSU campuses. A Roman Catholic, he was persuaded to establish the Newman Center at the University of New Orleans by Archbishop Philip Matthew Hannan (1913-2011) of New Orleans, who delivered the eulogy at the funeral in 1973 of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He worked with Chancellor Homer L. Hitt (1917-2008) in the planning of the Kiefer-UNO Lakefront Arena, which opened in 1983. The Newman Center at the University of New Orleans honored Cusimano in 1999 with its first annual "Newman Recognition." He also received the "Student Body Appreciation" award from the Universityi of New Orleans in 1987. In 2007, the engineering faculty of the University of New Orleans presented him with an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Cusimano was a major supporter of the throughbred horse industry in Louisiana. In 2011, the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine established in his honor, the Charles V. Cusimano Equine Physiology and Pharmacology Laboratory on the Baton Rouge campus.

He spearheaded the establishment of a statewide Clean Power and Energy Research Consortium for LSU, the University of New Orleans, Southern University in Baton Rouge. The consortium, which includes LSU, the University of New Orleans, Tulane University, Southern University in Baton Rouge, and Nicholls State University in Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish, is maintained by energy researchers. Cusimano obtained from the state $500,000 in seed money to establish the consortium. He lobbied and made presentations to the U.S. Federal Energy Commission and Federal Fossil Fuel Committee as well as the state congressional delegation on behalf of the consortium. He chaired the Governor's Comprehensive Energy Policy Advisory Commission, which completed its work in 2003 near the end of the second term of Governor Mike Foster.

Family and death

Cusimano died at his home in Mandeville in suburban St. Tammany Parish at the age of ninety-two. Private graveside services were held but because of the coronavirus pandemic, his memorial service was postponed to a later date.

His motto was "Faith, Family, and Friends." Cusimano was a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, known as the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

Cusimano and his wife, the former Violet Taranto (1928-2015), had four children, Judge Charles Vincent "Chuck" Cusimano, II, and wife Katherine, Lisa M. Cusimano, Jan C. Simon and husband David, and Cathy C. Daigle and husband Keith. He had eighteen grandchildren and more than forty great- grandchildren. He was also survived by his brother, Frank Cusimano. He was preceded in death by another brother, Nicholas Cusimano, Jr.