John Peter Laborde, an offshore oil and gas industry leader who also was active in a long list of business, civic and religious organizations, died Thursday at his New Orleans home. He was 97.
Laborde, whose affiliations fill five single-spaced typewritten pages of his resumé, developed Tidewater Inc. into the world’s largest owner and operator of offshore vessels. It owns 650 vessels and has about 8,000 employees.
He also established and developed Tidewater Compression Service into the United States’ biggest owner and operator of gas-compression services, said his son, Cliffe F. Laborde. Compression is necessary, he said, to get gas into pipelines.
“He was a keen businessperson and a person with great compassion and sensitivity,” said Anne Milling, a longtime friend. “He lent his talents and business acumen to many nonprofits and served the community well.”
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Laborde was born in Marksville and graduated from Hammond High School. He enrolled at LSU, but his education was interrupted when he, as a colonel in Army ROTC, was inducted into the Army in the early days of the United States’ involvement in World War II. Laborde graduated first in his class at Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, Cliffe Laborde said.
When he went overseas, he was pulled out of an infantry division and selected to work for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with duties that included receiving coded messages and delivering them to the general, the younger Laborde said. “My father claimed that that move basically saved his life.”
When the Japanese surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Laborde watched the ceremony from the shore, where he was in charge of MacArthur’s headquarters.
Laborde returned to LSU and earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and a law degree. He was president of the LSU chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa, which recognizes campus leaders.In 2012, he established the Energy Law Center at LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center. “It didn’t have an energy department,” Cliffe Laborde said, “and he thought that was something that a law school in Louisiana certainly needed.”
After law school, Laborde was hired as district land manager for the Louisiana account of Richardson & Bass, an independent oil and gas operator. He joined Tidewater in 1956 and became its president and CEO before retiring in 1994, when he was named chairman emeritus and director.
Laborde was the product of a Roman Catholic upbringing, where, Milling said, he learned the importance of caring for the less fortunate. This attribute continued throughout his life. Although he participated in many organizations and served on boards of health care and educational institutions, Laborde was especially active in Catholic causes, and he was honored by the church on local and national levels.
LSU Law Center Chancellor Jack M. Weiss told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune last week that legal and regulatory issues in the energy industry h…
“John Laborde was a man who was blessed by God in many ways and used those blessings to give back to the community,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who will be the principal celebrant at Laborde’s funeral Mass. “His legacy is his drive to use his God-given gifts for his family while making life better for others in service to our Lord.”
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Laborde chaired the Louisiana Recovery Authority Support Foundation. He also led the Governor’s Energy Committee in 1995 and the Lower Mississippi Waterway Safety Advisory Committee.
He was a director of WYES and WLAE television stations, the Metropolitan Crime Commission and Ochsner Foundation, and he was a founding trustee of the National D-Day Museum, now the National World War II Museum, which gave him its Silver Service Medallion Award.
Survivors include his wife, Sylvia Laborde; three sons, Cliffe F., Gary L. and John Peter Jr., all of New Orleans; a daughter, Adrienne Laborde, of Covington; 16 grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren.
A Mass will be said Tuesday at noon at Holy Name of Jesus Church, 6367 St. Charles Ave. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m.
Burial will be private. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.