Bobby Jindal

Governor-Elect Bobby Jindal Announces Advisory Councils and Leaders

BATON ROUGE – Today, Governor-Elect Bobby Jindal held a press conference to announce several transition advisory councils, the leaders of his Transition Team’s Ethics Advisory Council and the team’s new Human Resources Director.
 
Jindal announced seven transition advisory councils, including ethics, economic growth, education, health and social services, hurricane recovery and emergency preparedness, government and fiscal reform, and crime and public safety – all reflective of his seven policy chapters unveiled during his campaign. He also announced two special committees which will examine issues pertaining to Veterans Affairs and Wildlife and Fisheries. Jindal said the advisory council members will travel the state to collect testimony, make policy recommendations to the new administration and advise the leadership on qualified candidates interested in roles within the administration.
 
Highlighting his continued campaign theme of waging a war against corruption, Jindal announced the heads of his Ethics Transition Advisory Council, naming Sean Reilly of Baton Rouge as the chair and Virginia Shehee of Shreveport as the vice chair. Jindal said, “Cleaning up the corruption in our state is job one. There is no excuse for Louisiana to be ranked second to last in the nation for the best place to do business. I was serious when I said we would wage a war on the corruption that has held our state at the bottom of those national ‘good’ lists for too long, and today I am happy to announce that Sean Reilly and Virginia Shehee will help me lead that charge in the weeks ahead.”
 
Sean Reilly currently serves as Chief Operating Officer and President of the Outdoor Division of Lamar Advertising, Louisiana's only NASDAQ 100 company, and Virginia Shehee serves as President/CEO of Kilpatrick Life Insurance Company in Shreveport and was also the first women elected to the Louisiana Senate.
 
Jindal also announced today that Forest Benedict, the former Vice President for Human Resource Management and Risk Management for the Louisiana State University System of 15 years, would serve as the Transition Team’s Human Resources Director. Benedict is volunteering his time to the transition organization and will work to ensure that the transition process is fair, transparent and operates within the law.
 
 
Sean Reilly, Chair of Ethics Reform Transition Team Advisory Council
 
Sean Reilly is the COO and president of the Outdoor Division of Lamar Advertising Company, an outdoor advertising company headquartered in Baton Rouge and Louisiana’s only NASDAQ 100 company. Reilly was appointed by the Governor to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state organization charged with crafting Louisiana’s long term recovery response to the two hurricane disasters, Katrina and Rita. 
 
Reilly has served in leadership positions on numerous non-profit and community boards and institutions. He is currently on the Board of The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, and the Board of Visitors of the LSU Manship School of Mass Communications, where he taught as an adjunct professor.  He also serves as Vice Chairman for Blueprint Louisiana, a statewide organization devoted to governmental reform, and is a member of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR). In addition to being an executive at Lamar, Reilly is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and serves on the Board of Reserve Telephone Company, Inc.
 
Reilly has served in various capacities at Lamar since 1978, then a family owned private business. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984, from Harvard Law School in 1989 and began working on acquisitions and real estate for Lamar upon his graduation. He served in the Louisiana Legislature as a State Representative from March 1988 to January 1996, during which tenure he served as Vice-Chair of the Ways and Means committee and as member of the Education, Commerce, and Legislative Audit Advisory committees as well as a member of The State Bond Commission.
 
Reilly has been married to the former Jennifer Eplett since 1989.  They have three children, Anna Maeve, Aidan Christopher and Rowan Patrick.
 

Virginia K. Shehee, Vice Chair of Ethics Reform Transition Team Advisory Council

Virginia K. Shehee has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. She began working at her parents’ companies while still in high school. After graduating from Centenary College with a degree in English in 1943, she worked in Europe and Washington, DC.  When she returned to Shreveport, she began working for Kilpatrick Life Insurance Company again.  She also became a licensed funeral director for her family’s other business, Kilpatrick’s Rose-Neath Funeral Homes, Crematorium and Cemeteries, Inc.  In 1971, she became President/CEO of both companies and remains in that position today.  Under her direction, the insurance company has grown to 13 offices in Louisiana and Texas and 10 funeral homes in Louisiana.

 
Shehee is one of the most well known businesswomen and philanthropists in the State of Louisiana. She is a steering committee member for Blueprint Louisiana and also serves as chairman of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Strand Theatre. She is Chairman Emeritus of the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana. In 1996, the multi-million dollar Biomedical Research Institute was named in her honor. She was the first woman elected to the Louisiana State Senate, first woman to receive the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society and the first woman to be named the Optimist Club’s “Mr. Shreveport.” She was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in 2004 and will be one of the honorees at the Sixteenth Annual Louisiana Legends Awards Gala in Baton Rouge on April 27, 2006. 

 
An avid believer in higher education, Mrs. Shehee is a life member of the Centenary College Board of Trustees and served on the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors from 1998-2004, and was a member of the Transition Team on Higher Education for Governors Roemer and Foster.  She serves on the Board of Trustees for the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans and is Chairman of the National Board of Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal.

 
Shehee continues to serve on the Louisiana Committee of 100 for Economic Development and SECURE Louisiana. Shehee’s children, Shane, Andrew, Nell and Margaret, serve as officers and directors of both companies begun by her father in 1932, carrying on the family tradition of service to the communities where the businesses are located.

Forest Benedict, Human Resources Director for Transition Team
 
Forest Benedict owns and manages a consulting practice dedicated to assisting employers in the development, implementation and management of financial and health care programs. Previously, Forest served as the Vice President for Human Resource Management and Risk Management for the Louisiana State University System for 15 years. Benedict has also served in senior level HR positions at other higher education institutions.  
 
Benedict has consulted with a number of public and private organizations in the areas of HR, compensation and benefits for more than 30 years. He has partnered with numerous financial and employee benefit companies to develop new, innovative benefit designs for employer sponsored dental, life insurance, long-term care, and critical illness products.   
 
Benedict is recognized as a national practice leader on consumer-centric health care policy and employee benefit designs. His innovative approach to managed consumerism has helped LSU and other public and private organizations develop health care benefit strategies that provide employees and their families with more information about cost and quality, more choice, and greater control over the purchase of their care, while controlling health care unit and utilization costs. He has served on numerous benefit advisory groups on health care transformation.  
 
Benedict serves as a national practice consultant to brokers and benefit consultants on compensation and health care policy and benefit design strategies. He has also published articles in the human resource management field, and is a frequent speaker at professional and business events on the topics of health care strategies, managed consumerism in health care, retirement planning, and workforce productivity.