The LACPC is pleased to announce the nomination of Suzanne Williams by the Town of Many to serve as the LACPC’s first Commission Chair. When confirmed, Williams will help guide the Commission’s agenda and goals and will preside over official meetings held during her one-year term commencing July 1.
The Town of Many has participated in the statewide cooperative purchasing commission since its inception. Williams was tapped to represent the town by Mayor Robert H. Hable, Jr. Her nomination is expected to be approved at the next meeting of the LaMATS Board of Directors.
Williams brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this role. Not only has she been an active participant in the LACPC, her official duties as Many’s Grant Writer include identifying funding opportunities and generating proposals and supporting documents in response to solicitations.
Williams has a long history of serving the public and plenty of experience to go along with it. She is currently an alderman for the village of Florien and is on her fourth term, having served in the position since 2008 and running unopposed the last three election cycles.
She also had an extremely successful career in healthcare finance and accounting management for 25 years. In that capacity she managed 40 people in businesses offices, hospitals, and clinics in California, Oregon, Washington, West Virginia, and Texas.
In 2002, she began teaching at Mississippi State University for two years while doing economic impact studies for the rural healthcare sector of the state of Mississippi. During that time period, Williams published 23 reports for the 23 counties she did the studies for, and guided decisions about whether to close or keep small rural hospitals open. She graduated from MSU in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture economics with a minor in economics. She continued her education at Northwestern State University and graduated in 2011 with a master’s degree in Teaching (MAT). While attaining that milestone, she was also teaching full time and battling breast cancer. She recently marked being a 13-year survivor. She taught English, social studies, and math for seventh graders at Many Junior High School for six years and then transferred to Florien High School for the seven years after that.
Williams retired from teaching in 2020 and soon went to work as the town of Many’s grant writer, which she points to being the job where she gets to use her entire skill set gathered over the past 47 years of her working life.
As a non-traditional student at MSU, as she started attending at age 40, Williams volunteered at the Oktibbeha County Humane Society, where she did radio and television interviews, and penned newspapers articles for their “Pet of the Week,” which showcased either a cat or dog up for adoption. She was also the “Happy Hungarian” on an early morning drive-time radio show in Starkville, Mississippi, on Fridays before her 8 a.m. statistics class, where her retired Air Force Captain professor graciously accepted my apologies when she got to class late because all of the parking had been taken up.
While working as business manager for the Eye and Ear clinic and Hospital in Charleston, West Virginia, she was actively involved in the state’s chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association as program director, where she scheduled speakers for workshops on a quarterly basis at resorts, which she notes had to have golf courses because that’s where “business” was done, along with coordinating each hotel for all meals, rooms, and necessities.
She also points to having more job offers, which she declined, on the golf course than at any other time in her life. She won several awards from HFMA for her service to the chapter, and was appointed by the governor of West Virginia as the liaison between all state hospitals and his team working on the early stages of HIPPA rules and the Federal Paperwork Reduction Act as it applied to hospitals.
In 2002, she married David Williams of Florien and has been a happy Louisiana resident since. They reside at their home with two cats and two dogs, all of which are rescues. She also has a brother in Washington and a sister in southern California.
The LACPC is a participant-directed cooperative joint commission for Louisiana municipalities and local political subdivisions, organized to cooperate in the procurement of materials and supplies, as well as other procurement activities defined in Title 33 or the Louisiana Revised Statutes. The LACPC goal is to establish valuable purchasing contracts with national and regional brands of equipment and materials—supporting needs in construction, recreation, building maintenance, fleet management, and more—that are essential to municipal services operations.