By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

Like many people, Brett Doney is taking vacation in a warm southern climate, but he isn’t working on a suntan.

Instead he’s helping businesses in Louisiana recover after last year’s devastating blows from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The president of EnterpriseMaine flew to New Orleans on Sunday as part of a national volunteer program to help economic development organizations rebuild their strategic plans as well as help their struggling clients. Doney, whose Paris-based organization is dedicated to economic development in western Maine, is a longtime member of the International Economic Development Council.

“Right after the storm, a bunch of us started e-mailing each other and said we need to do what we can to help,” he said Wednesday in a phone interview from Lake Charles, La. A volunteer program was set up, and Doney and many others offered to spend vacation time in the Gulf Coast to help the economic recovery effort.

Doney spent the early part of the week with economic development organizations in New Orleans, helping them revamp their internal strategic plans. “They have been helping their clients get back in operation so they haven’t focused on their own strategic plans,” he said. “They are just struggling to survive themselves while they are working enormous hours to bring jobs back to the New Orleans area.”

Doney said the devastation in Louisiana is “indescribable.”

“It hit poor neighborhoods, it hit wealthy subdivision neighborhoods, and it goes on for miles,” he said. “As if every structure from the Oxford Hills down to Portland had been flooded, oftentimes up to the rooftop, and the only thing remaining is high ground down in Portland.”

But he said he is amazed at the “spirit and determination” of New Orleans business people to bring their city back to what it used to be. “They lost essentially every job in the New Orleans area. Tens of thousands have been re-created.”

Doney said several parts of the city including the Latin Quarter and central business district are buzzing again with economic activity, including the reopening of hotels, restaurants and office buildings. Many people who once lived in the city now live on the outskirts and are commuting to work. “It’s just amazing to see these traffic jams trying to get into New Orleans in the morning,” he said.

In Lake Charles, which is 220 miles west of New Orleans and suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Rita, Doney is counseling businesses and encouraging them to be flexible in their day-to-day operations as the recovery effort continues. “You have to be very flexible in what you do for the next six months, because it may be very different than what you do beyond that,” he said.

Doney plans to return to Maine on Friday but said he is willing to go back to Louisiana to help continue the economic recovery. There currently is a waiting list of volunteers from the United States and Canada who have expertise in business development and also want to help.

There is still a lot of work to do, particularly in the New Orleans area, and many people are frustrated by the slowness of the recovery effort, Doney said. “For a quarter mile beyond the levee break, there is nothing except debris. Nothing has been bulldozed. Buildings have been inspected but that is it.”

But the determination of the people who live and work there, and the progress so far, has convinced him that the city will eventually be a more vibrant place than it was before the hurricane. “I think it will be the most amazing rebirth phoenix story in American history,” he said. “Three to five years down the road, I think we’re going to see an even greater city.”