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awakening2lite
06-27-2008, 02:01 PM
Paul Callais

Age: 39
Yacht: 97' Miss Glo
Missing: 6/25/08

http://wafb.images.worldnow.com/images/8560673_SS.jpg
Cuba joins search for missing Gonzales bank president
Updated: June 27, 2008 12:31 PM
The president of a Gonzales bank is missing after reportedly falling overboard from a yacht near Bahamas. The U.S. Coast Guard says it has launched a search for 39-year-old Paul Callais.
source: http://www.louisianassportschannel.com/

Gonzales banker missing, feared lost at sea in Bahamas
6/27/08

While the U.S. Coast Guard searched Thursday for missing Gonzales banker Paul Callais in the waters of the Bahamas Islands southeast of Florida, his Louisiana friends and associates hoped for the best.

“We are definitely hoping for something positive,” said Sherrie Despino, president and chief executive officer for the Ascension Parish Chamber of Commerce. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”

Callais is president and chief executive officer of Gonzales-based United Community Bank.

The crew of the 97-foot motor vessel Miss Glo reported him missing around 7 p.m. Wednesday, according to a U.S. Coast Guard news release.

The crew aboard Miss Glo told the Coast Guard that Callais might have fallen overboard after the motor vessel endured a heavy wave, Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Ameen stated in the release. The crew reported Callais missing and feared overboard about an hour after the wave struck, Ameen said.

Search and rescue coordinators at the Coast Guard’s 7th District command center in Miami initiated efforts to find Callais, but had not located him as of late Thursday.

“This is an extremely challenging case because nobody saw Mr. Callais go overboard,” said Coast Guard Capt. James O’Connor, 7th District search and rescue chief, in the release.

“According to the crew of the Miss Glo, he had no life jacket and the seas were between 10-12 feet at the time,” O’Connor said. “These conditions are extremely fatiguing for anyone in the water.”

Callais apparently fell overboard about 37 miles south of Great Inagua, Bahamas. The Miss Glo was en route from Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, to the Cayman Islands.

As of Thursday afternoon, Coast Guard crews had searched nearly 900 square miles, and more searches were scheduled.

Based in Clearwater, Fla., two C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircrews and a Sikorsky HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew were assisting in the search, along with the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tampa, a 270-foot medium endurance cutter from Portsmouth, Va.

Callais is known as much for his community leadership as for his business acumen.

He is a member of the Gonzales Rotary Club and a graduate of the Leadership Ascension in 2003.

In May 2001, Callais succeeded D. Dale Gaudet as president and chief executive officer of United Community Bank upon Gaudet’s retirement.

Gaudet, contacted at his Baton Rouge residence Thursday, said Callais is a “fine young man from a very good family.”

Before coming to United Community Bank, Callais worked at Community Bank in Raceland for 13 years, serving as vice president and senior lending officer prior to his departure.

United Community Bank, which opened in June 1998, now has more than $100 million in assets.

Callais followed the footsteps of his father, Harold Callais, into banking.

Harold Callais was one of the organizers of United Community Bank in Gonzales.

While scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2000, Harold Callais died from a heart attack at age 64.

The elder Callais also had served as a member of the state Board of Regents for Higher Education for seven years and had formed several businesses in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes.

The businesses included Callais Cablevision Network, Lagniappe Motors in Golden Meadow and Solid Waste Disposal Inc., a garbage-disposal company that operates throughout the region.

source: http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/21903624.html?showAll=y&c=y

awakening2lite
06-27-2008, 02:28 PM
June 27th, 2008
Local Authorities Not Involved In Search For Missing American
By Kendea Jones
The US media have reported that a 39-year-old American man had gone missing in Bahamian waters, but local officials said they were not looking for him because it was not reported to them.

source: http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=17609

awakening2lite
06-28-2008, 06:00 PM
Search for missing banker called off

http://images.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=HC&Date=20080628&Category=ARTICLES&ArtNo=806280319&Ref=AR&Profile=1211&MaxW=250&border=0
Golden Meadow native Paul Callais is believed to have fallen off his 97-foot yacht, the Miss Glo. He remained missing Friday night off Great Inagua, Bahamas.

EXCERPT

Crew members of his boat, the 97-foot Miss Glo, told the Coast Guard that Paul Callais, 39, had stepped onto an outer deck after dinner around 6 p.m. Wednesday. Nobody aboard saw him actually go overboard.

A Coast Guard cutter, two C-130 transport planes and two helicopters scoured 2,818 square miles of ocean before the search was called off at 8 p.m.

EXCERPT

News of Callais’ disappearance hit Golden Meadow hard even though Callais, a native of this bayou community, left years ago and forged his own path in business to become president and CEO of United Community Bank in Gonzales.

To former neighbors, teachers and friends, he will always be a boy from the bayou who made good.

EXCERPT

The implications of a search suspension evoke a cruel irony for people like Bouziga, who are familiar with the family’s history.

The missing man’s father, Harold Callais, a beloved south Lafourche business owner and philanthropist, died at sea in September 2000. He was in the Gulf of Mexico scuba diving off the western Louisiana coast -- a pastime enjoyed by many in the family -- when he suffered a heart attack at age

64. He was carried home in the same boat from which his son disappeared, a refitted oilfield workboat that some call a yacht.

source: http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20080628/ARTICLES/806280319/1211/news01&title=Search_for_missing_banker_called_off