Gordon Saussy, 78, UNO economist Times Picayune June 03, 2009 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Dr. Gordon Saussy, a University of New Orleans economist whose critiques of the region's economy were part of the city's public conversation during the late 1970s and 1980s, died Sunday at Canon Hospice in Metairie. He was 78. For 10 years ending in 1984, Dr. Saussy was director of UNO's Division of Business and Economic Research, a platform he used as a bully pulpit to decry the region's stagnation to civic leaders and the public. He frequently called New Orleans to social, economic and educational reform. Although a formally trained economist with a Yale doctorate, Dr. Saussy fit his language to the public square. He was plainspoken, sometimes tart. In the late 1970s, for instance, he frequently described New Orleans as a "Sleepy Hollow." As head of Mayor Moon Landrieu's Council of Economic Advisors, he once called for the creation of "New Orleans newest tradition -- the work ethic." And at a 1978 public forum, he described New Orleans as "an insulated society . . . a layered community" where the elite would prefer to think that the poor "do not exist." But if Dr. Saussy was blunt and quotable in public, he was remembered by Adelaide Benjamin, a lifelong friend, as uncommonly kind and solicitous in his personal relations. An avid fisher, Dr. Saussy was on a fishing trip in 1980 when he was nearly killed in an auto accident that took another motorist's life in Buras. Throughout the early 1980s, when local energy prices dominated the New Orleans political agenda, Dr. Saussy became a strong public opponent of the City Council's plan to regulate, and perhaps municipalize, New Orleans Public Service Inc., the city's electrical utility. His public career tapered off after he gave up leadership of the business and economic research center, but he remained on the UNO economics faculty until 1996 and remained active in the city's social scene. Dr. Saussy began his studies under the sponsorship of the Society of Jesus. He was a Jesuit for 18 years, and an ordained Catholic priest for five years. He left the priesthood to marry Nell Winston Howard, a widow whom he had met while planning a convention. They were married for 37 years. Dr. Saussy was born in New Orleans and graduated from Jesuit High School. His secular and religious training took him to Louisiana State, Tulane and Loyola universities, Spring Hill College, Marquette, St. Louis and Yale universities. He spent 26 years at UNO. In addition, he served on the boards of Eureka Homestead, First Financial Bank and Alabama Federal Savings and Loan. Besides his wife, Dr. Saussy is survived by three stepsons, Jefferson and Stephen Parker of New Orleans and James Winston Parker of Edinburg, Texas; two stepdaughters, Ashley Moore Howard of Boston and Laura Howard McClendon of St. Francisville; four sisters, Suzanne Saussy Stewart of Diamondhead; Jon Saussy Boulet of Larose; Carroll Saussy of Chevy Chase, Md.; and Airey Saussy Stroschine of Weston, W.Va.; six step-grandchildren; and one step-great-grandchild. The funeral will be Friday at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1329 Jackson Ave., at 3 p.m.; visitation will begin at 1:30 p.m. Burial will be in Pass Christian, Miss. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.