Richard Reso, Nicholls’ newest associate director of Development for Advancement Services, is no stranger to the Nicholls community and the way it operates.The New Orleans native and Thibodaux resident for 35 years recently returned to the area after nearly three decades to help serve the Nicholls campus. When Reso worked at Nicholls from 1967 to 1970, he served as director of student publications and public information.

“In retrospect, I wish I would have never left,” Reso said. “It’s good to be back.”

When Reso decided to leave his position at Nicholls in hopes of operating his own marketing and advertising agency, he took on many roles to better help him with his business ideas.

With over 20 years of marketing and fundraising experience, Reso has worked in New Orleans as the account director for the LaRosa Isidore Group, a developer of strategic marketing ideas for the Sav-A-Center grocery chain and also held top marketing and advertising positions at the WWL television station.

One of Reso’s fondest memories was his role in working for the K&B drug store. Before the company’s buy-out by the Rite Aid Corporation drugstore and pharmacy, Reso recalls the numerous amounts of fun that took place while he was employed there as advertising director.

“People who remember K&B drugstores remember purple,” Reso said. “Some of the things we were doing were to tone down the purple in the stores. We were trying to modernize all the stores.”

After his many roles in the marketing and advertising field, Reso is happy to be back to Nicholls where two of his children have graduated and continues to bear ties to the University. The many faces that are still present since his last time at Nicholls is something else that Reso describes as interesting.

“The culture of the University is such that there’s always something going on,” Reso said.

In a recent Nicholls press release, Rebecca Tucker-Pennington, director of Development, said, “Reso brings a wealth of experience to Nicholls, and will help take our fundraising activities to a new level of achievement.”

Reso is married to the former Helen Charron and currently resides in Thibodaux. They have five children and three grandsons.