Michael Davis of Vacherie has been promoted to assistant vice president for procurement and physical plant operations at Nicholls State University. Davis joined the university in 1987 as a purchasing agent and property control officer.

With his new position Davis will keep the same duties. A notable exception is that the purchasing department will report to him instead of him holding all of the purchasing responsibilities.

In addition he will take over the facilities for planning operations where he will be responsible for the capital outlay budget, any new construction on campus and special projects which he will directly report to the president.

Davis says the biggest difference in his new position is no longer holding purchasing responsibilities.

“The biggest adjustment for me is no longer doing the purchasing, I’ve been doing that here for 14 and a half years, and previous to that I had 6 years in private industry. The biggest thing will now be fooling around with the capital outlay, getting the funding that we need and construction of new buildings, things like that,” Davis said.

John Lajaunie previously held these responsibilities as director of facility planning.

Lajaunie’s administrative assistant Cindy Adams will now be working with Davis.

“Cindy Adams, who has been Laujaunie’s assistant for years, is one sharp lady who knows what she’s doing,” Davis said.

Davis also holds the purchasing staff, who is taking over his previous responsibilities, in high esteem.

“I have worked for several years with the people in this office in purchasing. I’m not concerned about the purchasing end of it because they’ve always done a good job through the years,” Davis said.

Lionel Naquin Jr., vice president of Business Affairs said that Davis is the ideal person for the job.

“I think Mike is going to do a fine job. He has worked here for 14 and a half years, and he has worked with me all of that time. Mike loves Nicholls, and he is incredibly dedicated to the school,” Naquin said.

Naquin said that Davis is undertaking a lot of responsibility.

“I think the biggest problem he is going to have is that he is responsible for a lot of things, but the timing really worked out. When the president was making a decision on which direction he wanted to go to replace the facility planning director, Mike became an obvious choice because of his experience,” he said.