Malcolm Faucheux: Leader and Mentor for Five Decades

Malcolm Faucheux, Imperial Sugar Company, Gramercy

Ask Malcolm Faucheux what he believes is most important for workers at a plant – like Imperial Sugar Company’s sugar refinery at Gramercy, LA – and he will tell you education and training without hesitation. Faucheux, at age 71, lives his beliefs.

After 50 years in the sugar business, and now as the most senior employee at the sugar refinery in southern Louisiana, he has a reputation for mentoring, both on and off the job. He started working at the refinery in August 1958 after serving two years in the Marine Corps.

Faucheux has been in the job of weigh master at the Imperial Sugar facility – checking the weights of incoming and outgoing truck shipments of raw sugar – for the last 28 years. And, what he likes most, he says, is the chance to “meet a lot of wonderful people,” including many of the sugar mill people in the region whom he’s known for years.

Malcolm Faucheux

When Faucheux is not on the job and when he is not hunting or fishing or playing with his eight grandchildren, he is involved with community organizations. He has been a leader in the Boy Scouts for 46 years.

Faucheux also has served as president of the local chapters of American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society, and a leader in Knights of Columbus where he has helped people less fortunate in the area.

Faucheux knows how the current economy is making it rough for everyone. His long career has given him the vantage points of experience and perspective in how he looks at things. For instance, he believes that people today want things to happen too fast, like cars, family and changing jobs. People are too impatient, he says, but not him.

What Faucheux tells kids in his scouts troops, as well as fellow employees, is to focus on education and training because that’s the way to the future.