Baton Rouge is Louisiana’s capital, and much of its cybersecurity talent has passed through the same handful of local institutions: LSU’s IT department, the home health company Amedisys, and the state government itself. Of the six leaders below, two started on LSU help desks and two came up through Amedisys before moving on. Others took less expected paths. One began as a bank teller and now runs both operations and security at a community bank. Another served aboard a nuclear-powered attack submarine before spending more than a decade in hospital IT. Together they protect banks, state government, an industrial contractor, and the clients of a technology services firm.
Darryl J. Bercegeay – EVP & CISO, Investar Bank
Darryl J. Bercegeay started as a computing services analyst at LSU and a network and systems administrator at The Acumen Group. He managed customer support for a loan origination software platform at Equifax, then spent nearly five years at Amedisys, directing IT support for more than 15,000 users across 37 states and later leading global IT services and acquisitions. In that role he ran a technology deployment center at Baton Rouge’s Bon Carré Technology Park handling repair, encryption, and forensic imaging for more than 20,000 enterprise assets. After a stint in GRC solutions at MetricStream, he joined Crescent Bank & Trust in 2013, leading information security and support before becoming its information security officer and then VP of information security. Bercegeay has served as EVP and CISO of Investar Bank since May 2020, responsible for security operations, privacy, risk management, and FFIEC compliance, and briefs the board monthly.
Chase Hymel – CISO, State of Louisiana
Chase Hymel started as a LAN technician for the Livingston Parish School Board, supporting more than 15 schools and helping move them from T1 lines to fiber. At Sparkhound he worked as a PC technician for state programs including The Road Home and led a hardware rollout across Office of Motor Vehicles locations statewide. He spent more than five years at Amedisys, moving from phone support for 12,000 users to information security engineer, then consulted on SIEM deployments for Fortune 500 clients at Accuvant before returning to lead Amedisys’s security team. Hymel joined the State of Louisiana in 2015 as an enterprise security architect, became deputy director of statewide security architecture and operations in 2019, and has served as the state’s CISO since July 2022.
Paul Ellender – SVP, CISO & COO, Citizens Bank & Trust
Paul Ellender started as a teller at JPMorgan Chase in Baton Rouge in 2005 and spent more than ten years there, working as a personal banker, branch manager, and business banker before becoming a vice president managing small business field support across the South. After a year as a business banker at Capital One, he managed contact center operations and risk at Hancock Whitney. Ellender joined Citizens Bank & Trust in Plaquemine in 2019 as vice president of operations, became SVP and Chief Operations Officer in 2022, and added the role of SVP and CISO in July 2025. He also runs his own consultancy focused on AI and web administration.
Scott Gautreau – Director of Information Security, Turner Industries
Scott Gautreau spent more than five years in LSU’s IT department as a computer analyst and network analyst, then served as IT administrator for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. He joined Turner Industries in 2010 as a network administrator and became manager of technology two years later. Gautreau has served as Director of Information Security since February 2016, now more than ten years in the role and nearly 17 years with the company.
Garett Abston – (Former) CISO, Louisiana Department of Insurance
Garett Abston spent five years at MMR Group, first as lead technical support specialist for about 2,200 users and then as its sole principal network engineer. In that role he designed, configured, and maintained network, server, and voice infrastructure for 22 district offices, traveling nationally and internationally to set up remote sites and monitoring IDS and IPS logs. Abston became CISO of the Louisiana Department of Insurance in May 2019 and led the agency’s security program for nearly seven years, until March 2026.
Johnny Brister – CSO, Alchemy Technology Group
Johnny Brister served four years in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Alexandria, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, holding a TS/SCI clearance and serving as legal officer, training coordinator, personnel manager, and public affairs officer. He managed IS support services at Pelican State Credit Union before spending nearly 12 years at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, rising from IT systems manager to director of IT infrastructure and then AVP of IT and security, serving as CISO. After joining Alchemy Technology Group as security practice principal, he left to become CISO of Ochsner Health from 2021 to 2023. Brister returned to Alchemy as Chief Security Officer in March 2023.
Built in the Capital
Baton Rouge’s security leaders mostly grew up here. Bercegeay and Gautreau started at LSU, and Bercegeay and Hymel both learned their trade at Amedisys before taking on a bank and the state. Hymel worked his way from a parish school district to the top security role in state government. Ellender took the least technical road, from bank teller to running both operations and security at a community bank. Brister brought submarine discipline into health system IT, and Abston moved from network engineering to leading security at a state agency. In a capital city where government, banking, and industry overlap, these leaders know the local landscape because they built their careers in it.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.