Many Americans feel like the winds of change have blown away from them. They turn out on Election Day to provide a gust that blows back to local, state and federal power centers, where the clashing breezes become tornadoes. Consequently, many citizens are left with a sticky, humid feeling of stagnation hanging in the air around them. Deep in the heart of Cajun Country, however, change is brewing. It’s bubbling up from the bottom—fermenting at the lowest levels of government and easing gradually higher. The cities of Crowley and Eunice are reinventing government by registering to ISO 9001.

Quality and crawfish: ISO invades Cajun country
Central Louisiana is an unlikely place to sow the seeds of administrative reform. Because the original regional infrastructure was heavily reliant upon the oil industry, much of the work dried up when oil companies began moving south to the Gulf Shore. A list of Eunice city officials includes monikers such as “Goose,” “Poncho” and “Brother,” and French is still spoken regularly in the twangy, rolling dialect that has come to typify the region. Eunice, like other towns its size, has been hit hard by the recent economic downturn. What separates Eunice from the rest of the herd, however, is its ability to respond to hardship.

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