We Love Our Oyster King

Kevin's grandpa Ernie passed away last week. We all feel his loss, but are joyful in his graduation from this life.

Grandpa Ernie played a significant role in Kevin's life. Kevin remembers spending countless weekends and summers at his grandpa's house playing catch and having adventures.





Grandpa Ernie shared his love for innovation and the oyster industry with Kevin starting at a very early age. Crowned "Louisiana Oyster King" in 1976, when Kevin was not even one-year-old, Ernie brought Kevin into his spotlight.


I met grandpa for the first time when I came to Louisiana July 1997 to meet Kevin's family as his brand new fiancée. We even got to go on a double date with grandpa and Jean Ann!


All the great grandkids loved to be with grandpa. Michael Ernest Voisin was named after his grandpa Mike and his great grandpa Ernie. Grandpa loved having his posterity around him.


He was very proud of Kevin's political career and he and Kevin loved to talk politics in grandpa's office. Grandpa Ernie was a past Police Jury President, a position that was later replaced by Parish President (a.k.a. mayor) when the Police Jury became a Parish Council.

He went with Kevin, his dad Mike and our little Michael when Kevin qualified for running for the Parish Council District 6 seat.


He was with Kevin the night he won his election.


And grandpa, with nana JeanAnn, was there for Kevin the day he was sworn into office.


The local newspaper honored his accomplishments in our community with the following article.

Seafood innovator passed on legacy of public service
Ernest Voisin Jr.

By Naomi King
Staff Writer

Published: Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 9:57 p.m.

HOUMA — When asked his life’s biggest regret, Ernie Voisin Jr. said it was being too young to serve in World War II, a telling statement, his family said.

The Dularge native missed that opportunity for service, but he went on to revolutionize the seafood-processing business and lead the Terrebonne Parish government in the 1980s as it prepared for consolidation with Houma’s city government.

Voisin served on the Terrebonne Police Jury, pushed for countless public projects, established Motivatit Seafood and revolutionized seafood processing.

His son, Mike Voisin, 56, is vice president of Motivatit Seafood, serves on the Louisiana Oyster Task Force and is chairman of the Terrebonne General Medical Center board.

His grandson, Kevin Voisin, 34, is director of sales and marketing at Motivatit and a first-term member of the Terrebonne Parish Council.

Voisin died Thursday following a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 81.

Ernie, who served on the Terrebonne Police Jury from 1980-84, helped build the North Terrebonne sewer-treatment plant on St. Louis Canal Road, expand and develop Terrebonne General Medical Center and worked with state officials to build the downtown Houma twin spans.

Voisin often said he was born at the perfect time, Mike Voisin said.

He was born in 1927, at a time when there weren’t any cars and the Industrial Revolution hadn’t yet arrived in south Louisiana, the son said.

“ ‘In my lifetime we’ve gone from dirt roads to the moon,’ ” Mike remembers his father saying. “He loved that concept.”

Ernie had an adventurous spirit. He left Terrebonne Parish after high school to travel the country, settling in California because of the weather, Mike said. He went to work for Hitco, becoming one of the company’s first 20 employees. The company manufacturers military and aerospace components, among other items.

As the company expanded, Ernie helped turnaround failing plants and became a project manager on the Apollo lunar-landing project and other classified projects, such as nuclear warheads, his family said. In the 1970s, after roughly 30 years in the aerospace industry, Ernie returned to Terrebonne to apply what he’d learned about efficiency and technology to the seafood industry.

“Seafood has been in the family since we came from France,” Kevin said. “He revolutionized high-pressure processing of seafood. It’s being used in countries all over the world. … It’s really something special, and it was all born out of his mind.”

Ernie bought the plant that still houses the family-owned Motivatit Seafood from A.J. Buquet, said Pete Bourgeois, a friend and fellow police juror.

Bourgeois said he’d visit Voisin in his office weekly to find him drawing his latest design for a new wench or conveyor belt.

“He was what I considered a mechanical genius,” Bourgeois said.

For his innovative high-pressure processing design, Seafood Business Magazine named Ernie 2001’s Seafood Business Person of the Year. He was 1976’s Louisiana Oyster King.

For 38 years, Mike and Ernie worked side by side at Motivatit, spending the work day and nearly every lunch hour together.

Ernie’s work with Terrebonne General Medical Center influenced Mike’s decision to serve on the hospital board.

“He loved Terrebonne Parish, and he loved the people,” Mike said. “He taught me that you give back to a community when it gives to you, and even when it doesn’t.”

Kevin Voisin, his eldest grandson, looked to Ernie when deciding to run for an empty seat on the Parish Council.

It wasn’t Kevin’s first involvement in a Terrebonne campaign. A photograph of a 5-year-old Kevin and his grandfather appeared on campaign fliers used in the elder Voisin’s 1980 bid for office.

“I was holding his hand walking down Last Island,” Kevin said. “It’s been iconic in the family.”

Ernie not only influenced his grandson to serve the public, he also helped him understand the responsibilities that came with the role, Kevin said.

“My grandpa was a great man because he could relate to the ditch digger or the president of the United States,” Kevin said.

In addition to his son and grandson, Ernie is survived by his wife, Jean Ann Mohrmann Voisin, a second son, Steven Anthony Voisin, two step-sons, Dion Allen Frayle and Chad Anthony Frayle, two daughters, Sandra Ann Voisin Fitzgerald and Lorena Helen Voisin; one brother, Charles J.B. Voisin; two sisters, Claire Rose Voisin Champagne and Annie Laura Voisin; 16 grandchildren; and 27 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday and from 8 a.m. to funeral time Tuesday at Chauvin Funeral Home. Mass will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Maria Immacolata Catholic Church, with burial in St. Francis Cemetery No. 2.