Baton Rouge, New Orleans People in Business for Nov. 29, 2020 | Business

Baton Rouge area

Drew Patty and Mary Drabnis, members in McGlinchey Stafford’s Baton Rouge office, have been appointed to leadership positions in the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Patty has been named chair of the chemical practice committee and Drabnis as chair of the patent cooperation treaty issues committee for two-year terms after serving two-year terms as vice chairs of the committees.

Patty chairs McGlinchey’s intellectual property practice group and has 25 years of experience in the practice of patent, trademark, and copyright law and litigation. He is a graduate of Tulane University and the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Drabnis has 20 years of experience as a patent attorney. She graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree, earned her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Southern California and obtained her law degree from LSU while practicing as a patent agent. 

La Capitol Federal Credit Union has promoted Amy M. Welch to chief lending officer.

She was vice president of indirect lending and collections and has been with La Cap for eight years. She has 16 years of experience in indirect lending and collections and 24 years in the banking industry. 

Investar Bank National Association has named Jon Colvin as controller and vice president, assisting with the management of all phases of accounting for both the bank and holding company.

Colvin has over 25 years of finance and accounting experience and eight years in the financial services industry. He was finance manager for Republic Services’ Acadiana business unit. Colvin has bachelor’s degrees in finance and accounting from LSU and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.

New Orleans area

Xavier University of Louisiana has appointed Kimberly Reese as associate vice president for institutional advancement, providing leadership for major fundraising initiatives and managing alumni engagement.

Reese has served as assistant dean of students and director of the Center for Student Leadership and Service, director of alumni relations and started with Xavier in 1995 as coordinator for volunteer services. Reese received her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Michael Bucher has become a partner at Urban Properties Real Estate LLC.

Bucher joined the New Orleans-based commercial brokerage, property management and development firm in 2017 as director of project management. He previously was vice president of development at Stirling Properties. Bucher holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Villanova University and an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, with specializations in corporate finance and investment banking.

Trahan Architects, with offices in New Orleans and New York, has named Margaret Jankowsky to lead its urban design division. 

Jankowsky, formerly with Field Operations, has over 14 years of design experience, from working on large-scale public projects in Seattle and Miami, to detailed garden design. She will be based in Trahan’s New York office. Jankowsky was one of the Urban Design Forum’s 2018 Forefront Fellows, where her collaborative work researching homelessness in New York City led to a proposal to create a citywide Office of the Public Realm. She has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.