Co-founder of Berry Bros. dies

Doyle Berry helped grow a Berwick oilfield-marine construction company into one of the largest in the region, but he never ceased trying to help others in whatever way he could, say area officials who knew him.

Berry, 87, died Monday at his home in Berwick surrounded by family.

In 1956, Berry moved to Berwick and co-founded Berry Bros. General Contractors Inc. with his brother, Everett Berry.

Now the company is one of the largest marine and oilfield construction companies in south Louisiana, and has three divisions around the country servicing the gulf states, Rocky Mountains and central states, the company’s website says.

Doyle Berry was “an icon in the industry,” Berwick Mayor Louis Ratcliff said.

“He was very community-minded and a true friend for the community of Berwick,” Ratcliff said.

Together, Doyle and Everett Berry built Berry Bros. “from nothing to what it is today,” Ratcliff said.

Doyle Berry was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and grew up in Mendenhall, Mississippi. He joined the Navy in 1948, spending most of his four years of service on the island of Guam.

He went on to attend the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1955, he took a summer job in south Louisiana and “took note of the countless opportunities in the burgeoning oilfield,” his obituary stated.

“With one pickup truck and some hand tools, the brothers saw an opportunity in the Louisiana swamps to make their mark in the burgeoning oilfields of South Louisiana,” according to the company website.

After success with their roustabout services, Doyle and Everett Berry then purchased welding and winch trucks, and later bought barges, cranes and boats to enter the marine construction business, the website says.

Doyle Berry arrived in Berwick with about “$300 in his pocket,” said Raymond “Mac” Wade, executive director for the Port of Morgan City.

Wade served on the port commission with Doyle Berry, who spent over 30 years on the commission. Wade was also a partner with Doyle Berry in a “drilling fluids business” in the 1980s.

“He’ll be missed. He got a lot of people started in this area in their businesses,” Wade said.

He knew people all over the country, including Washington, D.C.

“The board wished we had him now to help us in Washington,” Wade said.

Early on, Berry Bros. began doing dredging and pile driving work all over Louisiana and in Texas and Mississippi, in addition to offshore work crews, Wade said.

Former Berwick Mayor Emmett Hardaway became mayor in the late 1980s after Everett Berry, who had previously been mayor, died.

Hardaway said his “best experience” with Doyle Berry was in 1992 in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.

“He worked very hard with the state to get help for us,” Hardaway said. “He was instrumental in getting the National Guard down here during that time and generators and just all kind of help from the state at a time when I needed him absolutely the most.”

Hardaway and Doyle Berry were friends for a long time. He “was a man of his word,” Hardaway said.

“If he told you he was going to do something, you could count on him doing it,” Hardaway said.

Hardaway relied on Doyle Berry to get help for the area from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“I was not aware of all of the things that the Corps was doing when I first took office, and he kind of helped me through that,” Hardaway said.

Berwick Councilman Duval Arthur, who’s a former Berwick police chief and former chief deputy for the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office, said Doyle Berry was always available to help and “had connections in every area.”

When the St. Mary Sheriff’s Office made one of the largest drug busts along the gulf coast in the early 1980s, Doyle Berry provided one of his tugboats to transport state police and sheriff’s deputies, Arthur said.

During that drug bust, authorities seized 14 tons of marijuana from a crew boat in Amelia, Arthur said.

The Southwest Reef Lighthouse in Everett S. Berry Memorial Lighthouse Park is where it is now on Berwick’s riverfront thanks to Doyle and Everett Berry bringing it there, he said.

“I think of Doyle because whenever something would go wrong or we couldn’t do it … we’d call him, and he’d find a way. And we’d do it,” Arthur said.

He was also extremely involved with the Berwick-Bayou Vista Krewe of Dionysus, and brought celebrities, including Johnny Cash and Walter Payton, to serve as parade marshals, Arthur said.

Visitation for Doyle Berry will be held at Hargrave Funeral Home at 10 a.m. Friday with services starting at 1 p.m. He will be laid to rest privately at a later time.

Information from Doyle Berry’s obituary contributed to this article.