Mr. Arthur Lee "Art" Guidry

Born in Opelousas, LA to Mathew Millard Guidry and Grace Hebert, Art attended Plaisance Elementary School (an historic Rosenwald school) in Opelousas, high school in Michigan and college in Pittsburg, PA and New Orleans, LA where he graduated from LSUNO with a M.A. in Communications. After serving in Benin, Africa in the 1960s with the Peace Corps, Art returned to the United States in 1970 and joined the Children's Television Workshop (producer of Sesame Street) as the New Orleans area coordinator. Extremely successful in the New Orleans market, Art was promoted by CTW to regional coordinator for Louisiana, Georgia and Florida. In 1976 CTW transferred Art to their national office in New York City as Manager of Media Projects. Later he became National Program Director for Sesame Street, which required travel throughout the U. S. conducting workshops, writing news releases, producing TV shows and being interviewed. After a brief stint in the late 1980s with the U.S. Department of Commerce as the right-hand person for the U.S. Director of the 1990 Census, Art began working for the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His varied jobs over the years with the MTA included introducing the MetroCard as the fare payment system and innovatively reusing discarded computers as training devices for MTA employees saving the MTA thousands of dollars. Art regularly speaks at colleges and universities and has served as an adjunct professor. He volunteers his time motivating youth to remain in school and to work improving their lives as they grow into adulthood.