Life and career Born in Salmon River, Nova Scotia, Canada, Louis Deveau later founded Acadian Seaplants Limited, a science- and research-based company with global reach and impact.

Deveau’s success was anchored in research and innovation, an approach born of his view that a small Canadian company could never thrive against low-cost producers in what he saw as a commodity business.

Deveau is widely respected for sponsoring leading-edge science that proved the effectiveness of seaweed extracts as agriculture bio-stimulants, and for showing that proof to the market by way of peer-reviewed publications in academic journals.

Prior to founding Acadian Seaplants, Deveau worked as a senior executive at Marine Colloids of Rockland, Maine, where he turned around the company’s struggling operations in Mexico and the Philippines.

Personal Louis Deveau, a passionate supporter of Acadian culture, grew up at a time when the Nova Scotia public education system operated exclusively in English.

Today, French immersion streams are offered to students across Nova Scotia, and French-language education is also available in major centres and many Acadian areas of the province.