William Schwing Patout, III (October 15, 1932 – August 5, 2017), was an American businessman and agricultural engineer from New Iberia, Louisiana.
[citation needed] When Patout was eight years old, his family moved to Patoutville in Iberia Parish, where he developed his interest in the sugar industry.
Despite drought, crop disease, hurricanes, freezes, low sugar prices, and the loss of land because of pressure from residential and commercial developments, Patout was able to expand the company.
He advised China on the country's sugar industry and was also served as an advisor to the United States Department of Commerce, in addition to private companies in Jamaica and Mexico.
[citation needed] It began when Simeon Patout moved his family from France, where he ran a winery, to Isle Picante in Louisiana in the late 1820s.
Her son Hippolyte ran the company for a short time before he, too, succumbed to the disease, after which his widow, Mary Ann Schwing Patout, assumed control.