Louis W. LaBar
Louis W. LaBar, MBA, EA, lived in Honesdale, Wayne County Pennsylvania until 1984 when he moved his family to Wilkes Barre, where they lived for 15 years. During that time, LaBar was the CFO for a construction and real estate development firm for five years and then a manager of a large law firm for ten years. With the kids in college, he and his wife moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he managed Utah’s oldest law firm for five years.
In 2002 , LaBar and his wife returned to Honesdale where he ran his own business and tax consulting company until retiring in 2017.
LaBar was reappointed to the Wayne County Public Library in May 2018. He had previously served nine years as a Board Trustee for the Library and had rotated off the board due to term limits. During the previous term, he served as Treasurer and President. He also served as representative to the Wayne Library Authority from January 2009 to December 2017, serving terms as Treasurer and President of that Board.
LaBar has served on the Governor’s Advisory Council for Library Development from October 2010 to the present.
He served seven years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, has an undergraduate degree in Math and Physics and a MBA in Finance. He is also an Enrolled Agent (EA) licensed to represent taxpayers before the IRS in tax matters.
As a somewhat shy child in a rural setting, LaBar attended a one room school from first to sixth grade, while living in a house without running water with eight siblings (ultimately nine). He became a voracious reader, starting with westerns, then science fiction. By high school he had exhausted the school library’s inventory of fiction and moved on to history, biographies, and poetry. The library was his refuge. He now sees libraries in a much expanded role within the community, but still a refuge for many people. He believes it is the place where people can go to expand their horizons, without being judged.
LaBar has been married to his beautiful wife, Jane, for 47 years. Louis and Jane have two children, Elise and Luke, and nine grandchildren. Elise and her husband Timmy have five boys and Luke and his wife Erin have three boys and a Princess.
Louis still enjoys reading a balance of nonfiction and fiction. He is a serial reader of intrigue and thrillers. When he finds an author, who has books in series, he starts with book one and reads the rest in sequence. Currently he is on book #26 of Tanenbaum’s Butch Karp series. He also enjoys Stephen King, Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Brad Thor, C.J. Box, ee cummings, Robert Service, Harold Bloom, and others.
Favorite Poems:
Author unknown: from a tombstone
Remember me as you pass by
As you are now so was I
As I am now so will you be
Prepare to follow me
(scrawled underneath)
To follow you I am not content
Until I know which way you went
From LaBar’s own work of poetry
Alone in a sea of similar souls
The Self seek something on which to hold,
To cling, to climb, to rise above
That which we Know and Hate and Love.
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Each month, a member of the GAC will be profiled in the Compendium. Learn about the Governor’s Advisory Council.