BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana’s coastal protection authority has a new executive director in charge of coastal restoration and hurricane protection.Steve Mathies, a former director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, has been hired to oversee the office that does work directed and funded through the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.Mathies’ hiring was announced on Friday. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern State University and a doctorate from Mississippi State University in botany.He worked as a natural resource specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is a former assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]