Cecil Broussard was born in 1938 and began working in the oilfield with Louisiana Oil and Exploration in 1957. He went into the military in 1958. Four years later he returned to southern Louisiana and took a job with Loffland Brothers. In 1964, he began working for Otis, and he remained with that company until his retirement in 1993. He worked on snubbing units and spent 15 years working on-call 24 hours a day.