Louie was born in New London, CT on May 27, 1944. He worked as a deckhand on charter boat Empress from age 11 till 18. Fly fishing since age 10, he caught big sea run trout in his teens.

He went to Hawaii in 1964 and worked as a deckhand for famous skipper Black Bart in Kona. Louie earned a BFA in Painting at the University of Hawaii in 1970 and began carving Hawaiian Fishhook replica pendants and fish shortly thereafter. He took this art form to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa all through the 70’s, and inspired a huge bone carving handicraft industry in those islands where his work is widely copied.

He migrated to New Zealand as a bone carver in 1983 with his Samoan wife Sasa Satele, and soon became one of Lake Taupo’s most popular Fly Fishing guides. Louie returned to Samoa in 1996 as a guest artist for the 7th South Pacific Festival of the Arts, where he was billed as the Grandfather of Contemporary South Pacific Bone Carving.