Laura Weihing Bowie
Laura Weihing Bowie
B.A Chemistry, 1991
Laura Weihing Bowie was a Mississippi State University Bulldog before she ever set foot on campus.
“Both of my parents, several aunts and uncles, and even my grandfathers attended MSU, so it was predestined that I was going to attend there,” said Bowie, who not only continued the family legacy at MSU, she now is the mother of two Mississippi State graduates.
When she arrived at Mississippi State, Bowie followed her interest in the physical sciences to the College of Arts & Sciences, earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1991. While chemistry ultimately became the foundation for a career that would take her far beyond the laboratory, she also found some of her most lasting influences and friendships outside the lab and classroom.
Physics Professor Sandra Harpole made a particular impression on her. “I have a very vivid memory of initially wanting to teach physics just like her,” Bowie said.
Bowie also found a home with the Reveille yearbook as a staff member and with Kappa Delta sorority. From 1988-91, she served on the yearbook staff, ultimately working as its director, an experience she credits with teaching her lessons that proved useful after graduation.
“That was a great experience that taught me how to organize tasks, how to manage people, how to negotiate contracts, etc.,” she said.
But some of Bowie’s favorite MSU memories have less to do with titles or accomplishments and more to do with the friendships she formed as a student. She remembers living in Hightower as a freshman and on the Kappa Delta floor of Rice Hall as a sophomore, where she met six friends who remain close more than three decades later.
“Those were the days when I met my very best friends for life and made memories that I will cherish forever––learning to navigate campus together, wading through relationships and heartbreak together, pulling pranks on each other when we were bored, and standing by each other when things were tough at home and on campus,” she said.
The group still has a text thread and tries to reunite in person each year. Even when months pass between conversations, Bowie said, they can pick up right where they left off.
“I am forever grateful to MSU for bringing us together.”
After graduation, Bowie put her chemistry degree to work in the chemical laboratory at Texas Eastern Pipeline Transmission Company before earning her master’s degree and moving into environmental work. She joined the PCB Task Force at Eastern Texas, where she applied her scientific training to help address PCB contamination along a natural gas pipeline stretching from southern Texas to New York.
“That role taught me a great deal about project management,” she said.
Her career continued to evolve, eventually taking her to the environmental department at Continental Airlines’ headquarters and later to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In 2010, she became the first employee officially hired by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, helping transform a loose network of partners into a formal nonprofit organization. She became executive director in 2013.
In that role, Bowie has worked with governors from all five Gulf states and congressional delegates on policies related to Gulf ecosystem management.
Her proudest accomplishment, however, may be the network itself.
“We started out 20 years ago as a small network of people wanting to do good things for the Gulf,” Bowie said. “Now, we are a network of about 1200 people who are coordinating and collaborating to move the needle on those issues that the Gulf States deem a priority to address on a regional basis, rather than by strictly a state-by-state approach.”
Although Bowie no longer works as a chemist, she sees a direct line from her MSU education to the leadership role she holds today.
“My chemistry degree gave me a strong start and opened important doors early in my career,” she said. “That foundation helped me land my first job, earn a master’s degree, and move into roles that broadened my experience, taught valuable life lessons and continues to shape my leadership role today.”
Like many MSU fans, Bowie still has her original Mississippi State cowbell from 1988.
“One day, recently, I brought my cowbell to work, and everyone thought it was so interesting that I still had my original from 1988,” she said. “They just don’t understand… you don’t ever get rid of your cowbell from MSU.”
For Bowie, the value of her Mississippi State experience goes well beyond a degree.
“College is a special time in your life that you’ll likely not get to do again, so take advantage of the opportunity to experiment,” she said. “You can reinvent your high school self; and if you didn’t like that, then you can reinvent your college self again when you get into the real world.”
More than three decades after graduation, Bowie is still carrying the lessons, friendships, and foundation she found at Mississippi State into whatever comes next.