Engineering Through the Decades: OSU food processing engineer reflects on career achievements
Friday, December 19, 2025
Media Contact: Sophia Fahleson | Digital Communications Specialist | 405-744-7063 | sophia.fahleson@okstate.edu
On a cold December day in 1996, Tim and Jodi Bowser, along with their two sons, packed up the car and left Spartanburg, South Carolina, heading northwest to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
For Tim Bowser, food processing engineer at the Oklahoma State University Robert M. Kerr Food and Agricultural Products Center, this trip would become a decades-long career of ingenuity, innovation and research excellence, contributing to numerous projects within FAPC.
After nearly 30 years at FAPC, Tim Bowser plans to retire in 2026.
“Bowser has a heart for service and a passion for helping businesses grow,” said Roy Escoubas, FAPC director. “He has always been ready to help and ready with sage advice. He will be missed at FAPC.”
In the 23 years Escoubas has worked as FAPC director, Tim Bowser has helped create more than five new positions in Oklahoma businesses each year, Escoubas said, totaling at least 100 new jobs added to the state’s workforce through his in-plant assistance alone.
“He has assisted in the creation of new products, recommended and helped install affordable equipment for Oklahoma businesses, participated in plant expansions, led and supported on- and off-site workshops and training programs, solved customer problems and — above all — been a friend to our clients,” Escoubas said.
Tim Bowser’s contributions to the team have led to the growth and recognition of the center throughout Oklahoma, Escoubas said. He has completed projects both nationally and internationally, while representing OSU and FAPC, he added.
Tim Bowser has completed international projects in Africa, helping meat processors find more efficient ways to provide meat to low-income communities, said Rodney Holcomb, FAPC assistant director.
He has been in postwar Croatia, finding ways to manufacture products from available agricultural commodities Holcomb said. In Guatemala, he helped place low-cost, solar-powered, food-drying systems for fruit and vegetable farmers, allowing them to dry and dehydrate products to minimize foliage and losses, Holcomb added.
“Tim has done a little bit of everything, and he just soaks all information up like a sponge,” Holcomb said. “He is a jack-of-all-trades and an expert in most areas.”
Some projects he has worked on within FAPC include developing turtle food for a reptile farmer, building and testing a solar food dehydrator in classrooms in rural Nicaragua, creating a low-cost pecan sanitizer for small-scale producers and producing healthy, low-caffeine energy bars.
Originally from southwest Pennsylvania, Tim Bowser had a unique journey to OSU. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pennsylvania State University in agricultural engineering, now known as biosystems engineering.
After graduating with a master’s degree in 1986, Tim Bowser entered the food production industry, working at Gerber Products Co. from 1986 to 1991 as a project engineer. He credits this position for exposing him, fresh out of college, to an industry of high-quality products, Tim Bowser said.
After five years in the industry, Tim Bowser decided to pursue higher education, earning a doctorate in agricultural engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1993.
After completing his doctorate, Tim Bowser moved to South Carolina to work for Lockwood Greene Engineers from 1994 to 1996 as a consulting engineer. At this engineering design firm, he designed food plants and processing projects for food companies.
While Tim Bowser was working in South Carolina, he met his wife, Jodi Bowser, at church. After they married, the couple decided a career change was needed for their growing family.
In 1996, Tim Bowser received a call about a job opportunity in Oklahoma. He would become one of the first employees hired at FAPC.
“We had never heard of Oklahoma State University,” Jodi Bowser said. “After he accepted the job, we left for Oklahoma on Christmas Day.”
The Bowsers began to make Oklahoma their new home over the holidays. Tim Bowser started his new position at OSU Jan. 2, 1997, as the FAPC building was in the final stages of construction.
“The building was not even finished yet,” Tim Bowser said. “I had a temporary office for three months in Agricultural Hall, now Legacy Hall, until the prep work was done.”
Once Tim Bowser moved into the FAPC building, he began helping clients and companies enhance their products using his knowledge from his industry jobs. He said it was an easy adjustment to OSU because of the organization’s loyal and true standard.
“Right away, you get a trust factor from clients because you are coming from OSU,” Tim Bowser said. “Your clients look at you as a friend and are looking to you for advice and for help.”
Throughout Tim Bowser’s time at OSU, he has collaborated on and completed many projects for different companies through FAPC.
One project, refurbishing coffee roasters for U.S. Roasters Corporation, has revolutionized environmentally friendly technology and equipment that meet environmental standards. The innovation has since been incorporated into the OSU Senior Engineering Design Project courses. Students learn about environmentally friendly practices and the improvement of roasting methods through innovative design.
This project started around 2011, when Tim Bowser said he was contacted by Dan Jolliff, U.S. Roasters Corporation owner, who asked for help to make his coffee machines larger. As Jolliff increased the size of the machines, the steel expanded, causing it to crack because of intense heat, which led to beans leaking out, he added.
Tim Bowser and his team identified a special grade of stainless steel that could withstand intense heat with minimal expansion to resolve this issue. Afterward, Jolliff had another problem for him to solve.
“Mr. Jolliff had an idea to use a catalyst to help remediate the smoke that comes off a roaster,” Tim Bowser said. “As you roast beans, you get this great aroma. But unfortunately, you also create a big cloud of smoke, too. So, in a place like California, you cannot have a coffee roaster in town because it violates the air pollution laws.”
Building on Jolliff’s idea — and with support from an Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science and Technology grant and Tim Bowser’s expertise — the team set out to develop an advanced coffee roaster.
“We developed the world’s first roaster that would meet the air pollution control requirements in California,” Tim Bowser said. “That opened Jolliff up to that market, plus Europe and different parts of the world that have similar restrictions.”
So far, students have designed and built coffee roasters, blenders for coffee beans, grinders and a new mixing arm to improve bean-cooling performance for U.S. Roasters Corporation.
Through all the years and projects Tim Bowser has worked on with clients and students, one thing has stayed the same — his approach to a project.
“If you start looking at it with a big picture of all the things that are involved in making that product and how you can make it better, make it faster, make it less expensive and better for the environment — that is right in the ballpark for most engineers,” Tim Bowser said. “And, as a food engineer, it is just square with what I do.”
With years of impressive accomplishments behind him, Tim Bowser avoids self-promotion and prefers to stay out of the spotlight. His previous colleagues praise his years of work and recognize him as a humble, kind and hardworking person.
Mandy Gross, OSU Agriculture senior manager of strategic communications and special projects, who worked with Tim Bowser from 2003 to 2021, said he is one of the best individuals in the food processing industry.
“He is an expert in his field and is the go-to person for drawing up design plans or finding solutions within food engineering,” Gross said, adding Tim Bowser does not seek the spotlight. “He likes to stay under the radar and complete his job.”
Stephanie Greenlee, FAPC communications and media manager who has worked with Tim Bowser off and on since 1999, said he will be difficult to replace and has made a lasting impact within FAPC and the food industry.
“Tim has been an incredibly valued member of the FAPC team,” Greenlee said. “He’s been instrumental in shaping how the center operates, blending innovation with practicality. His leadership helped define the engineering side of the center and strengthened FAPC’s reputation for solving real-world challenges.”
After retiring, Tim Bowser plans to continue consulting with companies and hopes to move closer to his grandchildren in Oklahoma City.
Story by: Madison Paden | Cowboy Journal