Laurie Howell

Laurie Howell

You’ll meet few people humbler, more down to earth, more talented than Laurie Howell.

Despite all of her accomplishments and efforts at MSU over the past 25 years, when given an opportunity to toot her own horn, Laurie immediately begins talking about other people’s successes.

“I just love to see students go on to do good things,” she says. “When I think about my time at MSU, I think about all the students who’ve passed through INBRE’s Summer Research Program. I think about former INBRE students like Hilary Fabich, who is studying at the University of Cambridge in England, Shavonn Whiten, who is getting her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech, and Dewey Brooke from Pony, Montana. He was a real hoot. He went on to med school.”

Laurie’s tenure at MSU dates all the way back to 1990 when she was hired by Henry Parsons to work with the Graduate Studies Department. Laurie helped process international and domestic applications for the school – all of them on paper back then. “I recall having all these tall stacks of paper everywhere. Piles and piles sent from people all over the world,” she says as she gestures towards a stack of folders on her desk in AJM Johnson Hall.

I’m really going to miss the people and the wonderful sense of place this beautiful campus provides,” she says. “When you spend so many years of life doing something, suddenly moving forward, changing … it’s not easy. But how lucky am I to be able to say that I really loved my job? Not everyone has that, and I’m very grateful.”

Two years later Laurie accepted a job in MSU’s Physics Department working with Bill Hiscock as part of the Montana Space Consortium – a position she’d hold for nearly a decade. Laurie says that during that time and despite her best intentions, she “didn’t learn a darn thing about physics, but am very proud that one year for Bill Hiscock’s birthday, I gave him a chocolate-covered donut and told him I was gifting him his very own black hole. We both got a good laugh from that.”

In 2002 Laurie joined Montana INBRE – known in those days as BRIN – as the Fiscal Manager. Ann Bertagnolli was on the search committee that offered Laurie the job. “Laurie quickly became the person behind the scenes who made everything tick,” said Ann. “And over the years, she’s become indispensable to the INBRE program and a dear friend.”

For nearly 15 years, Laurie has used her sharp accounting skills, tenacious attention to detail and unwavering integrity to keep INBRE finances on the straight and narrow path. The culmination of that work is a thriving INBRE program in the state of Montana and an ever-growing IDeA Program network, which now includes the new CAIRHE program at MSU and the new CTR collaboration between MSU, the University of Alaska and other institutions.

Laurie, ever humble, is quick to credit Allen Harmsen and Ann Bertagnolli for their leadership in building the network and “the fine folks in Office of Sponsored Programs,” including Sandy Sward and Traci Miyakawa for “always being helpful, providing great examples to follow, and always keeping INBRE out of trouble.”

Yet Laurie isn’t just the financial wizard who kept INBRE’s books spotless. She also works closely with INBRE student programs and even directs INBRE’s widely attended Café Scientifique talks.

“One thing I am very proud of is the enjoyment people get from the INBRE Café Scientifique program,” says Laurie. “I think my favorite one over the years is the one where Monica Skewes presented new ways of looking at substance abuse. There wasn’t a person in that audience who didn’t walk away with something new to think about.”

Now, after 25 years of exceptional service to MSU, Laurie Howell is retiring. “I’m really going to miss the people and the wonderful sense of place this beautiful campus provides,” she says. “When you spend so many years of life doing something, suddenly moving forward, changing … it’s not easy. But how lucky am I to be able to say that I really loved my job? Not everyone has that, and I’m very grateful.”

On behalf of all of us at INBRE and MSU, Laurie, you should know that we’re the lucky ones because you decided to share your working years with us. Thank you for gracing us with your skills, integrity and friendship. We wish you all the very best in retirement!