When Greg Bowser first started working for the Louisiana Chemical Association and the Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance in April 1991, he thought it was going to be a short-term deal.
“I was only going to be here for a little while, and here we sit 34 years later,” he said, with an expansive view the Mississippi River behind him in his high-rise downtown Baton Rouge office.
Bowser, a former defensive lineman on the LSU football team, has served as president and CEO of the organization since 2016. He was promoted to the top spot after leading governmental affairs activities. The move made Bowser the first Black leader of one of the state’s major statewide business organizations.
The Louisiana Chemical Association represents the interests of 70 chemical manufacturing companies with more than 100 locations and more than 30,000 employees. The Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance is a group of more than 800 businesses that provide products, services and supplies to the state’s chemical plants.
Bowser plans to stay with the organizations through 2025, if necessary, to make the transition easier for his successor.
In this week’s Talking Business, Bowser reflects on his time with the Louisiana Chemical Association and talks about the forecast for the industry in the second term for President-elect Donald Trump.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What achievements are you kind of most proud of during your time with the association?
Bowser: Wow. I think that it’s tough to narrow it down being here for so long. I think just a mere fact that we have spent a lot of time informing people of what we do and who we are. A lot of people don’t realize what we make as an industry, what we provide economically, but also from a product perspective. We have companies that make things that go into medical equipment, plastic bags that, for example, they use in blood transfusions to carry blood. We even make synthetics that go into automobiles, cars. One of our companies makes an ingredient that goes into making aspirin and different medications. We make things that make it convenient for you to live.
How much has the industry changed over your time with your organization?
Bowser: It has become more focused, and the issue of carbon dioxide reductions has been a big, big part of the change. Companies are becoming more aware of their environment, more sensitive to that, and so they’re spending more money to reduce their carbon footprint.
How is the shift toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions going?
Bowser: A lot of projects are getting off the ground. I think with the push toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, people are going to try to see other ways of producing things using hydrogen and some other things The big thing now is carbon-capture storage. I think Louisiana’s prime for that industry to really take off. We’re one of the three states that got delegation from the federal government to permit carbon-capture storage.
How do you see things shaping up with the industry in the second Trump term? I mean in some ways it looks like y’all are going to get a break with regulations and the other way, I can’t imagine tariffs would be that great for the industry.
Bowser: It’s a mixed bag. I think when you put tariffs on, it’s going to cause you an issue. Certainly you’re talking about things that you import. Other countries simply react to that. In many cases, they put tariffs on things that you export to them. We represent a lot of multinational corporations, and so we’ve got things going back and forth all the time. So I think it’s going to cost us more in some cases. In some cases, we probably will benefit a little bit. We just have to see what they’re talking about doing.
So the devil’s in the details.
Bowser: Yeah, it is. I think we’re have to take a look at it. I’m sure we’ll have winners and losers. That’s one of the things that we see in this business is that a lot of our members are also competitors in the marketplace, and so it just kind of depends on what you make and where you are.
What’s the state of the chemical industry in Louisiana right now? How healthy?
Bowser: I think right now the industry is doing really well. I think we saw about a 2.5% to 3% growth in 2023. We anticipate by the end of this year probably about the same. I think the industry overall is doing really well.
The economic slowdown that’s going on in China right now, do you have any concerns about how that will affect the chemical industry locally?
Bowser: We have some concerns we will watch. The big thing for chemical plants is the price of natural gas. As long as the price of natural gas in the United States stays well below what it is in China and other countries, I think our industry does well here.