Alumni Fellows 2022
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Ted H. Kendall IV
Ted Kendall is a fifth-generation farmer and second-generation Bulldog whose passion for agriculture runs deep. The Bolton native grew up working on his family’s farm and was eager to expand his knowledge and involvement in the industry. He followed his father’s footsteps to Mississippi State, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics in 1982.
After graduation, he returned home to carve out his own career in the family business, where he now serves as president and co-owner of The Gaddis Farms. The diversified row-crop, beef cattle, wildlife management and timber farming operation in Hinds County has been owned and operated by Kendall’s family for more than 100 years. Kendall, along with his father and cousin, has prioritized progressive farm management methods and innovative equipment usage over the years to ensure the sustainability of the historic Gaddis Farm as a thriving, modern-day business.
Beyond The Gaddis Farms, Kendall has invested his time and resources in a variety of areas that help advance Mississippi’s wider agricultural industry. He has held and continues to serve in numerous leadership positions, including Vice-President of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation, delegate and producer chairman for the state of Mississippi on the National Cotton Council and member of the boards of directors for both Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co. and Merchants and Planters Bank, among others. He also served as chairman of the USDA Farm Service Agency State Committee for Mississippi and the Dixie National Sale of Champions Committee, and is currently serving as vice chairman of the board of directors for the Mississippi Food Network.
An entrepreneur, community leader, farmer and advocate, Kendall has maintained strong connections with his alma mater over the years. He and his wife Libby, a fellow MSU graduate, are proud to share their True Maroon connections with others—especially their children, Anna and Whit, who are the family’s newest Bulldog alumni members.
College of Architecture, Art and Design
Ben Jenkins
Texas native Ben Jenkins is the founder and design director of One Fast Buffalo, a Dallas, Texas-based design firm, as well as the founder, CEO and design director of Warstic Sports Inc. He has always had a passion for sports and art but credits his student experience at Mississippi State University with helping him to find and develop his newest passion for graphic design.
Jenkins played baseball for MSU’s Diamond Dawgs as a shortstop and outfielder throughout his time on campus. At MSU, he also learned graphic design from a professor who recognized his natural talent and pushed him to pursue it further. He earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in 1996 and went on to continue his baseball and art careers.
He played minor league baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies for several seasons before enrolling in graduate school at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jenkins began producing work as a freelance artist, and eventually founded his graphic design and brand strategy agency, One Fast Buffalo, which has been in business for over 20 years.
In 2010, he founded his sporting goods company, Warstic Sports Inc, which is an independent, US-based sporting goods brand that grew from a single idea of designing a better baseball bat into a multi-sport product development enterprise. Warstic now produces quality gear for baseball as well as softball, lacrosse, hockey, hunting and fishing, surfing, skating, golf, tennis and more. In 2016, Warstic bats were approved for use in Major League Baseball thanks to the help of Jenkins’ two new business partners—Jack White from the White Stripes and Ian Kinsler, the four-time MLB All-Star and Texas Ranger Hall of Famer.
Jenkins’ competitive nature honed from his years playing baseball combined with his creativity and ability to express art in new ways has inspired those around him as well as his fellow Bulldogs at MSU. He has remained closely connected to the Department of Art and MSU Baseball over the years and has been a regular speaker, visiting artist and guest juror for students in the graphic design and art programs. He has also provided countless internship opportunities and hired numerous graduates from Mississippi State, helping them into their careers.
Jenkins’ continued success in his field of graphic design and branding, and his remarkable transition from baseball into design entrepreneurship, has demonstrated the power and influence a quality education has in creating new and sometimes unexpected opportunities. He is passionately pursuing his craft in innovative ways and demonstrates the strength of creative entrepreneurship that MSU strives to teach and instill in the students here today.
College of Arts and Sciences
Myna Dickerson Sowell
Greenville native Myna Sowell began theatre at the age of 9 and continued into high school, eventually leading her to Mississippi State University. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication in 1991 and has since remained very engaged with Theatre MSU and the Department of Communication. She offers her time and supports the areas financially to allow them to thrive even more.
Through classes at Mississippi State, Sowell learned vital skills such as classical work, technical skills and communication methods. As a student, she participated in seven productions with the theatre department and was a member of the Alpha Psi Omega National Theatre Honor Society. She now works at Vanderbilt University as a standardized patient in their Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment.
Sowell uses everything she learned from MSU in her occupation to help students apply their knowledge through practice in talking to and treating their patients.
Along with her continued generosity to Mississippi State, Sowell has many other notable accomplishments such as receiving the Sara Kopelle Scholarship, being inducted into the Independence High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019 and serving as a former president of the Blackfriars Drama Society.
Sowell is also an avid volunteer and has served as a troop leader for 25 concurrent years with the Girl Scouts of America, mentoring and guiding over 60 girls in 3 separate states. She has volunteered with Blue Monarch, The Arbors Memory Care Facility, Jason Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House. In 2016, she was awarded the Shining Apple Award for outstanding volunteer efforts.
With her husband, Sowell established the John and Myna Dickerson Sowell Endowed Theatre Fund for Excellence. This fund has not only helped Theatre MSU, but also the students as well, through enhanced support for production upgrades, travel expenses and more.
The Sowell fund came during the height of Covid-19 and directly funded two student-directed shows in 2021—Pipeline and Red. The gift continues to support and inspire the students in Theatre MSU to follow their dreams and individual journeys in discovering their passions. Sowell and her husband reside in Spring Hill, TN.
College of Business
Cynthia Cooper
Cynthia Cooper is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, best-selling author and advocate. In 2020, Cooper was selected by TIME Magazine to be included in 100 Women of the Year, TIME’s list of the most influential women of the last 100 years. She previously served as the Chief Audit Executive and Vice President of Internal Audit at WorldCom. In 2002, she was named one of TIME Magazine’s Persons of the Year for her role in uncovering and reporting fraud at WorldCom, the largest corporate fraud in history. She went on to serve for over two years as Vice President of Internal Audit with MCI, the successor to WorldCom, helping the company move forward and successfully emerge from bankruptcy.
In her book Extraordinary Circumstances, The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower, Cooper shares her experiences and lessons learned. She has a passion for educating and equipping the next generation of leaders and has donated the profits from her book to promote ethics education for students attending MSU as well as other universities and high schools. She currently serves on the advisory board for the MSU College of Business and on the Board of Directors for Mission Mississippi. Cooper has previously served on advisory boards for numerous universities across the country and has been generous with her time, frequently speaking to student groups and mentoring students and young professionals. Recently, she has been instrumental in helping MSU add the NASBA CPT Certificate in Ethical Leadership to the curriculum so that in the future, every COB graduate will be provided an opportunity to obtain this certification.
Cooper has received numerous awards and recognitions for her contributions. She was featured as one of twenty-five most influential working mothers in Working Mother magazine. She is a recipient of the Maria & Sidney E. Rolfe Award for her contributions to educating the public about economics, business and finance, is the first woman to be inducted into the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Business Hall of Fame and is an inaugural inductee of the Institute of Internal Auditors American Hall of Distinguished Audit Practitioners. In addition, she is the first woman to receive the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Exemplar Award for making notable contributions to professionalism in accounting education and practice.
Cooper has been featured in national periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CFO Magazine and Business Week. She has served on panels with notables such as Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, Donna Brazile, and Grover Norquist and has appeared on programs including Fox Business’ America’s Nightly Scoreboard, PBS’s Tavis Smiley, NBC’s The Today Show, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CSPAN’s BookTV, CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donnie Deautsch, and CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Cooper has dedicated her time to sharing her insights and making recommendations to help strengthen trust and transparency in the capital markets. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy Center for the Public Trust, whose mission is to develop and equip ethical leaders. Cooper has previously served as Chair of the Board of Regents for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the world’s largest anti-fraud organization with nearly 90,000 members whose mission is to reduce the incidence of fraud and white-collar crime. In addition, she served as a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the organization that oversees the audits of public companies and SEC-registered brokers and dealers to protect investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate and independent audit reports.
Today Cooper serves as CEO of CooperGroup LLC. She helps organizations and teams in the areas of ethics, values, governance, risk management, strengths-based leadership, teamwork, speak-up ethical cultures, whistleblower support, and anti-fraud practices. She consults with organizations and speaks to audiences around the world, working with clients in Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia and South America. Her clients have included public-sector entities such as the FBI, the U.S. Department of Interior, and the U.S. Department of Labor; international organizations such as the United Nations; public accounting firms including Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers; large-cap public companies such as Dell, Walmart, AT&T, Raytheon, and PepsiCo; and associations including the National Association of Corporate Directors, Network of Executive Women, and the Washington D.C. Trial Lawyers Association.
Cooper is a Certified Fraud Examiner who received a Bachelor’s of Professional Accountancy from Mississippi State University in 1986 before going on to pursue her Master’s of Professional Accountancy at the University of Alabama. She began her career in public accounting and previously worked in Atlanta for Deloitte and Touche and Pricewaterhouse.
College of Education
John V. Correro
John Correro has dedicated more than 60 years to Mississippi State University through his years as a student and Bulldog football player, his distinguished career at the university and his continued service as a loyal alumnus. Correro is passionate about many things such as teaching and coaching, but also giving back to the university that taught him so much.
As a student at MSU, Correro was involved in and out of the classroom. He served as secretary and treasurer of the campus M Club and later became president. He also was named Mr. MSU and lettered in football for 3 years. He graduated in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in social studies and physical education, and later earned a master’s degree in educational administration with a minor in counseling from the land-grant institution. While working on his master’s, the Greenwood native also served as a graduate assistant and assistant freshman football coach for the Bulldogs.
In 1964, he moved to Natchez, where he accepted a teaching position and also served as an assistant football coach at Natchez-Adams County High School. He was later promoted to athletic director and head football coach. Two years later, he returned to Starkville to put the efforts of his career to work at his beloved alma mater.
He began his tenure at the university as field secretary for the MSU Alumni Association. In 1975, Correro was promoted to associate director and later to executive director, a position he held from 1994 until his retirement in 2005. Under his leadership, the alumni association grew in active participation and numerous new programs were launched, including the establishment of the now-traditional Class Ring Ceremony, the online directory and the E-Bark online newsletter.
He further cemented his connection to Bulldog alumni and friends alike as a renowned sideline reporter for MSU football’s radio broadcasts from 1979 to 2016. In 2017, he was inducted into the MSU Sports Hall of Fame. Correro exemplifies a proud alumnus who has distinguished himself not only through his career, but also through his leadership and service to the MSU community and to others. He and his wife Gloria, a fellow MSU graduate and former educator, reside in Starkville.
James Worth Bagley College of Engineering
Frederick V. "Fred" Buie
Fred Buie is a Brookhaven native and two-time Mississippi State University graduate who earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering in 1978 and 1991, respectively. As a student, he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and served as president of the local chapter. He was also elected to serve on the organization’s National Board of Directors as the representative for the southern region.
Buie began his career with the General Electric (GE) Company, where he held project engineering and production management positions in motors, aircraft instruments and lighting departments. He later spent two years in the consulting business and McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company as a manufacturing methods engineer.
Upon rejoining GE in their Aerospace Business Group, Buie held functional management positions in quality engineering, materials systems and product design. His last assignment with GE was as a plant manager in their Electrical Distribution and Controls Business Group.
In 1998, he purchased Des Moines, Iowa-based Keystone Electrical Manufacturing Company. The company, which Buie led as president for more than two decades, manufactures protection and control relay panels, medium voltage switchgear, and turnkey control centers used in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power, and serves the electric utility industry throughout the nation.
In 2020, Buie returned to his roots and expanded Keystone Electrical to his hometown in Brookhaven. However, the following year, he was approached by a long-time competitor with an offer to purchase the business. An agreement was reached, and the deal closed later that year.
Throughout his career, Buie has worked to give back to the communities in which he has lived. He has served on many boards and been a part of numerous programs associated with his career. In addition to the MSU Foundation Board of Directors and the MSU Engineering Advisory Board, he also has served on the boards of the Des Moines Area Community College, Greater Des Moines Community Foundation, Salvation Army, YMCA, and Employee and Family Resources. Buie also is a past chair of both the Iowa Association of Business and Industry Board and the Greater Des Moines Partnership Board, and currently chairs the Trustee Board at Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines.
In 2017, Buie created the Frederick V. Buie Travel Endowment in the Bagley College’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) to assist with travel expenses for undergrad and graduate students to attend conferences and present their research. He later established a fund to support the ISE Manufacturing Process Laboratory at MSU, which is used to train students in the use of various manufacturing process equipment. For his dedicated service and outstanding achievement, Buie was honored by the Bagley College in 2008 as a Distinguished Fellow.
Buie has spent 43 years in manufacturing and engineering management across seven different industries and eight different locations. A distinguished business owner who continues to give back, he also is a loyal alumnus who credits MSU with helping him to gain an outstanding network of fellow engineers and Bulldog graduates over the years. He is now retired and lives in his hometown of Brookhaven, where he engages in timber farming with his wife Valeska, also a MSU graduate.
College of Forest Resources
Zack Parisa
Since the age of 13, Zack Parisa has had a love for forests, and always knew he wanted a career in forestry. He grew up in southeastern Alabama with a NASA engineer as a father, but still preferred to spend his time in the woods. He decided to attend Mississippi State University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s in forestry in 2006.
Parisa then went to graduate school at Yale University and earned a master’s degree in forest science in 2009. The following year, he co-founded National Capital Exchange (NCX), a data-driven carbon market company, for which he continues to serve as CEO.
Over the last decade, Parisa has developed and pioneered precision forestry tools that have revolutionized the way forests are now measured, valued and managed. NCX connects corporations to the landowners, habitats and communities they impact through their carbon marketplace. The company has also worked with other large companies such as Microsoft to create Basemap—the first high resolution forest inventory in the United States—creating a map of over 92 billion trees that now underpins the NCX market.
In 2021, NCX created the largest forest carbon project in the contiguous U.S. and was named on the 2021 Environment and Energy Leader 100 list. Parisa was also a candidate for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius award from the University of California Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
Parisa has worked hard to gain important investors for his company, which now include Time Magazine, Microsoft, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, among others. NCX has also been featured in the press through The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and Bloomberg.
Parisa is a forester and biometrician by training, but a lover of forests at heart. That passion has driven him since the beginning. Now, with 20 years of experience in his field, Parisa is proud to have employed his training and education to develop a company and groundbreaking technology that continue to make a difference in the carbon industry across the United States.
College of Veterinary Medicine
Rance M. Gamblin, DVM
Dr. Rance M. Gamblin is a Jackson, Mississippi native and a Jackson Prep graduate. He started at MSU in the fall of 1985 as a member of the first class of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Early Entry Program.
He received his Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the College of Arts and Sciences in December of 1988, followed by his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) in May of 1992. That year, he also became CVM’s first inductee into the MSU Hall of Fame.
After graduating, Gamblin and his wife Tracie, also an MSU graduate, moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he completed a rotating small animal internship at Colorado State University’s (CSU) College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Following his internship, he stayed at CSU for one more year as a research associate in experimental radiation therapy before relocating to begin his residency training.
He pursued a clinical oncology/hematology residency at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Upon completion and passing certification examinations in 1997, Gamblin became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine’s Specialty of Oncology.
For the last 25 years, Gamblin has been a clinical veterinary oncologist in private practice as well as a partner/co-owner of Akron, Ohio’s Metropolitan Veterinary Hospital—one of the oldest 24/7 emergency and referral veterinary hospitals in the United States.
He and Tracie have two daughters who have also received their undergraduate degrees from Mississippi State University. Gamblin is very proud of his MSU family and the impact the university has had on their collective personal and professional careers. Accordingly, he, along with his family, has generously invested in the university he loves so much through the establishment of three academic scholarships benefiting students in the College of Veterinary Medicine, as well as the horticulture and wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture departments. Gamblin’s dedication to his family, career, patients and alma mater is easy to see, and serves as an inspiring model to fellow Bulldogs and aspiring veterinarians alike.
