Donald F. Howard

1933 - 2016

Donald Franklin Howard (83) of Marblehead - management consultant, mixed media artist, lover of his church, bluegrass music, and cats - died on November 9, 2016. He was the husband of Bonnie (Newman) Howard and the son of the late J. B. Howard and Gretna Sumner Quick. Born July 11, 1933 in Houston, Texas, Don lived more than half of his life in Marblehead, much of that time traveling the world for his consulting work. Don spent his childhood in Greenville and Dallas, Texas before moving to East Point, Georgia where he attended high school before his senior year at the Castle Heights Military School in Tennessee. He received his undergraduate degree from the Virginia Military Institute. After graduation he served with the U.S. Army in Germany for two years. He returned to enter the Harvard Business School where he received his MBA degree in 1958. Don began his work in manufacturing with the Kordite Corporation in Macedon, NY and moved with that company to their plastics plant in Jacksonville, Illinois. His next job took him and his wife to Buenos Aires, Argentina for two and a half years where he helped to set up a new Ford Motor manufacturing plant and where his daughter, Laurence, was born. Back in Michigan, he worked at the Ford truck plant in Dearborn. Don moved to Marblehead, MA when he joined Harbridge House, a management consulting firm in Boston. Teaching export marketing for the Organization of American States in Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela and Columbia was the beginning of Dons extensive work in Latin America for Harbridge House. Working for the shoe and sugar industries and newly nationalized industries among others eventually enabled him to work in all but three of the countries in South America. His work also took him to Europe and the Fiji Islands. As consultant, Don also worked with David Dove and Associates and the Management Analysis Center (MAC) and became a principal of the consulting firm of Grey, Judson and Howard. He consulted extensively with the securities industry and wrote a book entitled Dynamic Planning and Management in the Securities Industry. The day he retired from Grey, Judson and Howard, Don entered the Museum School of the Boston Museum of Art where he received a diploma for his four years of work there and won a Fifth Year Traveling Scholarship. The award gave him a stipend for travel and the opportunity to have his fifth year project exhibited at the Boston Museum of Art. Don loved his new career as an artist. He was active as a member of the Marblehead Arts Association and gave his support to the Raw Arts program for youth in Lynn. He enjoyed working with other artists, exhibited regularly in the Marblehead Festival of Art, and promoted and encouraged appreciation of mixed media art. The Mixed Media Award of the Marblehead Festival of Art has been named in his honor. Friends and family across the country have collected the handmade mixed media Christmas cards he sent to them each year. In retirement, Don was increasingly involved in activities at St. Andrews Episcopal Church. He served as Senior Warden, taught Church School, and faithfully attended morning Bible study meetings. In addition to his wife, Bonnie, Don is survived by his daughter, Laurence Howard, and her husband, Timothy Duffy, of Marblehead, their son, Benjamin Duffy-Howard, Dons sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Paula and Robert Kroening of Stillwater, Minnesota, a niece and three nephews, and a cousin, Jeanine Puskas of Colorado. A Funeral Service will be held at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 135 Lafayette Street, Marblehead on Saturday, November, 19 at 10:30 A.M. Visiting hours will be held at the Eustis and Cornell Funeral Home, 142 Elm Street, Marblehead on Friday, November, 18 from 4 -8 P.M. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests expressions of sympathy be made to St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 135 Lafayette Street, Marblehead or to Raw Art, 37 Central Square, #2, Lynn, MA or to a charity of ones choice. Please visit the online guestbook for Don at www.eustisandcornellfuneralhome.com.