Mr. Howard is an entrepreneur who believes that mission-based businesses create perpetual opportunities to serve a higher purpose. As the President & CEO of Madison Fire & Rescue, he is building a mission-focused organization that touches the lives of millions of people on a daily basis. In 2017, he joined Filtration Group, where he was most recently Group President, Indoor Air Quality. Mr. Howard led businesses through the COVID pandemic by focusing on innovation – creating solutions for those most in need. While at Filtration Group, Mr. Howard drove business results organically and inorganically, enabling Filtration Group to take its Mission to more places in the world. By creating entrepreneurial teams focused on their customers, value at Filtration Group increased over 150% over his four years with the Company.
Prior to joining Filtration Group, Mr. Howard served as the CFO for Medline Industries, the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare supplies in the world. He helped to cement organizational values of customer centricity and an incredible bias to action, while scaling the business to nearly 2 times over a 5-year period. While at Medline, he was also responsible for the P&L of select international markets as well as being intimately involved in both overall corporate strategy and business development. Prior to Medline, Mr. Howard spent over ten years at Baxter International, where he held progressive general management and financial leadership roles, including several years outside of the US. He began his career at KPMG.
Mr. Howard graduated from Eastern Illinois University and earned his MBA at the University of Chicago. He is a 2022 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors for Let It Be Us, a non-profit organization focused on improving outcomes for children in the Foster Care system.