Biography of Dr. Bruce Howard
Author of Charting the Course
Like most great professors, Dr. Bruce Howard is an engaging storyteller who brings theoretical principles to life for his students, in whom he has a deeply personal interest. “We use the term market, but what we’re really talking about is the way people treat each other,” he tells his students. “We interact about food, housing, clothing, jobs, value…and we tend to call that economic action. But it’s really just people interacting with people” To Howard, economics is simply the stuff of everyday life, and his discussions of the market economics usually include humorous, memorable allusions to his own everyday life.
As an undergraduate student at Wheaton College, Howard’s fascination with systems and the way they work initially led him to the science department, where he studied biology and chemistry. He only took an economics class because his father, a Wheaton professor for thirty years, was teaching it. He was surprised to find the economic system as intriguing as any scientific system he had studied. Thanks in part to his remarkably poor lab technique (“I broke test tubes and tended to burn things,” he recalls), he changed his major and has enjoyed a fulfilling career in economics, finance, and education.
Dr. Howard holds a PhD in economics and a Masters of administration in accountancy. He joined the faculty of Wheaton College in 1980 and currently serves as professor of business and economics. “ I’m in the enterprise of education because i’s about transformation. At the end of the day, I am hoping I have helped people be a little better,” he muses. “How can we use the study of markets and finance to change people? For me, that change means becoming more like Christ. Because I am in Christian education, my students share this desire for change.”
Dr. Howard is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has also worked with Tyndale House Publishers since 1980 and currently serves as a member of their board of directors. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Howard worked in the banking and health care industries. As a professor, he has traveled several times to teach business and economics at a small university in Kazakhstan.
Dr. Howard is the author of two other books, Safe & Sound: Why You Can Stand Secure on the Future of the United States Economy and You Can’t Spank a Kid in a Snowsuit, both published by Tyndale House Publishers. He has also been published several times in Christianity Today and has authored several articles for various scholarly journals.
Above all, Dr. Howard is a doting husband, father, and grandfather. He has been married for thirty-four years. The Howards enjoy visiting their three grown children and their spouses and spoiling their four grandchildren. They look forward to the birth of a fifth grandchild in January 2009. Dr. Howard’s hobbies include oil painting and writing songs for his kids and grandkids. He has played the guitar for forty years and is a self-described “sincere, not a good“banjo player. The Howards attend College Church in Wheaton.