Chuck Howard, IOA's First Executive Director, to Retire

Charles Howard, the leading advocate for Organizational Ombuds, will step down as the inaugural Executive Director of the International Ombudsman Association at the end of the year. During his four decades as a litigator, he often served as independent counsel and consultant for Ombuds. In 2010, he wrote a landmark legal guide for the profession, which was published by the American Bar Association. After he retired from active practice, Howard became IOA's first Executive Director in September 2019. Since then, he has helped guide the IOA Board of Directors through a series of challenges, not the least of which was the association's response to the coronavirus pandemic. During his career, Howard spoke out about the flawed Ombuds program at BP, encouraged public school districts to adopt Ombuds programs, advised the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, defended the embattled Ombuds at the University of Mississippi, and urged IOA members to update the association's bylaws. 

Here is the full text of the announcement from the IOA President:

Dear IOA Members,

We write to let you know that our Executive Director, Chuck Howard, will be retiring from his position effective 31 December 2021.

Prior to joining IOA in 2019, Chuck had practiced law for 44 years, including serving as a litigation partner and General Counsel of his firm, Shipman & Goodwin LLP, before retiring from the firm to work for the IOA. During his career at Shipman & Goodwin, among other areas of practice, he represented organizational ombuds programs throughout the United States and internationally for more than 30 years and was a prolific writer and speaker about and for the ombuds profession. When Chuck began as the inaugural IOA Executive Director, both he and the IOA Board of Directors were aware that his tenure in this position would not be particularly long. However, we hoped that it would help IOA envision the benefits to our profession and our organization from having an externally-focused advocate and strategist. He has now reached the point where he would like to move into a real retirement phase, or “a much less structured life” as he would define retirement.

Although Chuck's agreement with IOA was only for a part-time position, we have all benefited from his efforts. His work with IOA has been extensive and vastly more time-intensive than a part-time role would indicate. He has served as an invaluable spokesperson for the organization and the profession, advised many of us on difficult situations, provided direct assistance in the creation of many new ombuds programs, helped develop revisions to our Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics, and promoted the profession to new sectors. He has served a critical role in working with the Board and staff to advance IOA. Along the way, he has also written a new book, A Practical Guide to Organizational Ombuds, which will be published by American Bar Association and is expected to be available in December. There are not enough words to thank Chuck for all he has done over these past years, including his work on behalf of organizational ombuds prior to becoming IOA’s Executive Director.

A Search Task Force has been established to help IOA find its next Executive Director, co-led by Board members Lee Twyman and Willem Kweens. The search will commence later this September. If you are interested in serving on this search task force, please send an email to Lee Twyman at lhtnbu@rit.edu and Willem Kweens at willem.kweens@effem.com. 

Thank you,

Melanie Jagneaux, JD, MBA, CO-OP®

2020-2021 IOA President

(IOA Blog.)

Related posts: ABA Publishes First Book About Organizational Ombuds; Chuck Howard: BP Never Had the Ombuds Office It Should Have; The Broader View of Ombuds in Public Schools; Chuck Howard Tapped as IOA's Inaugural Executive Director; National Academies and Universities are Incorporating Ombuds in Effort to Combat Gender Discrimination; Crafting Solutions to Conflict Podcast Spotlights Chuck Howard; University of Mississippi Moves to Dismiss Suit by Ombuds; Chuck Howard Comments on the Proposed IOA Bylaws.