In Memoriam: Steven V. Howard, CHP

1953-2014

by Richard W. Lamoreaux

Steven V. Howard, CHP, of Athens, Alabama, passed away on 25 October 2014 at Athens-Limestone Hospital, Alabama, at age 61. Steve was born at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on 12 May 1953 and lived in Lexington, Kentucky, before moving to the Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, area in 1995.

Steve received a BS in biology in January 1976 at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, and a master's in business administration in August 2010 from Grantham University.

Steve served a long career as an Army senior health physicist starting in 1982. His most recent position was chief of the Radiation Standards Laboratory of the U.S. Army Primary Standards Laboratory. He was also the principal radiation safety officer of the parent organization, the U.S. Army Test, Measurement, and Diagnostic Equipment Activity at Redstone Arsenal, and managed its broad-scope Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for radiation sources. As lab chief he managed a group of professional, technical, and support personnel engaged in the development, calibration, and repair of state-of-the-art optical and ionizing radiation measurement standards in support of Army laboratories and test ranges worldwide. He also provided health physics support for the Army Radioactive Waste Disposal Program. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserves in May 2010 as a lieutenant colonel with 27 years of service.

Previous assignments included serving as the team leader of the Army's Nuclear Counting Program, in which he had responsibility for organizing and managing all aspects of the centralized Army leak-test analysis program and for providing an overall quality-assurance program for nuclear counting throughout the Army. He also served as the special projects team leader with the mission of providing health physics support to key government agencies for programs related to radiation monitoring, nuclear detonation detection, and radiological safety.

Steve was a long-time member of the Health Physics Society and the Alabama Chapter, in which he served as the chapter president. In 2004 he was certified by the American Board of Health Physics in the comprehensive practice of health physics, and he proudly retained the title of certified health physicist until his passing.

He is survived by his loving wife of 36 years, Lavon Howard; a daughter, Tonya Burnett, and grandsons Jacob and Noah Houk of Elkmont, Alabama; a brother, Joseph Howard, of Louisville, Kentucky; and a sister, Pam Howard, of Stuttgart, Germany.