NORTH BENNINGTON — Bob Howe, 91 – woodworker, teacher, builder, businessman, board member, philanthropist – died on Sunday, May 19, at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center.
His son, Rick, confirmed his father’s passing on Thursday. There will be no funeral but the family will hold a memorial service in about a month, at a time yet to be determined.
Howe is survived by his wife of 72 years, Cora May, and sons Bartlett, Richard and Gregory and daughter Sarah. He was also close to a niece, Liz Howe, who is an art teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School.
“He always wanted to give my mother full credit for everything he did and went through,” Rick Howe said of his father. “She was very supportive and was always a sounding board and a clear head.”
Howe was born in Troy, New York. He moved to Bennington in 1951 He went to college at Rochester Institute of Technology and got a degree in woodworking, furniture building and cabinet making. Then he taught industrial arts at Bennington High School for around 10 years. He also taught in Williston for a number of years.
About 30 years ago, he moved to North Bennington to a house he designed and built, Rick said.
Around 1980, Howe and a partner, David Kelso, founded a company, K&H Products, later known as Portabrace.
“That was a company that made carrying cases for video equipment. It was used extensively by news teams,” Rick said. “It was mostly fabric, camera-type cases that were produced here in North Bennington and at one time had over 100 employees. And they were sold all around the world. They were sort of the Cadillac of that industry for (carrying) video equipment, especially in the days when it was much larger than it is now.”
Bob Howe owned and ran the company until about 12 years ago, when he sold it. The company still exists and is located in Bennington.
“And since then he has just done a lot of community work," Rick said. “I guess you can say he retired after that, but he didn’t really retire. He did a lot of things in North Bennington. He spearheaded renovating the Lake Paran facility.”
Howe also designed and restored bridges in North Bennington. One is a walking bridge along a path that connects Lake Paran with the Robert Frost Museum.
Richard said his father over the years served on several boards in North Bennington, including the Vermont Arts Exchange.
His involvement extended to the Oldcastle Theatre Company. He was very involved in renovation of the buildingon Main Street in Bennington that had been the Knights of Columbus headquarters and became the theater company’s new home.
“He was very instrumental in that,” Rick said.
Bob Howe’s involvement with Bennington radio station WBTN included owning it for a time and then financial support.
“At one point he had purchased the radio station and wanted to keep it as a community resource for live, local broadcasting,” Rick said.
Howe donated the station to Southern Vermont College, but the arrangement didn’t last. He was never an on-air presence: “He always stayed in the background of things,” Rick said.
Rick Howe spoke about his father’s personality and character, hesitantly at first.“It’s hard to sing my own Dad’s praises in that way, but he was...he was something. He was very curious, imaginative and productive and creative.”
“People really admired him and liked him a lot. He had a point of view. He was very curious about everything. He was very interested in being involved with other people and collaborating on projects.”
People from the boards Bob served on have told Rick: “He didn’t have a lot to say always, but he would always kind of pinpoint issues that other people hadn’t really considered. He just brought a lot of kind of unique wisdom and creativity to the table.”
“He just loved Bennington, North Bennington especially. He just always was looking to make things better for people,” Rick said. “He was an employer of over 100 people at one time. I think all of his employees would sing his praises. He was very interested in just providing people with a good job and as good a life as they could have.
“And he was very grateful back to his employees at K&H products because the business was quite successful,” he said. “So, he like(d) to give it back.”
A FINAL PROJECT
Rick said that building things was kind of the basis of his father’s life. In fact, the family had just finished a coffee table book for family and friends. It’s a retrospective of his work building furniture and other aspects of his creativity.
Bob’s niece, Liz Howe, was the driving force behind the book, “Bob Howe, Building a Life in Wood.”
The book is not for sale but the family will give copies to local libraries so people can see it there, Rick said.
“We’re so glad that we finished that project before he died,” he said, “because he loved it and he took great pride in it. It came out just at the right time, in a way.”
MAN OF MANY TALENTS
Tyler Resch was editor of the Banner over 12 years in the 1960s and 1970s. He remembers Bob Howe from when Howe was a teacher at Bennington High.
“He’s truly going to be missed,” Resch said. “He was just an incredibly great neighbor and helper and generous contributor to the life of North Bennington in particular. “
One of Resch’s most recent contacts with Howe was as editor of the Walloomsac Review, 27 volumes of regional history. “Bob and Cora May Howe paid for that, paid for the publication of the Walloomsac Review for the Bennington Museum,” he said.
“Bob was a man of many talents. He was a woodworker, In his business, K&H Products, he was known as a wonderful employer. Several people who worked there (said) he was terrific to work for," Resch said. "And, of course, he was so generous. Somebody would have to put together a list of the projects he supported in North Bennington. There would be quite a few.”
'THE ULTIMATE TEACHER'
When he was co-founding the Vermont Arts Exchange in North Bennington, Matthew Perry heard that he should invite Bob Howe to get involved. This was good advice and Howe was the president of the organization’s board of directors at the time of his death.
“He kind of came to me as an artist. But also, I soon got to find out that he was an inventor and a designer and a thinker, and right to his last days the ultimate teacher. For me, at least, and he taught lots of people over the years in high school, (formally).
“But he taught me a lot about looking at ways to solve a problem from a different viewpoint. Don’t always ask the same questions. Think outside the box,” Perry said. “He was a complex guy and he could be complicated but he also looked at things pretty simply, like a Vermonter.”
Howe approached things rationally, but he also knew there were other ways to look at things. He was always asking different questions. He might ask you to repeat a question.
“You knew he knew what the question was, but he was thinking about it a different way. He was abstract in that way, as well,” Perry said. “You look back at his life’s work, the furniture that he made, the toys that he made in collaboration with Learning Development Skills at Harvard, he was always thinking and building and solving problems with his hands. He was really a skilled artist and craftsman.”
EPITOME OF A CITIZEN
Matthew Patterson, a 22-year member and past longtime chair of the Village of North Bennington Board of Trustees, worked with Howe on a number of community issues. He got to know him best when serving on a committee that tried to convince Bennington College to contribute payments in lieu of taxes. Howe also served on a committee that led to continuation of the Village School of North Bennington as an independent entity.
"He epitomized what a good citizen of the Village is. Both he and his wife, Cora May, are incredible supporters, active in all aspects." "Bob was very inquisitive, wanted to fully understand issues affecting the Village. Of course he was a great benefactor to the Village, Lake Paran — massive donations and hard physical work as well."
"It's a great loss to the community and actually over the last four or five years we've lost virtually all of the older, dedicated people," Patterson said. "And younger people are not engaged in the same way."
