By Nick Gonnella
NKyTribune Correspondent
Barbara Howard did not originally envision the impact she would have on thousands of lives in Northern Kentucky, nor did she predict the success her decisions would bring to Redwood Rehabilitation Center in Fort Mitchell.
In a career that has spanned five decades, Howard has positively influenced the lives of the developmentally disabled by helping people foster independence and reach their goals at Redwood.
“That’s the bottom line of everything we do at Redwood,” said Howard, who retired as Redwood’s executive director this spring. “People have the opportunity to learn and grow and to lead an enriched life. Redwood has the most comprehensive range of disability services in the region. The Northern Kentucky community is very caring, and really wants to help people be the best they can be. They really care about all people in the community, regardless of their ability.”
Redwood, founded in 1951, provides therapeutic, educational, nursing and vocational services to children and adults with disabilities.
Married to a chiropractor, Howard started as a speech pathologist at Redwood in 1979 and took over as executive director in 1991. The mother of four daughters earned an undergraduate degree in speech pathology and audiology at Eastern Kentucky University, and a Masters degree in speech and language pathology at University of Cincinnati.
She expanded her background by taking business classes and independent studies, enabling her to write computer programming to help Redwood meet its needs.
“When you think about me and my history, my area of expertise is probably program development, strategic planning and grant writing. I’ve always been pretty talented at seeing what it takes to get us from here to there,” she said.
Howard credits Pat Wear, two executive directors before her, for seeing her potential and encouraging her to take over a “very small” work activity center.
“I thought, ‘Why me? I’m a speech therapist,’” she recalled. “The executive director said I was very assertive. I really became just so impassioned about it. I could see people in the community that really needed a program like Redwood. That was a great opportunity for me. I was real excited about that. Our school program was leaving, so it gave us an opportunity to start a new program. We started a therapeutic childcare center, which was a big need in the community.”
Howard was instrumental in developing “a whole range of programs,” including the adult, computer, technology and computer programs.
“We expanded our technology program into an assistive technology resource center,” she said. “We just got bigger and bigger, and we outgrew our space. The thing about Redwood is, you change to meet the needs, and whatever people have the need to do, that’s what you’re going to develop a program to do.”
The tech center, said Howard, is part of five centers across the entire state of Kentucky to help bring the miracle of assistive technology to people in need.
Despite the growth of the adult activity program in the mid 1990s, she said, there was more need. She applied for an adult day health care license and negotiated with Medicaid to receive more funding.
“That allowed our huge adult program to grow,” she said. “I started talking to the board about the importance of growing the organization. We started our feasibility study the same week of (the Sept. 11 attacks). We were told that we would be lucky to raise $2 million or $3 million.”
Redwood instead was able to raise $6.5 million, which Howard said resulted in doubling the building’s size to 86,000 feet.
“Our local community has always been very generous and supportive of the underdog, and specifically people with disabilities,” she said. “People just rose up and supported this organization, and people that we serve. It was really almost like a miracle what happened. It was really neat. It was a lot of fun.”
Redwood is accredited through the National Association for the Education of Young Children and has a three-star rating by Kentucky Stars for Kids Now. The center is also certified by the Kentucky Education Cabinet and Department of Education, to provide preschool services. By the end of the year, Redwood procured three-year accreditation through the Council on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities for all of its Adult Services programs.
John Francis became Redwood’s new executive director last month.
Howard emphasized the importance of helping Redwood through the transition.
“What I want is this organization to thrive for the future,” she said, “so I’m doing everything I can now to make sure that everything is fully documented, and that I’m preparing for new leadership here so that the people who depend on us can continue to depend on us for the future.”
Howard reflected on her service at Redwood.
“I’ll miss the people the most,” she said. “I’ll also miss the opportunity to write grants. I love to write grants. I love to communicate the message of what we do, to people in the community and engage them and get them to engage and invest in our work.”
Howard touted “a living legacy campaign to raise $2 million to expand the endowment program that will help stabilize funding for the future.”
She will remain active through serving a lifetime commitment to the Dorothy Wood Foundation endowment program after being inducted onto the board as director emeriti.
“Even though I’ll be away from Redwood, I will still have the opportunity to have the arms-length connection to Redwood through the Dorothy Wood Foundation board and will still be able to help this organization thrive as we help continue to grow the endowment. We’ve been here 62 years, but we want to be here at least another 62 years, as well.”
Howard said she hopes to “spend some time traveling” in her first year of retirement, noting a sailboat trip, a canoe camping trip in Minnesota and long-distance bicycling. Her ultimate goal is to begin hiking the Appalachian trail a year from now.
“I read recently about retiring, and not necessarily retiring, but refiring,” she said. “I want to move forward with my life and find out who Barbara Howard is – not Barbara Howard the executive director or the CEO, but just who Barbara Howard is, and explore that.”