George A. Howard

Executive VP/Project Manager

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George Howard is a co-founder and Executive Vice President of Restoration Systems.  He is an original proponent and influential advocate of private sector mitigation banking and mitigation delivery systems. George is responsible for identifying growth opportunities in the Mid-Atlantic States and for the implementation of innovative mitigation in North Carolina. He is a respected advocate for legislative and mitigation policy progress in the industry as a whole.

Working in the U.S. Senate in Washington D.C. as staff from 1990 to 1996, George was responsible for environmental public policy, particularly wetlands, water quality and species issues. Recognizing mitigation banking as an opportunity to move home, George returned in 1996 and helped sponsor North Carolina’s first successful large-scale mitigation bank-- the 660 acre Cape Fear Regional Mitigation Bank-- now in its 11th year of ecological success. His determination to make North Carolina a leader in private-sector mitigation led George to found Restoration Systems, L.L.C. with John Preyer in 1998.  George has produced a number of cutting edge projects and mitigation delivery systems for Restoration Systems, such as the nation’s first large scale dam removals for compensatory mitigation, North Carolina’s first large riparian wetland mitigation bank, the first “Full-Delivery” riparian buffer mitigation project and early and continuing efforts to improve Full-Delivery Mitigation processes.

George has testified to the U.S. Congress in support of the industry, is a Director of the National Mitigation Banking Association, and a regular presenter at regional and national environmental conferences, including his yearly appearance as host of the “McGeorge Group” at the National Mitigation Banking Conference.  He is a member of the Triangle Land Conservancy’s Communication’s  Committee, Wake County Co-Chair for the Land for Tomorrow Coalition, and a 2006 appointee to Governors Easley’s Land and Water Conservation Study Commission.  

A 1989 Political Science graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, George grew up in rural Guilford County along the Deep River. He is the grandson of two engineers, and continues a family tradition of water related heavy construction. The Paul N. Howard Company and Howard International completed more than 1,000 water quality projects in the Southeastern U.S. and twenty foreign countries. He has two children, Georgia (5) and Henry (2), and lives with his wife Pam in Raleigh, NC.

 

Publications/Abstracts

Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA Sep 27, 2007; doi: 10.1073/pnas.0706977104.  (In "Geophysics")  [Abstract]     [PDF]  

Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact origin of the Carolina Bays on the Atlantic Coast of North America (Presentation PP42A-05). Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union. May 22-25. Acapulco, Mexico. Abstract