Rick Howard, AIA, CSI, CCS, LEED AP

Manager of the Specifications Group
URS Corporation

“Being on the MasterSpec review committee is the ultimate educational experience for a specwriter.  Each committee member researches the topics of discussion before the meeting and then shares what they have learned with the other committee members.  In the course of four years you have an in-depth review of each of the specification sections in the MasterSpec library.  Being able to network with top specifiers from around the country is an added bonus.”

Rick Howard, AIA CSI CCS LEED AP, is manager of the specifications group at URS Corporation, a leading provider of planning, design, systems engineering and integration, technology development, program and construction management, and operations and maintenance services. URS clients include federal, state and local government agencies in the U.S., Fortune 500  corporations worldwide, and government clients in Europe and Asia/Pacific. URS employs approximately 29,400 people in more than 20 countries.  Mr. Howard is responsible for preparing project manuals and maintaining office master specifications for all disciplines in the 200-person office!

Mr. Howard began using MasterSpec in the late 1970s, and switched to MasterSpec computer media, licensed through ARCOM, in 1986.

Mr. Howard appreciates MasterSpec's staff of full-time professional writers and believes “the peer review process of the MasterSpec review committees assures a thoroughly researched, consistent, and appropriately detailed set of master specifications.”  Another asset of MasterSpec, Mr. Howard believes, is the extensive evaluations ARCOM provides with each section to form a comprehensive technical library, complete with a reference list.

Mr. Howard attended his first MARC meeting in May 2002 and became a member in 2004.

Rick Howard is a graduate of Ohio State University and a registered architect.  He worked in Toledo, Dallas, Washington DC, and Cincinnati before returning to Columbus in 2005.

Mr. Howard and his wife Gayle have two children.  Their daughter, Alexandra, is a French teacher in Delta, Ohio, and their son, David, is a senior in high school.