Howard S. Friedman was born in Linden, New Jersey, on March 31, 1948. He earned his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and PhD in organic chemistry from New York University. He completed all of his undergraduate work in Greenwich Village, and all of his doctoral work at the University Heights campus in the Bronx. He met Lori Roseman, a native New Yorker, while he was a teaching assistant and PhD candidate and she was completing a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at NYU. They were married in 1972. Lori completed her degree in 1974. In July 1975, she and Howard moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Howard did postdoctoral studies and taught organic chemistry and Lori worked in the chemistry department. In 1977, Howard took a position as a chemical researcher for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio, and later did similar work for Ferro Corp. in Bedford. While they were in Ohio, Lori worked for PPG Industries doing chemical information retrieval
When Howard landed a position at the Velsicol Chemical Co. doing chemical process development, the couple moved to Chicago. Lori worked for Sherwin-Williams, first managing the department that searched chemical information and later transferring to the marketing department, where she marketed chemical coatings for industrial equipment. After leaving Sherwin-Williams, she became director of marketing for small company that made flooring and roofing in Skokie, Illinois.
As Howard’s career progressed, he accepted a job doing global process development at Uniroyal Chemical Co. in Middlebury, Connecticut, which took him on frequent excursions to Argentina and Brazil. Later, he was promoted to a position that put him in charge of overseeing the company’s compliance with regulations governing chemical production. During that time, he also earned a senior professional certificate in industrial hygiene from the University of New Haven. Lori worked at Honeywell for a while, and then took a job managing patents at Uniroyal Chemical. She obtained an executive MBA from the University of New Haven in 1994.
In 1996, the couple moved to Oregon when Howard accepted a job managing the product stewardship group for the ink supply business at Hewlett-Packard. Since 2000, he has been in a corporate position, managing the company’s global compliance with the Toxic Substance’s Control Act. Lori now runs her own business as a patent agent, serving local and international clients. Howard and Lori are members of the American Chemical Society and Philomath Rotary. Lori is also a member of Philomath Chamber of Commerce.
While Howard and Lori were at the University of Michigan, they were grateful to receive financial assistance through an endowment that helped support graduate students and postdoctoral staff. In a similar spirit, the couple established this endowed scholarship fund to provide assistance to students who are studying the physical sciences, particularly chemistry, at accredited, non-sectarian institutions of higher education.