Howard Cary (1908 – 1991) was an American engineer and the co-founder of Applied Physics Corporation (later known as Cary Instruments), along with George W. Downs and William C. Miller. Before Applied Physics, Cary was employed by Beckman Instruments, where he worked on the design of several instruments including the ubiquitous DU Spectrophotometer [1]. Howard Cary was the first president of the Optical Society of Southern California.