| Howard Graham Buffett | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 December 1954 |
| Spouse | Devon Goss Buffett |
| Children | Howard Warren Buffett |
| Parents | Warren Buffett Susan Thompson |
Howard Graham Buffett (born December 16, 1954) is an American philanthropist, photographer, and farmer. He is the eldest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. He is named after Howard Buffett, his grandfather, and Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's teacher.
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Howard G. Buffett grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has been active in business, politics, agriculture, conservation, photography, and philanthropy. In August 1977, he married Marcia Sue Duncan.[1] Also in 1977, he began farming in Tekamah, Nebraska.[2] His father purchased the property for $300,000 and charged him rent.[3] He currently farms 400 acres (1.6 km2) of farmland in Nebraska. He later married Devon Morse, and they had a son, Howard Warren Buffett. Buffett currently resides in Decatur, Illinois and operates a 1,240-acre (5.0 km2) family farm in Pana, Illinois.[4] He is an advocate of no-till conservation agriculture.[2]
Buffett was a County Commissioner of Douglas County, Nebraska from 1989 to 1992, Corporate Vice President, Assistant to the Chairman and a director of Archer Daniels Midland Company from 1992 to 1995, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The GSI Group from 1996 to 2001. He became a Lindsay Corporation director in 1995, served as Chairman for a year from 2002 to 2003,[5][6] and in 2008, announced he would let his term as a director expire in January 2010.[7]
He is, as of 2006[update], a director of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., and President of Buffett Farms.[5]
Howard G. Buffett has been a Director of The Coca-Cola Company since December 9, 2010.
In December 2011, Warren Buffett told CBS News that he would like his son Howard to succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway's non-executive chairman.[8]
Buffett has written more than half a dozen books on conservation, wildlife, and the human condition, and has written articles and opinion pieces for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In 1996, Harvard published his thesis, The Partnership of Biodiversity and High-Yield Agricultural Production.
In 2000, Buffett co-produced a book of photography with Colin Mead, Images of the Wild, an information source for traveling to wildlife areas in North America and Africa.[9]
In 2001, he wrote On The Edge: Balancing Earth's Resources which focused on preserving world biodiversity, species and habitats. Former Senator Paul Simon authored the foreword.[9]
In 2002, Buffett wrote Tapestry of Life, a compilation of portraits taken in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, and other countries with deep poverty and human need.[9] Tom Brokaw authored the foreword. Also in 2002, he published Taking Care of Our World, a book that teaches children about ecology.[9]
In 2003, he co-wrote Spots Before Your Eyes with Ann van Dyk. The foreword was authored by Dr. Jane Goodall. Spots Before Your Eyes presents history and facts about the cheetah species.[9]
In 2005, he published Threatened Kingdom: The Story of the Mountain Gorilla which provides information about the mountain gorilla's habitat and the challenges the species' faces.[9]
In 2009, he wrote Fragile: The Human Condition with the support of National Geographic Missions. The foreword was authored by Shakira Mebarak. Fragile: The Human Condition is the documentation of life stories in sixty-five countries.[10]
Buffett serves or has served on the National Geographic Council, World Wildlife Fund National Council, Cougar Fund, Platte River Whooping Crane Trust Advisory Committee, Illinois and Nebraska Chapters of the Nature Conservancy, Ecotrust, De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Trust, and the Africa Foundation. Buffett founded the Nature Conservation Trust, a non-profit Trust in South Africa to support cheetah conservation, the International Cheetah Conservation Foundation, and was a Founding Director of The Cougar Fund. In October 2007, Buffett was named an Ambassador Against Hunger by the United Nations World Food Programme.[11] In March 2010, Buffet became a member of the Eastern Congo Initiative founded by Ben Affleck. "I joined Ben in this effort because I believe strongly in investing in sustainable solutions to humanitarian challenges," he said.[12]
As the president of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Buffett has traveled to over 95 countries to document the challenges of preserving biodiversity and providing adequate resources to support human demands. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation supports projects in the areas of agriculture, nutrition, water, humanitarian, conservation, and conflict/unaccompanied persons. The foundation focuses much of its funding on communities in Africa and Central America.[13] In 2007, the Foundation launched the Global Water Initiative with several organizations to address the declining fresh water supply and clean water to the world's poorest people.[14]
Buffett has received the Aztec Eagle Award, the highest honor bestowed on a foreign citizen by the Mexican Government, an honorary PhD from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln [15] and has been recognized by the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation in Agriculture as one of the most distinguished individuals in agriculture.