I
Stepping Into the Possibilities Elizabeth “Beth” Howell ’82 may have taken an unexpected career path, but she has used it to make a difference. By Sara Baxter
14
n 2013, Beth Howell ’82 was having a casual conversation with a friend who asked her if she knew anyone who would be interested in the president and chief executive officer position that was open at Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities. She might, she said, and asked about the qualifications. “As he was mentioning each one, I kept thinking, ‘I can do that… check,’” remembers Howell, who at the time was vice president of academic administration at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where she had worked in various positions for 23 years. “Though I wasn’t really looking for a new job, I became very interested.” Not only was she not looking, but she did not even have an updated resume. Yet she applied and says that with each interview, she became more passionate about the position. “I’d worked in a children’s hospital but more behind the scenes,” she says. “I felt like I could impact families more directly in this position.” It was another step in a not-sotraditional career path. Howell planned to be a high school history teacher. She graduated from Agnes Scott College with a history degree, earned her teaching certificate and enjoyed student teaching at nearby Decatur High School. But later, when she could not find a position at the schools of her preference, she took a job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she had worked the previous summer. From there, she held various positions at different companies in the Atlanta area before taking a job at Egleston Children’s Hospital in 1990 as a project manager. In 1998, after the merger that created Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, she was asked to take the job of special assistant to the CEO/chief compliance officer. Through the years, she took on more responsibilities, eventually working her way up to vice president of corporate oversight and chief compliance officer, and then vice president of academic administration.
