Thaddeus Garrett to head Howard University board

Jet, June 26, 1995

A Black consultant to three former GOP presidents has been elected chairman of the Howard University Board of Trustees at a time when the Republican-led Congress has threatened to cut off the university's annual $200 million yearly subsidy in an economy move.

Nominated by a committee headed by Black Enterprise Magazine publisher Earl Graves and supported by board members Vernon Jordan and former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Thaddeus Garrett Jr., president of his own consulting firm, was unanimously elected to head the body.

Garrett, who has been a board member for 12 years, succeeds corporate executive Wayman Smith. He and the university's new president, Dr. H. Patrick Swygert, now lead Howard which has an annual half billion dollar budget, with 6,000 employees and 11,000 students.

A resident of Akron, Ohio, Garrett graduated from the Univ. of Akron and earned a Howard divinity degree. He is an ordained African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church minister.

Garrett has served as vice president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has advised Presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.