Born July 28, 1934, Howard Nathaniel Lee grew up on a sharecropper’s farm in Lithonia, Georgia.  He attended school there and graduated in 1953.  He then attended Fort Valley State College in Georgia where he received a BA degree in Sociology in 1959.  He served in the United States Army, including more than one year in Korea from 1959 until 1961.  After his service in the Army, he worked as a Juvenile Probation Officer in Savannah, Georgia, until 1964, at which time Lee enrolled in the graduate School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In 1966, he received his Master’s Degree in Social Work.

Lee immediately became politically active upon arrival at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, being elected each of his two years of graduate school as president of the Student Association of Social Work.  After graduate school he made history by becoming the youngest and most recent graduate to be elected President of the NC Chapter of The Professional Association of Social Work.  In 1969, Lee made history again by being elected Mayor of Chapel Hill and holding the office until 1975.  In 1976, he was a candidate for Lt. Governor of North Carolina, but lost in a second primary, which was a bitter and contentious fight.  After the loss, Governor Jim Hunt appointed him Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, a cabinet-level post he held until 1981.

Lee has a strong academic background, having served as a member of the faculty staff and an administrator at Duke University; a faculty member of North Carolina Central University; and a faculty member of the School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He has also been a visiting faculty member and lecturer at numerous major universities through the Nation. Lee has contributed chapters to several books and has published articles in many professional publications.

In 1990, Lee was elected to the North Carolina Senate where he served for 13 years.  During his tenure he held several powerful committee chairmanships; presiding over education and transportation including the Senate Appropriations Committee.  During his time in the NC Senate, Lee built his legacy as a fighter for education reform and increased funding.  He not only fought for higher teacher salaries and more funding for public education; but he also fought to raise teacher and student standards.  In addition, he sponsored or co-sponsored several major pieces of educational legislation which included Smart Start, More at Four (a Pre-kindergarten program), the Excellent Schools Act for school reform, and the Safe Schools Act.

Howard Lee has a strong background in business, having founded five successful companies.  In addition to his role as State Board Chair, he is a Senior Advisor at the Jim Hunt Institute for Public Policy of UNC.  His favorite hobbies include golf, tennis, singing, and creative writing.  He is currently writing his memoir entitled Barrier Breaker and Bridge Builder and a motivational book entitled Silent Dreams and Secret Thoughts. Howard and his wife Lillian, a retired public school teacher, live in Chapel Hill and are the proud parents of three grown children (Angela, Ricky and Karin) and have two granddaughters.

Commissioner Lee, a Democrat, was appointed to the North Carolina Utilities Commission by Governor Mike Easley on April 1, 2005 and his term expires June 30, 2009.