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The 2018 Lud Fiser Citizen of the Year for Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce is longtime area businessman Phil Howe. The award was announced during the Chamber’s annual meeting and banquet at the Manhattan Conference Center.
Howe is the 52nd recipient of the Citizen of the Year award. After a stint in the U.S. Army he worked for United National Bank ( later merger as Commerce Bank ) and in 1969, applied for and received the charter for his own bank an oversaw the growth of Kansas State Bank. With total assets of more than $950 million today, KS State Bank has seen 25 percent increases in capital during that period.
His career includes president at Griffith Oil Company, founder of Baystone Financial Group and Master Medical Company of Scottsdale, Arizona, which he guided as the company’s president. Howe has been active in the Manhattan Chamber, served as board member and president of Riley County United Way, helped establish the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation and its YES! Fund ( Youth Empowerment for Success ).
Howe serves on the Dean’s Business Advisory Council for the College of Business Administration at Kansas State University and is a past member of the KSU Foundation Board. K-State’s center for Advancement of Entrepreneurship in the College of Business, would not be possible without Howe’s integral contribution. He helped to shape many functional aspects to driver future generations’ entrepreneurial resolve within the business college.
The Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Award is named in honor of long-tenured former Manhattan Chamber president Lud Fiser, who served from 1948 to 1975 and was responsible for such community developments as CiCo Park and Manhattan Industrial Park.
