Howard B. Meek

Early life and education

Meek was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1893, the son of Warren Lee Meek and Eliza Fowler (Reed) Meek. His father worked in the manufacturing industry. He attended the Chelsea public schools while growing up and graduated from Chelsea High School.

Meek obtained his B.S. in mathematics from Boston University in 1917. Boston University later awarded him an honorary degree of Doctorate of Science in Education in 1949. He earned his M.S. degree from the University of Maine in 1920, and his doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1933.

Career

Meek created the first collegiate education in the field of hotel administration at Boston University in 1918. This prompted the American Hotel Association to suggest to Cornell University that he give instructions along these lines in a program that they would sponsor. The new course at first was a department in the College of Home Economics that Meek taught for a few years. At the age of 29, Meek founded the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in 1922, becoming its first professor and dean. The first class had four courses that Meek taught 21 students. He was known as the "father of the Cornell Hotel School." It was the first college level school established for the training of hotel managers.

The school grew to an alumni of three thousand that respected Meek as a hotel professor. This interested America’s foremost hotel man of the 1920s Ellsworth M. Statler. He gave $10 million to finance Cornell's Statler Hall, a complex for the professional training of future hotel managers. Meek held the position of the Dean of Cornell University School of Hotel Administration for 39 years until he retired in 1961. At that time it was an independent college with a staff of over three dozen lecturers. Toward the end of his teaching career he established a research department at the Cornell Hotel School to serve the hotel industry. He was also influential in establishing a publications department there which prints training manuals, textbooks and magazines. Other countries worldwide have adopted Meek's courses. Of the school's five hundred full-time students, about 15 percent come from outside the United States.

He was the E.M. Statler Professor emertitus.

Societies and professional affiliations

Meek held various positions in societies associated with the hotel industry. He was an honorary life member of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, the National Restaurant Association, the New York State Hotel Association and the Club Managers Association of America. He was also a consultant member for various associations and companies including the New York State Minimum Wage Board for the Hotel Industry, the American Statistical Association, the Ithaca Reconstruction Home Association, the American Economics Association, Cornell Society of Hotelmen, Ye Hosts, Point IV, AID Programs, and the Tompkins County Hospital.

Honors and awards

Meek was known as the leading educator in the hospitality industry. In 1969 he received two honors for his 50 years of service to the industry: the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University library, the first and largest library collection of hotel and food service reference material, was named the Howard B. Meek Library, and the Howard B. Meek Visiting Professorship was established at Cornell University by the Cornell Society of hotel men.

Personal life

Meek married Lois Ann Farmer of Minneapolis in 1924. She was a lecturer at the College of Home Economics and taught food management in hotel administration for several years after they were married. They had two children, Lois Jean Meek and Donald Bagnall Meek. Meek went by the nickname "Don" to those that knew him. Meek died on July 16, 1969, in Pocasset, Massachusetts. His wife died in February 1973.

Selected published works

• A Theory of Hotel Room Rates
• Hospitalities Around the World
• Hotels of Latin America (1952)