Key Facts
Career & Education
About
Mark Howell is a long-time public servant and IT professional in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Dobbs Ferry High School in New York and graduated from Syracuse University. His 32-year career at IBM (late 1970s to 2011) spanned various IT roles, including operations, systems programming, enterprise networking, client-server programming, IT service management, and global IT infrastructure, culminating as Global Project Executive. He relocated to Concord in 1999 for the Lotus Development integration. Since 2011, he has served as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Town of Concord, where he established the IT department from scratch, modernized infrastructure, and oversaw the launch of Concord Light Broadband fiber-to-the-home service.
Howell's extensive community involvement includes being a founding member of the Build Thoreau Committee, which advocated for reusing the Alcott School during the Thoreau School rebuild; serving on the Concord Finance Committee from 2003-2010 (including as clerk, vice-chair, and chair in 2009-2010); chairing the Fiber Broadband Completion Task Force (2021-2022); membership on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Commission; and volunteering with youth programs at the First Religious Society of Carlisle.
In his political career, Howell was elected to the Concord Select Board for a three-year term starting May 2023 (ending May 1, 2026) and selected as Chair in July 2025, during which time the board faced an antisemitism controversy. He announced in December 2025 that he would not seek reelection. His official email is markhowell@concordma.gov.
Personally, Howell resides on Annursnac Hill Road in Concord with his wife Pam and two dogs. He has two grown children who attended local schools including Thoreau Elementary, Sanborn Regional Middle, and Concord-Carlisle High School. He enjoys hiking, swimming, skating on Annursnac Pond, and practices and teaches yoga.
Social media: LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/marklhowell), Facebook (facebook.com/mark.howell1), X/Twitter (@markhowe11).