After moving to Washington, he maintained personal ties with many of his colleagues at UC Davis, where he is remembered with fondness and respect. We had known of Fred from colleagues at the University of Minnesota, and we got to know him rather quickly. Whitaker and Howes co-authored two papers in the 1980s and often got together to discuss mathematics and engineering problems. Each also sat in on classes taught by the other. As a teacher, one of Fred's memorable characteristics was that he was quite willing to tell you what he knew, and just as willing to tell you what he didn't know, with equal ease.
Most students see math as incredibly rigorous stuff.
But Fred would also point out where there wasn't rigor, where the ideas were, where there were things to be learned. Bruce Hendrickson, a scientist in the Parallel Computing Sciences Department at Sandia National Laboratories, said that Howes will be remembered both for his distinguished career of service to the applied mathematics community and for his personal attributes. Fred was always singularly focused on helping the research community. He was at his happiest standing at a blackboard discussing results and ideas with one of his researchers. He was continually interested in meeting young mathematicians whose careers he could support.