Clark Howard for Mayor?

Atlanta’s Consumer Guru Reveals the Secrets of his Success, his Financial Achilles Heel and his Plans for the City

[ Written By Jennifer Maciejewski ]

For Clark Howard, teaching people how to “save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off,” comes naturally. After all, Atlanta’s favorite cheapskate practices what he preaches, from buying a suit for a buck (literally) to flying at odd times to get the best fare. At home, Howard and his wife regularly battle over the lights: Whoever gets in the room first controls whether Howard’s cheap fluorescent bulbs in the overheads or his wife’s preferred regular bulbs in the table lamps will illuminate the room. And when the couple goes out to eat, Howard saves a few bucks by skipping the valet and parking in a free lot across the street from the restaurant.

Even our recent interview took place in a Clark-smart way: I called Howard using the low-cost internet phone in my home office, and we chatted while he walked six miles to work as part of the Clean Air Campaign’s “Give Your Car a Day Off” week. Although the king of cheap doesn’t routinely walk to work, Howard does opt for a bargain-priced daily commute. Since his scooter gets roughly 70 miles per gallon, he only needs to buy a gallon of gas each week to get back and forth.

From Retiree to Consumer Advocate

But Howard isn’t frugal because he has to be. A self-made millionaire, he opened an Atlanta-based travel agency in 1981, and six years later, he sold his business, moved to Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and retired at 31. Though he’d planned to live a life of leisure on the beach, some family circumstances required him to move back to Atlanta in the fall of 1987.

“The day that I packed up and left the beach and came back to Atlanta was such a sad day because I loved the beach,” Howard recalled. “I came back, and I was doing nothing here. I was watching re-runs on TV. I was biking 20 miles every day, I was swimming a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening, and I was traveling a lot. That was my whole life.”

All of that changed when WGST called Howard and asked him to be a guest on its Sunday travel show. “Everything that’s happened to me since happened from that one guest appearance,” Howard said. His once-monthly appearances on the radio program quickly turned into a weekly guest spot, and when a host position opened up on the “Cover Your Assets” show, the station manager took a gamble and offered the gig to Howard. The investment paid off. Twenty years later, more than 150 radio stations nationwide broadcast the Clark Howard Show daily.

Transitioning from offering travel tips to consumer advice proved easy for Howard. Not only does he draw on his experience with owning and operating a business, buying and selling real estate and investing in the stock market, but he taps into his long-held interest in consumer advocacy. During his college years, Howard and two other students at American University founded a chapter of PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), which works to solve public-interest problems related to the environment, consumer protection and government reform.

But living under constant scrutiny may help prepare Howard for what may be his third career as the mayor of Atlanta. Though it will still be several months before he will decide if he’s running, the city is already buzzing about the possibility.

During his daily three-hour radio show, the consumer guru fields phone calls from listeners, answering their questions about everything from Roth IRAs to paying off debt, tracking down travel deals for the Friday Flyer segment and helping people fight back when they get ripped off. Although Howard does not typically allow callers to reveal a company’s name on the air, he will out the business himself if the behavior is particularly egregious.

For instance, when Bank of ­America’s employees had Matthew Shinnick of San Francisco arrested for fraud because Shinnick followed Howard’s advice and attempted to verify the validity of a check he received from someone on Craiglist before cashing it, Howard launched the Bank of America (BOA) Challenge. Since BOA refused to apologize to Shinnick and reimburse him for the $14,000 in defense legal fees, Howard called on his listeners to hit BOA where it hurts — in the wallet. Over the next few weeks, thousands of listeners closed their BOA accounts, withdrawing more than $50 ­million, according to Howard’s BOA “Money Loss Meter.”

Although his second career began with his radio show, Howard applied the same principles of building a business to expand his reach as a consumer advocate. “You want to reach your customers in whatever way they want to be reached,” said Howard, who leaves no media medium untapped.

His “Consumer Reports” segments and special primetime shows run regularly on WSB-TV Channel 2, and he writes a monthly “Top 10 Tips” article for the Atlanta Journal-­Constitution. Two e-newsletters — “Clark Howard’s e-Scapes,” a twice-weekly travel update, and the bimonthly “Clark Said” — are sent directly to subscribers’ inboxes. Although people can pay full retail for Howard’s best-selling consumer books, he’s quick to advise them to check them out of the library, buy them used or search his Web site, www.ClarkHoward.com, to find much of the same information for free. “My publisher never gets over being furious with me,” Howard joked.

Even his Web site offers something for everyone with text-only summaries of his show, links to resources and audio clips of scam alerts and the call of the day. Those outside the broadcast area can listen to a free live feed of the show online or subscribe to have a podcast sent directly to their iPods. Plus, people can call, mail or fax their questions or concerns to Clark Howard’s Consumer Action Center, where a team of volunteers track down the answers and resources that they need.

Sharing the Wealth

Just as a chance phone call launched his second career, Howard stumbled across most of his volunteer endeavors by accident. “It so fits the theme of my life,” Clark said. “Things just kind of happen to me.”

Howard first learned about Habitat for Humanity when he was asked to give a speech to the Habitat Atlanta ­Home-owners Association. During the Q&A, the

homeowners’ questions surprised him since they cover topics that he didn’t deal with often on his radio show, from what to do when you buy a used car that’s a lemon to how to deal with a problematic rent-to-own furniture company. Curious to know more about their community, Howard asked them, “What neighborhood do you live in?” and after a good laugh, the ­homeowners explained that they live all over Metro Atlanta in homes built by Habitat for Humanity.

Moved by the mission, Howard sponsored his first house with his listeners in 1996, and he will build his 25th home this year, with four more slated to begin construction in February. “There I was at just another thing on the schedule, and it changed my focus on charitable giving,” Howard recalled.

Howard dedicated his 24th Habitat home to U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, a man who learned the hard way about the importance of wearing a stocking cap and a long-sleeve shirt when working with insulation. In 1996, Isakson, then president of Northside Realty, called Howard on the air and pledged to match the $10,000 already raised as a tribute to his employees, and the two partnered to build several more houses until Isakson left business to become a senator. “It was a fun experience,” Isakson recalled, “having a lot of volunteers out building a house for a family that never thought they could have the chance to have one, making new friends and that sense of accomplishment you get from putting something together that looks right and works right.”

It was a chance encounter with a listener at a local bagel shop that caused Howard to join the Georgia State Defense Force. After 9/11, Howard got rid of his normal programming for 90 days and spent a lot of time talking about the importance of making sacrifices and contributing to our country. But when the listener asked what he was actually doing, he didn’t have an answer. The man handed Howard a brochure for the Georgia State Defense Force, an all-volunteer group that supports the Georgia National Guard, and after checking it out online, Howard enlisted in November of 2001. Naturally, he bought his uniform used.

As a public figure, Howard is used to having people stop him in the street to speak their mind, whether it’s to compliment him or accost him for his lifestyle choices. For instance, long-time listeners know that Howard loves to eat fast food — not because it’s cheap, but because it tastes good to him — and that he has three children, ages 18, 8 and 2. While his annual physical shows no ill effects from his diet, the “food police” get upset from time to time, and they’ll write him letters saying they don’t want him to die or they’ll come up to him while he’s shopping to tell him that he won’t live to see his youngest graduate from high school if he keeps eating the way that he does.

Likewise, when tainted pet food caused dogs and cats to suffer from kidney failure, some people got downright nasty, posting online that his pugs would be dead if he were in charge of buying the dog food instead of his wife, who opts to feed them “designer” brands.

And though people always want to know whether or not he paid full retail for everything from the shirt on his back to his plane ticket, Howard is the first to admit that he has his own vices. “I’m a true ice cream snob,” he said. “That’s my financial Achilles heel. My absolute favorite flavor is Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Caramel Fudge, and when I travel the country, I’ve got the places to get my ice cream fix. Another weak spot for me is although I buy my cars used, I have too many of them — two cars and two scooters. But that’s the thing: If you’re really, really careful with your money, then you can have the things that are really important to you.”

A Clark-Smart City?

But living under constant scrutiny may help prepare Howard for what may be his third career as the mayor of Atlanta. Though it will still be several months before he will decide if he’s running, the city is already buzzing about the possibility. “If he runs, I’ll contribute as much as I’m allowed, and I’ll vote for him,” noted talk show host Neal Boortz. “He’s easily the most honest man I know.”

Should he elect to run for mayor, ­Howard’s platform will include some issues that will make life a bit easier for those who live, work and play in Atlanta. He’d like to streamline the permitting process, creating an understandable and customer-friendly system for people to follow when they want to build something in the city. Plus, he would like to make a few changes to the area’s thoroughfares to improve traffic flow, from reworking sections of Peachtree Street where people would have to go right to turn left (a common design in New Jersey) to fining motorists who block the intersections. And he’d hire trained traffic safety officers to write tickets and accident reports, allowing the city’s police officers to focus their energy on fighting crime.

“I’d be a lot more popular going into office than I’d be leaving office because I really would spend the people’s money like it was my own,” Howard said. But that doesn’t mean that the cheapest bid will always win, especially when it comes to the possibility of approving a major repair to the city’s infrastructure. “That’s a ­different situation; that really needs to last,” he said. “When I talk about accepting lower quality for a lower price, that’s for me. That’s the way I live my life. But my wife will tell you that I’m only cheap with myself. And that’s probably true.”

Howard’s long-time executive ­producer, Christa DiBiase, agreed. “Of course, he gets the best price, but he’s just an unbelievably giving person. Even though I love working in radio, if he ever were to run for office, I would probably drop everything to help him because I think he would be an unbelievable leader and a great person to lead a city or a state. I hope that’s in his future, and if it is, I’ll support him 110 percent.” PN