Dr. Ralph L. Howell Jr., a dentist in Suffolk, has been elected as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Health Care Foundation for fiscal year 2017.

Howell is the owner of R.L. Howell DDS & Associates, a family-operated dental practice. Using insight from his own practice, Dr. Howell teamed up with two dentists to form Atlantic Dental Care, a hybrid group practice composed of 108 dentists serving Hampton Roads.

Howell is a past president of the Virginia Dental Association. Currently, he represents the VDA as a delegate to the American Dental Association and serves on the ADA Council on Communications. Previously, Howell served on the strategic planning committee for the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

He serves on the boards of the Virginia Dental Association Foundation; the Colonial Virginia Council Executive Board for the Boy Scouts of America and the Board of Directors of United Church Homes and Services.

Recently, Dr. Howell was appointed to serve on the Board of Trustees of the Obici Healthcare Foundation. He is a member and past president of the Suffolk Rotary Club.

Howell received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the College of William and Mary and his Doctor of Dental Surgery with honors from the Medical College of Virginia. In June 2012, he was awarded the Masters from the Academy of General Dentistry.

Howell has been honored as the Western Tidewater Free Clinic’s Volunteer of the Year and has received the Richard F. Simmons Memorial Award by the Tidewater Dental Association and the Leadership Award by the Virginia Dental Association.
The Virginia Health Care Foundation is a nonprofit public/private partnership whose mission is to increase access to primary health care for uninsured and medically underserved Virginians.

The Foundation was initiated by the General Assembly and its Joint Commission on Health Care in 1992. Since its inception, it has funded 380 community-based projects across the commonwealth, and its programs and partnerships have touched the lives of more than 600,000 uninsured Virginians.