At this year’s NAMTA show, Howard Kaufman will be presented with the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the founder and President of Princeton Brush Company. With over forty years of industry experience, Howard’s career began as a sales rep for Chartpak in NYC, LI and Northern NJ. A native New Yorker, he is still referred to as Howie Chartpak by old time customers. After working his way up the corporate ladder for the first twenty years, Howard left his job as General Manager of Grumbacher to begin Princeton Brush in the basement of his home in 1992.
Though nobody needed or wanted another brush line, Princeton was very competitive from the outset as a low overhead business. As the expression “inventory rules” Princeton has always been able to ship quickly with the highest fill rates in the industry. So as the business grew, so did the inventory which soon eclipsed the basement, living and dining rooms.
A veteran who served in the Air Force in Southeast Asia, Howard is married to his wife Debbie (who regained her house space last year when Howard moved the company into a 17,500 sq foot warehouse) and they have two daughters, Lauren and Ashley.