Howard S. Avery was born in Canon City, Colorado, in 1906. His family moved to Virginia when he was eleven, and he attended high school in Roanoke and college in Blacksburg. He received a B.S. in Mining & Engineering in 1927 and an Engineer of Mines degree with honors in 1928, both from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Avery was very active during his student days at VPI. He was a member of the track team, the rifle club, the radio club, and the boxing club. In 1927 he served as the photographic editor of the Bugle yearbook. He was married in 1935 to Louise Steele, and they had four children.

Following several years of mining engineering and geology work in Mexico, steel mill experience, and teaching, he joined the newly organized Metallurgical Department of the American Brake Shoe Company, now the Abex Corporation, located in Mahwah, New Jersey in 1934. He is identified with this company's research in various aspects of industrial wear. As a research metallurgist his duties involved planning and supervising research and development of alloys to resist heat, abrasion and impact. He became internationally known in the field of metallurgy, conducting pioneering work in the areas of precise creep-rupture testing, thermal fatigue evaluation, and carburizing behavior. Two of his technical papers garnered Lincoln Gold Medal awards, and he received the first Award of the New York Chapter of the American Society of Metals. He also contributed to several engineering handbooks, was issued a number of patents, and is the author of several dozen technical papers. His career at the Abex Corporation lasted until his retirement in 1971. Afterwards he continued his research career and acted as a consultant, including continuing work for Abex, through the 1990s.

Professional affiliations outside the Abex Corporation include the American Welding Society, The American Society for Metals, the Metal Science Club, The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, The American Society for Quality Control, and the British Iron and Steel Institute. Avery also had a wide range of outside interests and participated in activities that included training Boy Scout leaders, supervision of a junior rifle club, operating an amateur radio station W2HBH, and service on the Mahwah, New Jersey Board of Education and as a Civil Defense Director. Howard Avery passed away in August 1996 in Roanoke, Virginia.