Ryan Howard

President RMH Systems

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Ryan Howard is President of RMH Systems, a Waukee, Iowa company that designs and integrates material handling, packaging, robotics and industrial scale systems for manufacturers, warehouses and distribution centres. He is the third generation of his family to lead the business, working alongside his father, CEO Tom Howard. Since February 2025, when the family brought in Rotunda Capital Partners as a strategic capital partner and kept a minority stake, RMH has become an acquisition platform, adding robotics, Ohio material handling and national warehouse automation capabilities in quick succession.

Career Highlights

• President of RMH Systems, and the third generation of Howard family leadership at the company.
• Continued leading RMH, with the family retaining minority ownership, under the February 2025 capital partnership with Rotunda Capital Partners.
• Announced RMH’s acquisition of Complete Solution Robotics in August 2025 and of Top Shelf Integrated Solutions in Columbus, Ohio, in July 2026.
• Announced the August 2022 acquisition of DAK Solutions, which gave RMH access to the Chicago market.
• Has written about RMH’s growth past 100 employees for the first time in early 2021 and its launch of a robotics systems integration division in 2019.

Professional Journey

Howard grew up around the business. He has written that at fourteen he mowed the lawn at the old building of Riekes Material Handling, now RMH Systems, when it employed around thirty people, and that his grandfather and father had been at the helm for thirty years. By 2021 he was signing company posts as President, based in RMH’s Minneapolis office and responsible for strategic planning, growth initiatives and marketing.

His writing from that period describes a deliberate appetite for calculated risk. He counts three bets: the 2017 acquisition of a 28-person Twin Cities competitor (RMH announced its acquisition of Skarnes, a Twin Cities distributor, that March), now RMH Minnesota; the launch of a robotics systems integration division in 2019, after years of subcontracting that work; and continuing to hire through the 2020 downturn rather than cutting staff or wages. In the first quarter of 2021 RMH passed 100 employees for the first time. “Calculated, strategic, growth-oriented risk is worth going after,” he wrote. In August 2022 RMH acquired DAK Solutions, extending its reach into Chicago; Howard said DAK’s “investment in technology, products, and most importantly, people will go a long way in promoting future growth in Illinois for RMH.”

In February 2025 the family announced a strategic capital partnership with Rotunda Capital Partners, under which Tom, Ryan and Chad Howard retained minority ownership and continued to lead the company, and RMH became a platform for acquiring similar businesses. “With Rotunda’s support, we will remain RMH Systems – staying true to our culture, our people, and our values,” Howard said. The add-ons followed: Complete Solution Robotics in August 2025, whose founder stayed on to run RMH’s robotics division; Top Shelf Integrated Solutions in July 2026, establishing a presence in central Ohio, which Howard called “another important step in RMH’s strategic growth”; and, later that month, Elgin, Illinois warehouse automation integrator Systems in Motion, which the company presented as creating a national end-to-end material handling and automation platform.

Education

No education record was found in the sources consulted.