Following a suggestion made by Roy Fess of the Buffalo Courier Express, Howard started the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in 1937.The first class consisted of three men, the first being Frederick Wise, an unmarried welder from New Jersey. The other two pupils include Howard's personal friend and a neighbor. Wise was the only pupil to pay the $15.00 tuition.
The lack of success was a hard learned business lesson for Howard as store owners remarked that if a lesson on how to become Santa only cost $15.00, then it must not be worth much. Howard gradually increased the tuition, first to $25.00, then $40.00, and eventually to $50.00. As enrollment jumped to more than forty, a grocery store chain asked him to visit Chicago in order to conduct a school for their Santas.
From 1948 to 1965, he was the featured Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, perhaps the most visible Santa in the United States.
According to wikipedia
