Tom Landis, born in Washington, DC, has a mom who had polio. “One leg was a lot shorter than the other, so she couldn’t drive, and we took public transportation everywhere. She never complained, and she taught GED classes.”

After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, Tom worked for the largest ad agency in the Southwest before opening his own firm in 1993. He won blue chip clients including World Cup 1994, Snickers and M&M/Mars.

In 1996, Tom expanded his portfolio and opened his first restaurant, a sandwich shop from Austin called, “Texadelphia.” He opened six more franchises while realizing the back of the house employee base was untapped. With English, many of his beloved employees could progress beyond the kitchen, earn more, and become managers.

Tom created a way to transform restaurants into classrooms during the off-peak hours (between lunch and dinner).

With one way-video (Cable TV) and two-way audio (simple phone w/ speaker) a professor from a Community College was able to teach what grew to 1,300 employees across dozens of restaurants.

In 2001, Landis was the first non-Hispanic to receive the LULAC Businessman of the Year Award. In 2002, The Center for Nonprofit Management named Landis, “Social Entrepreneur of the Year.”

Landis went on to open six Pizza Patron restaurants across the Metroplex.

In 2015, Tom read a book that would start an entire new chapter in his life. Legendary Coach Gene Stallings wrote a book, Another Season, about his son, Johnny. Born June 12, 1962, Johnny, his mom Ruth Ann, and Coach changed the way the world embraces those with special needs.

But, what glared out, was the fact that still today the sustainable and meaningful jobs for those with special needs are far too scarce.

And at the same time, the restaurant industry has the worst turnover of any segment.

Tom wanted to create a business that could employ the broadest spectrum of people. This would, by nature, be very replicable. Tom landed on ice cream because it is simple and safe. No burning grease, no knives, no grills.

The only way to make this a reality was to mortgage the home and go all in. This is what Tom and Margaret did in 2015.

“We wanted to be the first to prove that this was a better business model than any other employing neurotypical employees.”

In 2016, Landis received the George Washington Medal of Honor for his work pioneering workforce inclusion. He also recieved the Ryan Albers Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lex Friedan Texas Small Business of the Year Award.

After opening the ice cream shop, Landis’ vision was to use The State Fair of Texas as a platform to jump into retail. For three years Howdy was powered by literally hundreds of people with special needs working at the fair.

In 2019, Landis was selected by Amazon Prime to be featured in an international TV Show called, “Vacations of the Brave.”

Later that year, he received the prestigious Johnny Stallings Award, sharing the podium with LSU Football Head Coach Brian Kelly.

In 2021, Landis began franchising Howdy Homemade across the country. That same year, after five consecutive attempts over five years, Landis won the HEB Quest for Texas Best Award. He is also a two-time Texan of the Year runner-up.

His ice cream is now sold in HEB, Albertsons, Tom Thumb, Randall’s and Publix grocery stores across the country. He and the Howdy Homemade team have pioneered ways for those with special needs to play pivotal roles in marketing via sampling programs. This is the key to creating thousands of jobs for those with IDDs.

We recently signed our 7th franchise agreement, in Kansas City, with four more on the way!