he phrase “the new normal” has been thrown around since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as America struggles to define—and design—what that is exactly, colleges are paving the way for what it might look like.

After the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, colleges and universities throughout the Baltimore region began to find their groove as they moved into the 2021-2022 school year. Coronavirus safety committees had been erected, new mandates put in place, safety protocols implemented—everything from vaccine requirements to temperature checks to quarantine procedures and wastewater testing that can pinpoint a COVID infection before anyone is symptomatic.

By some counts, colleges may very well be the safest places to live and work.

“Just following simple rules of wearing face masks and social distancing, using wastewater management and testing when we need to, we have, in many ways, been able to return to normal life,” says Goucher College President Kent Devereaux. “Full athletics, student clubs, dining in the dining hall, use of the library—everything that you’d normally have, we’ve been able to return to.”

Despite the challenges and anxieties faced by students, staff, and faculty alike, some unexpected silver linings have emerged.

“It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

The widespread adoption of technology across college campuses has proven to provide more flexibility, efficiency, and innovation—and even accessibility, in some cases. Counseling sessions, for example, began to be conducted remotely during the pandemic and many students found that they preferred it to in-person sessions. Students who cannot, for whatever reason, make it to an in-person class can now study from anywhere.

Challenging times, combined with advances in technology and the general acceptance of it, have also brought more cooperation and collaboration among schools. It’s becoming more common, for example, for schools that offer complementary programs to partner with one another to offer students an educational pathway to continue studies in their chosen areas. That may mean a discounted tuition rate, a transfer of class credits, or an internship through a partner school.

Maybe most importantly though, schools, at their best, foster an environment where students are supported, expand who they are, and connect with like-minded people. At a time when gathering together is not always safe, being in a community has become even more precious, and students have found new ways to connect.

OCA Mocha, a coffeehouse in Arbutus founded by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, is one example of how effective a gathering place can be at a time when people are craving human connection. What started as a class assignment—to design a community center of some sort—has become a gathering place not just for UMBC students and alumni, but the Arbutus community at large.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are extremely grateful to have this space,” says Michael Berardi, UMBC class of 2019 and co-founder and general manager of OCA Mocha, which stands for Opportunities for Community Alliances. The coffee shop includes a stage, a community room, and an art gallery, employs UMBC students and alumni, and provides internship opportunities for current UMBC students.

“We have local groups and organizations that meet regularly in our community space and are grateful to not have to meet in someone’s living room or church basement,” says Berardi. “We see a lot of connections being made. It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY
A historically Black institution founded in 1900, Coppin State University is situated in the heart of Baltimore City in the Mondawmin neighborhood. Part of the University System of Maryland in Baltimore, the school offers 32 undergraduate and 11 graduate degrees, along with nine certificate programs and one doctorate degree. It’s been rated No. 4 Best HBCU in the Nation (College Consensus), the Top 5 Best Value Online Program (Online School Center), and No. 17 Best Value in the Nation (College Consensus).

In the summer of 2021, CSU announced its Student Debt Relief Initiative, which clears roughly $1 million in student balances and provided a $1,200 credit to every student enrolled in the fall 2021 semester. CSU also created the Freddie Gray Student Success Scholarship, which is available to graduates of Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where Gray was a student.

Coppin also takes esports (competitive video gaming) seriously. In the fall of 2021, Coppin became the first HBCU to open a building on campus exclusively devoted to esports. The Premier Esports Lab opened in September with a guest appearance from Grammy-nominated artist Cordae.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,383 undergraduates, 341 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $6,809 in-state, $13,334 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 40%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Business, Biology, Education, and Criminal Justice, Rehabilitation Counseling

DICKINSON COLLEGE
Founded in 1783, Dickinson College is a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with a suburban campus that spans 144 acres. The school offers 41 undergraduate degrees within 17 fields of study.

It’s been rated as one of the best schools in the country for its sustainability efforts, which include an 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm. Princeton Review rated it No. 2 in the Top 50 Green Colleges, and it was rated No. 2 in Overall Top Performers among baccalaureate institutions in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s “Sustainable Campus Index” in 2019 and 2020.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,345
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $58,708
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 52%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: International Business, Economics, Political Science & Government, International Relations & National Security, General Psychology

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Gettysburg College, a private, liberal arts school, sits on 225 acres adjacent to the historical Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Many of the buildings on campus are historically significant, so it’s no wonder that it draws students interested in studying history.

The school offers 65 academic programs, more than 120 campus clubs and organizations, and 800 events on campus each year, plus more than 100 study-abroad opportunities open to students.

Its Majestic Theater serves as a venue for the greater Gettysburg community, hosting national acts as well as performances by the school’s Sunderman Conservatory of Music students.

It’s ranked No. 12 for “students who study the most” by the Princeton Review, which also ranked Gettysburg College’s dining hall No. 9 in the country for best campus food.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,600
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 10:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $59,960
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 56%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Political Science, Economics, Health Sciences, Organization and Management Studies, History, Psychology

GOUCHER COLLEGE
A private, liberal arts college in Towson, Goucher College prides itself on its close-knit community.

Goucher was extremely proactive when it came to COVID-19 precautions, being the first in the state to implement wastewater testing, which is able to isolate COVID infections by dorm.

Also of note: The college recently opened two new residence halls as part of the school’s First-Year Village. One hundred percent of Goucher students study abroad, and the school is committed to sustainability.

Most recently, Goucher has begun exciting partnerships with other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University, and more to come, to provide a pathway for students to continue their education beyond Goucher. For instance, their 4+1 MBA Program allows students to earn an advanced business degree through Loyola via a “Fast Track” admission process, and at a 15% discount on tuition.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,100
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $48,000
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 79%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Political Science, Business Administration

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) offers nine academic divisions and hundreds of courses of study, with campuses spread throughout Baltimore, including the Peabody Institute, a music and dance conservatory in Mount Vernon. Its main Homewood campus is located on North Charles Street.

The prestigious, world-renowned university has a strong reputation for its public health and medical studies and has been compared to Ivy League schools.

One of its points of pride is its financial aid program, which covers 100% of calculated need for every admitted student, without loans. This means JHU works with families to calculate what they can afford to contribute toward the total cost of attendance—including meals, books, travel, and other expenses—and JHU covers the rest with grants that don’t need to be repaid.

This school year, JHU added two new minors: Latin American Studies and Writing Seminars.

It also announced new efforts this year to move toward a broader, more flexible undergraduate educational experience that will include a required first-year seminar and the streamlining of major requirements to allow for greater intellectual exploration.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,333 undergraduates, 22,559 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 6:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $56,313 for Peabody Institute, $58,720 for the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 9%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, Economics, Public Health Studies, International Studies

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
This private, Jesuit institution offers undergraduate and graduate programs on a beautiful urban campus in northern Baltimore City. Education at Loyola is based in the Jesuit tradition of scholarship cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Loyola is known for its academic rigor while helping students lead purposeful lives. Seventy percent of students study abroad. It currently ranks fourth in best universities in the North region according to U.S. News & World Report.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 3,787 undergraduates, 1,353 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 12:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $53,430
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 80%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business, Management, Marketing, Journalism, Social Sciences, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Psychology, English Language and Literature, Engineering and Education.

McDANIEL COLLEGE
McDaniel College sits in a bucolic setting near Westminster in Carroll County. The private, four-year liberal arts college offers more than 70 undergraduate programs of study and more than 20 graduate programs. McDaniel’s most recent addition to its curriculum is a National Security Fellows Program that provides students with knowledge, skills, and experience in national security as well as the ability to specialize in an area of interest, such as interstate conflict, intrastate political violence, cybersecurity, ethics, and human rights.

Also new this year, McDaniel appointed an inaugural associate provost for equity and belonging who provides vision and leadership to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and works in collaboration with the provost to co-lead the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative committee, and guides the Bias Education Response Support Team.

The school also launched a new STEM Center to serve as a physical hub to support students studying the sciences. It hosts workshops and other events while also supplying online and hybrid support.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,757 undergraduates, 1,324 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $46,336
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Kinesiology, Business Administration, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The largest of Maryland’s HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Morgan is a public institution founded in 1867. It is situated in northeast Baltimore. As a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution, Morgan provides instruction to a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational student body and offers more than 140 academic programs at undergraduate and graduate levels. As Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan fulfills its mission to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment through intense community level study and pioneering solutions.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,270 undergraduates, 1,364 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 15:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $8,008 for in-state and $18,480 for out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 73%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Civil Engineering, Communications Engineering, Business Administration and Management, Social Work, Biology/Biological Sciences, Architecture, Finance, Psychology, Sociology

NOTRE DAME OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY
A private, Catholic liberal arts university in northern Baltimore, Notre Dame of Maryland University offers programs from undergraduate through PhD, as well as Maryland’s only women’s college. It recently launched the first master’s of art degree in Art Therapy program in the state.
The beautiful, wooded campus is just steps from the bustling downtown Baltimore culture. With values rooted in Catholicism, the school focuses on service to others and social responsibility.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 783
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 7:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $39,675
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 88%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Education, Biology, Art Therapy, Pharmacy

TOWSON UNIVERSITY
One of the largest public universities in the state, Towson University offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and continues to draw students from other states, though it remains part of the University System of Maryland.

Its campus continues to expand, with a huge new dining hall, a 23,000-foot recreation and fitness facility with an indoor swimming pool, and its 5,200-seat arena for sporting events and concerts. In 2021, it opened its new Science Complex, the largest academic building on campus at 320,000 square feet.

In September, Towson opened its StarTUp at the Armory, a space for startups and new businesses to engage with the broader community and larger businesses. It serves as a home to Towson’s entrepreneurship programs, as well as student competitions and events.

While Towson remains the largest supplier of medical professionals and educators in the state, the university has also built a strong reputation for its College of Fine Arts and Communication, as well as its Asian Arts & Culture Center, both of which bring students into the wider community and the Baltimore community to Towson for enriching performing arts, music, and visual art programs.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 17,907 undergraduates, 2,949 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 16:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $7,100 in-state, $22,152 out-of-state
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Exercise Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
University of Maryland, Baltimore is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university. Located in downtown Baltimore, it offers 86 degree and certificate programs through its six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary graduate school.

The school’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, employing 1,000 people, and remains on the cutting edge of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 7,244
• ANNUAL TUITION: Varies by school
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
University of Maryland, Baltimore County educates a campus of more than 10,000 students in programs spanning the arts, engineering, information technology, humanities, sciences, preprofessional studies, and social sciences. Located on the edge of Baltimore County, it allows easy access into the city and all the conveniences of suburban life and housing. It also offers plenty of opportunities for study abroad.

In the fall of 2021, UMBC opened the Center for Well-Being, a new two-story complex that houses Retriever Integrated Health, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and i3b’s Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being. UMBC’s already significant NASA partnerships have continued to grow. In October, NASA announced a major award of $72 million over three years for the new Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center. UMBC is leading the national consortium and will receive over $38 million. The GESTAR II consortium will support over 120 researchers, creating extensive opportunities for breakthroughs in Earth and atmospheric science research, and providing major opportunities for students to conduct research and be mentored by NASA scientists and engineers.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 13,638
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 17:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $12,280 in-state, $28,470 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts

 

Cited tuition costs exclude room and board and books.

Getting people downtown again for shopping, dining, and events. Helping businesses reopen and rehire. Keeping commercial office and retail space filled.

Those are just a few of the challenges facing the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore (DPOB) as the business district tries to bounce back from the pandemic lockdown. But the economic development agency’s board thinks it has just the woman for the job: An electrical engineer.

Well, okay, Shelonda Stokes, just named president after serving in an interim leadership role, is no longer a practicing electrical engineer, but it was her major at Morgan State University. And she thinks that skill set can help DPOB dial up the voltage on the downtown area.

Named by the organization’s board of directors as its fourth president, Stokes replaces Kirby Fowler, who left to become president and CEO of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore this past April. Stokes, a long-serving member of the Partnership’s board, became its chair last fall and was asked to serve as interim president when the COVID-19 pandemic shut the nation down in March. Prior to accepting that appointment, she was president and CEO of greiBO Media, a marketing and production studio based in Downtown Baltimore.

As interim president of an organization deemed “essential” during the shutdown by Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, Stokes worked to outfit the Partnership’s operations teams with PPE and the proper safety protocols so they could return to providing public safety, litter removal, homeless outreach, and park maintenance services. She oversaw creation of the #CurbsideBaltimore gift-card program that has provided local restaurants and retailers with an infusion of cash, launched the #ArtofBaltimore public art initiative, and has taken over Heart of the Park, a service began by Harbor Park Garage and Pierpoint Restaurant that provides 250 free meals daily.

But what about that electrical engineering degree?

“I grew up extremely poor,” says the 48-year-old Baltimore native and mother of two. “I was the first in my family to go to college. And I went into that major at Morgan to make sure I’d be in a field where there’d be no question about employment. And, in fact, after I graduated, I got seven job offers. But, actually, the essence of many technical fields is about problem-solving. And I apply those technical skills on a daily basis.”

The Partnership is really two organizations. One focuses on marketing the downtown area, which is supported by revenue from events and membership dues from downtown businesses. The other is the Downtown Management Authority, which oversees improvements to public spaces in the 106-city-block area and is funded by a surcharge on the taxes of commercial properties downtown.

But because of business closures caused by the pandemic, the funding for the prior operation is facing real strains.

“So we have to figure out how we can offer more with less,” she says. “And that’s something we’re definitely focused on as a priority.”

Another priority is getting the word out that Charm City is open for business.

“Many people have learned to work from home, they’re saving gas, and they don’t have to dress up in the morning—that’s a reality,” Stokes says. “So we have to give them a reason to leave that and come back downtown and spend money.”

And how long will that take? The Owings Mills resident—who’s about to move to a new home downtown—says it’s hard to project.

“We’re still in Stage One. And the city has to find a balance between people’s health and the economy. It’s going to be a while, but we’ll see incremental progress.”

So how does it feel to lose the “interim” part of her title?

“It’s pretty funny,” Stokes says. “It’s like being a substitute teacher at work.”

Sometimes, it’s about re-inventing yourself.

Example: There’s a metro-area charter-bus company that used to super-clean its buses with a powerful disinfectant spray before each booking—that was before the pandemic.

Most of the workers have been laid off in the past two months, leaving the owner staring at shelves and shelves of the spray bottles. Lightbulb: Answer the sudden demand from office-building management companies, government agencies, and other building owners in the Mid-Atlantic to seriously sterilize their properties.

“That’s the kind of commercial morphing and innovation you’re going to see all over the metro area in the months to come,” says 35-year financial services veteran Christopher Helmrath, managing director of Ellicott City-based SC&H Capital, an investment banking division of SC&H Group that specializes in mergers and acquisitions (which often is about knowing what companies are ready to sell for cheap—or how their factories can be adapted to produce other products.) “And you’re going to see a big shift in jobs.”

Can’t hold a traditional funeral? There’s this startup called econdolense.com that’s producing virtual services at Sol Levinson & Bros., the leading funeral home for the Jewish community. Can’t keep your restaurant open with curbside delivery? Some have begun selling groceries to take up the slack from stressed-out chains like Giant and Safeway.

“In the biggest re-allocation of resources and worker skills since World War II—when companies like GM went from making Pontiacs to warplanes—it’s going to be about adapting to the new norm, or being left out of the picture,” says Helmrath. “Suddenly now, you have Under Armour making face masks, as well as that My Pillow company we saw on the TV ads, and automakers producing ventilators.”

And those sorts of tectonic shifts are going to open up employment for tens of thousands of Baltimore workers who’ve been laid off, from the hospitality and restaurant industries to workers in transport and gaming. The only question is how long that will take.

So there’s lots of losers, but there’ll be winners, too, from remote-meeting software to liquor stores, grocers, delivery companies, Amazon, or the people that make Chlorox and Charmin—as well as, it turns out, the cannabis industry. And, of course, bankruptcy lawyers.

One big question mark is commercial office space.

“After they learned to work remotely for the most part, are all the companies in downtown Baltimore really going to need all that office space at $60 a square foot? So then what are the empty office buildings or hotels going to be used for?” Helmrath asks. And that shift, in turn, could crank up demand for home-computer upgrades, as well as generating new technologies like video teaching and health-care products. “You’ve seen Baltimore hospitals so far managing to triage the situation without thousands of people showing up in emergency rooms, by using parking-lot tests and telemetry. And those lessons will change urgent care.”

In the case of teleworking and those potentially empty office buildings, economics and real-estate expert Luis E. Quintero, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business, sees an opportunity for Baltimore.

“The transition to remote work that is happening now is bound to transform the way we work in the long run,” Quintero says. “We will not all move towards teleworking, of course, but some will. Remote work can also happen between branches of the same firm. The next step will naturally be moving office space to locations with cheaper real estate and keeping headquarters in high-productivity expensive cities. This can benefit Baltimore.”

And then, there are Baltimore’s landlords.

“The whole real-estate value chain can be disrupted in this crisis,” Quintero says. “Landlords that cannot collect rents, which will be affected by both growing unemployment and measures in the proposed stimulus bill that includes a moratorium on evictions. So landlords will not be able to make proper maintenance, which will accelerate depreciation of real estate.”

And the same goes for real-estate sales, he adds. “Multiple listing services have already reported that closings, new contracts, and new listings are down 25-30 percent year over year in the last two weeks of March, even despite low mortgage rates.” This might spur refinancing and improve the monthly mortgage payments.

However, the decline in real estate value would also deepen the share of homes with negative equity. The proposed stimulus package includes the mortgage holders right to request forbearance. This can benefit struggling homeowners, but can affect investors in mortgage-backed securities and banks that service loans.

Nationally, there’s plenty of financial liquidity to get through this and the federal government is willing to print more money to make it work, but Baltimore may be in a better position than some cities to recover quickly, Helmrath says.

That’s because of federal government jobs (i.e. a federal court, the Social Security Administration, the NSA and other intelligence agencies) and a financially healthy state government.

“Outside of the city, Maryland also has a great deal of wealth that other areas don’t have to weather this,” Helmrath says. “But this is really a time to look at what you can create that’s new and needed, something that wasn’t there before.”

And, so, exactly how long will this drag on before any recovery can start?

“Maryland’s stay-at-home order was given later than would have been optimal,” says Quintero. “The epidemic curve was allowed to accelerate. There aren’t significant studies at the city level, but the projections for the whole state of Maryland, in terms of peak deaths, has now been updated to May 1 in a study by the University of Washington and The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). This is already taking into account the stay-at-home order, and assuming the population complies. So the situation is not positive.”

A tall slender man in a red baseball hat cruises around the roller rink alone at Shake & Bake Family Fun Center in Upton. The music is loud and a crowd of onlookers chats and sips their drinks. In time, once the beer kicks in, a brave dozen or so will join him. Their business-casual suits and summer dresses will look odd paired with his jean cutoffs and bandana, but no one will care.

The man is Patrick Rife, co-founder of Startup Soirée, a regular event that brings the local business community together. After he completes a final loop, he invites Innovation Village’s Richard May onto the rink. Rife introduces May and outlines the concept behind Innovation Village, a program designed to bring economic growth to Central West Baltimore, before the pair launches into an off-the-cuff discussion about race, class, entrepreneurship, and access to technology through the lens of May’s project. The rapt crowd leans against the walls of the rink, too engaged by the conversation to remove their skates first.

This is just one example of Startup Soirée functions, which also feature food and drinks from local vendors and a town-hall style discussion between Rife and a featured speaker. The networking events are free and the discussions don’t focus simply on how to be successful in business, but how to be successful in business in Baltimore.

Startup Soirée’s origin story is fairly simple. Rife is the co-owner of the now ubiquitous Pixilated photo booth company. (If you’ve been to a party with a photo booth, that’s probably them.) He and his business partner, Nicolas China, saw that local business owners (themselves included) needed a way to connect, and knew they had the skills to do it better than they’d seen it done so far.

“We built Startup Soirée because we didn’t like being mowed down by people doing sales networking,” explains Rife over rooftop beers. “We wanted to build something that had a greater inherent value for the attendee. We have a different perspective on the market and see the value in the young creative and entrepreneurial class of Baltimore getting together.”

The discussions don’t focus on how to be successful in business but how to be successful in Baltimore.

It’s not that surprising that Rife and his team thought they could build a better networking model. He thought he could build a better photo booth, too. After seeing an early-concept photo booth at a wedding, Rife and China believed it could be improved upon, and designed the prototype of the stand-alone concept they use now. They opened Pixilated in 2012. Their first office was near Belvedere Square, but they have now moved to a 2,600-square-foot warehouse off Caton Avenue on James Street (also the original event space for Startup Soirée).

Pixilated’s initial focus was weddings, but they quickly realized there could be no real growth if they only worked on weekends. China and Rife began to explore other opportunities for growth and turned to the business-to-business world. Through dedicated social media and networking efforts, Pixilated started building its brand—and people took notice.

Specifically, Jessica Gignac and Rachel Robinson. Acquaintances since high school, the duo worked as event planners at Medifast, but left their jobs to found Intrinsic Events, an event management and planning company. In a digital-age meet-cute, they discovered Pixilated on Instagram and watched its rise through the app. Intrinsic, like Pixilated, relied heavily on the wedding industry and was looking to depend less on brides and more on business clients. By the time the four entrepreneurs met in real life, both of their companies were expanding, and they were already well versed in the challenges of making meaningful connections in Baltimore’s B-to-B universe.

“When [China and Rife] approached us about becoming their Startup Soirée business partners it was a no-brainer to get onboard,” says Robinson. “Startup Soirée is about building a community through relationships and looking out for one another. It’s not about how many business cards you can hand out in an hour—it’s about getting to know like-minded people, sharing ideas, and helping one another grow.”

The connectivity and lack of sales networking are two of the things that set Startup Soirées apart from other networking events and organizations. Though the events are sponsored by big names like Smartlogic and InvestEd, the corporate sponsors are not offered carte blanche access to the attendees. The model exists around the belief that by quietly showing their support of local startups, the community will turn to those sponsors if their services are required. Rife says it’s an unusual concept, but one that has paid off.

“Many of us have been through the same struggles, the highs and lows of growing a business.”

Their effort to eschew the traditional mainstays of networking successfully seeps into other facets of the Soirees—like the fact that the nametags handed out at registration are blank. Despite being at a gathering specifically designed to make business connections, the majority of networkers tend to fill in only their name and business, not job title. In nearby status-conscious D.C., that detail is worth mentioning. Obviously career data emerges eventually, but in Baltimore, an impressive nametag subtitle isn’t the typical conversation starter. The need to feel deeply connected and to connect with others in ways beyond the superficial is palpable.

“I love the small-business community in Baltimore,” says Carlee Pipitone, founder of wine importer Tenth Harvest, and a partnering sponsor of Startup Soirée. “Many of us have been through the same struggles, the highs and lows of growing a business. It’s inspiring to hear stories and connect with people in a wide range of industries who come as guests or speakers at Startup Soirée.”

Across town, a month after the Shake & Bake event, a fresh batch of 60 or so professionals gather in the Morgan Stanley building at the office of Horsetail Technologies, a company that provides information technology services for credit unions. Tonight’s speaker is Horsetail founder and CEO Chris Sachse. The company’s work isn’t sexy, and the conversation dips its toes into the jargon pool a few too many times, but the information seems relevant to nearly every person in the room.

By a show of hands, more than a third indicate they’re working to build software for their companies. Sachse and Rife discuss Horsetail’s fundraising efforts, how to discover an untapped market, and changing perceptions—broad, arching themes pertinent to anyone in the business world. Unlike the Innovation Village discussion, this talk isn’t emotionally powerful, but it drills down into practical applications.

Startup Soirées vacillate in this way each month. Rousing, affecting conversations meant to inspire give way to frank dialogues about how to actually go out and make things happen. And in the ultimate display of “show, don’t tell,” the events themselves are bolstered by local businesses that are thriving in Baltimore.

“It was the first place I got to meet people my own age, who were choosing a similar career path.”

The Soirées rely not just on corporate sponsors, but also on the symbiotic relationships formed with their partner sponsors—local outfits that use the platform to share their goods with the crowd. Dana Sicko, founder and CEO of Gundalow Juice and Nutreatious (sister companies that offer cold-pressed juice and professional chef catering services, respectively), has known the Soirée team since they all shared space in the building on James Street.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without Startup Soirée,” she says. “It was the first place I ever got to meet people my own age, who were choosing a similar career path. People who come to the events start their businesses because they want to help people in Baltimore.”

There is something almost parental in Startup Soirée’s compulsion to put Baltimore startups first. Each decision is calculated to place the spotlight onto a fledgling business or concept and to foster collaboration.

Remember Light City Baltimore, that weeklong display of lights, music, and art? Well, Startup Soirée was a big part of it.

When Intrinsic Events was approached by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA) to helm the conference portion of Light City’s inaugural year, Gignac and Robinson jumped at the opportunity, even though it meant having only four months to pull together a massive, days-long event with no preexisting blueprint. They tapped into their Startup Soirée community, successfully courting companies like Whole Foods Market and local talent like DJ Al who offered in-kind services. Pixilated jumped onboard to run registration and make connections, and the team started planning a massive Soirée for the citywide festival.

“Light City was six days of everything falling into line,” says Gignac of the community’s response.

Their success with the event came, in no small part, because Soirée and Intrinsic didn’t hesitate to share their spotlight. And, like any startup entrepreneur, they were able to alter their plans on a dime to turn potential adversity into an advantage.

Enter Moms as Entrepreneurs (MAE), a team of local women who offer affordable business training to mothers in Baltimore and who planned a launch party the same evening as the Light City Startup Soirée event at the Columbus Center. Rife knew that a major faction of the startup community would be attending the Light City event, which meant MAE and its event host, Impact Hub Baltimore, would likely have a low turnout. The Startup Soirée team reached out and invited MAE to be a part of the Light City event. The result: Moms as Entrepreneurs was given a platform of hundreds from which to launch its endeavor, Impact Hub was given a sponsor nod, and Startup Soirée had an additional business to highlight for its crowd.

“We love the multiple-win scenario and we find it super easy to do,” China says. “We deal in karma.”

John Paterakis, 87

For good reason he was called the Bread Man: John Paterakis’ family-owned company, H&S Bakery, with him at its helm, has produced kazillions of loaves, rolls, muffins, and bagels over the past seven-plus decades. Additionally, through its Northeast Foods subsidiary, H&S has cranked out an untold number of hamburger buns as the principal supplier for McDonald’s. Of course, the nickname also applies to Paterakis’ multimillionaire status.

And yet, he was a decidedly unpretentious man, who lived in the same Timonium home for nearly 50 years, drove the same car until its odometer exceeded 200,000 miles, and dressed casually, seldom seen in a suit. But despite the pains he took to operate under the public radar, Paterakis nonetheless left an indisputable imprint on the city and state. As a developer, he transformed the once-desolate waterfront between Fells Point and the Inner Harbor into a gleaming mix of shops, residences, offices, and hotels, collectively known as Harbor East. As a philanthropist, he generously supported the Ronald McDonald House charities, Greek businesses, and Greek Orthodox churches. And as a political kingmaker, he contributed significant sums to the campaigns of governors (Spiro Agnew, Marvin Mandel) and mayors (William Donald Schaefer, Kurt Schmoke, Sheila Dixon, Catherine Pugh).

Paterakis’ extraordinary success stemmed, in part, from his intrepidness: spending $1.5 million (in 1965, a lot of dough) on an automated, mass-production plant to manufacture buns for McDonald’s before he had secured a deal with the fast-food behemoth; and shelling out $11 million in 1985 on behalf of the cash-strapped city to develop that decrepit waterfront strip curiously called the Gold Coast, and then forging ahead with the project when the city refused to honor its pledge to buy back the land.

“John Paterakis was the quintessential self-made businessman,” notes Donald Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee. “He not only built a great company, but was completely dedicated to Baltimore and making it a great place to live, work, and raise a family.

“The city is fortunate that Mr. Paterakis had the foresight and willingness to take a risk and develop the challenged stretch of land that we now call Harbor East. That area is now recognized as a crown jewel for Baltimore, and has been a catalyst for jobs and economic activity. His legacy as a business and civic leader will run deep in the city’s blood for many, many decades.”

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Helen Delich Bentley, 92

Helen Delich Bentley brought a combative nature and a sharp tongue to her roles as a reporter covering the port of Baltimore, chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, and Republican congresswoman who served from 1985 to 1995—attributes forged during her upbringing amid challenging circumstances in rural Nevada. That intensity and fierceness earned her both friends and enemies in high places. Throughout, she tirelessly championed the city, the state, and, especially, the port, heading the maritime commission during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Today, the port bears her name.

In 1994, she achieved a rare setback, losing the Republican gubernatorial primary to Ellen Sauerbrey. Afterward, she worked as a lobbyist for the maritime and defense industries.

“She came up when women weren’t supposed to accomplish anything,” says David Blumberg, the chair of the Maryland Parole Commission and a decades-long Bentley friend. “When they hired her at The Sun, she said, ‘I’m not doing society stuff, I’m not doing cooking things, I’m not doing helpful hints—I’m a reporter.’ So they made her their port reporter, which was the most untenable position possible for a woman. But she embraced that, because she was as tough as any longshoreman she had to cover. The thing with Helen was, yeah, she had salty language and everybody knew it, but she could communicate with that segment so effectively . . . she was able to transcend any kind of difference that she may have had with people she was writing about or representing or serving.”

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David Modell, 56

Former Baltimore Ravens president, and son of Art Modell, David Modell passed away after battling lung cancer for nearly two years. Modell worked his way up the gridiron corporate ladder, starting as a grounds crew member for the Cleveland Browns when he was just 14 years old and eventually becoming president of the Ravens, a title he held from 1996 until 2004.

During his tenure, David made many monumental decisions for the organization including the hiring of former head coach Brian Billick, which led to the team’s first Super Bowl victory in 2000. “The foundation he laid led to one of the model franchises, I believe, in the NFL,” the team’s senior VP of public and community relations Kevin Byrne told BaltimoreRavens.com. “One of his keys, like his father, was he wanted the fans involved.”

In the wake of Modell’s death,The Ravens shared a story that exemplified just that: After the team had flown back from Tampa following its first Super Bowl win, they stopped right outside M&T Bank Stadium so that a crowd of fans could hold the Lombardi Trophy, which went on a tour for a year after that. “He wanted to get 100,000 fingerprints on it,” Byrne said. “He wanted the community to enjoy the trophy.”

In addition, it was Modell who was instrumental in getting the fans’ input on the team’s name and colors, as well as what amenities would be included inside M&T Bank Stadium. Modell also made sure to include a nod to Baltimore’s football past by resurrecting the “Marching Ravens” band, which played for the Baltimore Colts. “He is the godfather of the Marching Ravens,” band president John Ziemann told BaltimoreRavens.com. “I always told him he was the P.T. Barnum of the league.”

After 2004, Modell served as a consultant for the team, as well as on the board of directors of 3ality Technica, a 3D broadcast company. He lived in Baltimore with his wife, Michel, and their twins, daughter “Fee” (Aoife) and son “Bertie” (Bertram). He is also survived by daughters Breslin and Collier, and sons Arthur and David Jr., as well as his older brother John.

Modell was lauded for his accomplishments by the local media including Baltimore, which named him to our “40 Under 40” list in June 2001. “Luck clearly plays a role in getting to and winning the Super Bowl,” he told us. “But if you dream big dreams, are relentless in your pursuit of those dreams, and never give up, great things will happen. —Jess Mayhugh

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HARRIS / The Baltimore Sun

W. Dale Hess, 86

Like the home run kings of baseball’s so-called steroid era, W. Dale Hess—a successful Harford County developer, businessman, and farmer who served in the General Assembly for 15 years—will forever have the equivalent of an asterisk placed beside his name, based on his conviction in federal court on charges of mail fraud and racketeering in connection with a complicated racetrack scandal that also brought down former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel.

Elected to the House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1954, Hess ascended through the ranks as a key ally of Mandel, eventually serving as vice chair of the House’s powerful Maryland Ways and Means Committee. He also accumulated tracts of land in Harford County.

In 1970, Hess gave up his General Assembly post to become a vice president of Tidewater Insurance, a company that, five years later, became entwined in a federal corruption probe involving Mandel. Ultimately, Hess, Mandel, and four others were found guilty in 1977. (Hess served 18 months of a three-year sentence; in 1987, their convictions were overturned on what amounted to a technicality.)

Hess resumed working as a developer, owning apartment buildings, a shopping center, and a fast-food franchise. But his legacy remains tied to his participation in the racetrack scandal. In Thimbleriggers, Brad Jacobs’ perceptive 1984 book about Mandel, Hess is described as “a former Future Farmer of America who graduated to millionaire political fixer.”

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Quentin Lawson, 83

Quietly, doggedly, and professionally, Quentin Lawson spent more than 40 years performing the kinds of man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit administrative tasks that advance public agendas rather than personal ones. In other words, he never created headlines. And yet his management and policy-making expertise in human services, leadership development, and, most notably, education, bettered countless lives, particularly those of African Americans.

For city schools, he oversaw teacher-training programs and an initiative to decrease dropout rates. For the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, which he co-founded, Lawson sought to increase the number of African Americans in the top ranks of government.

Courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

As executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, he wove the connective tissue among academic, nonprofit, and government institutions necessary to improve African Americans’ economic, educational, and political standing.

Finally, as head of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, he worked to enhance the educational experience for teachers, administrators, and, especially, students. Nancy Grasmick, former state superintendent of schools and now the Presidential Scholar for Innovation in Teacher and Leader Preparation at Towson University, points out that “Quentin Lawson was recognized in this state and the nation as a policy expert on education who advocated for high-quality education for African-American children before this goal was on the national agenda.”

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Daniel Berrigan, 94

Handsome, urbane, and uncompromising, Daniel Berrigan came across as the undisputed rock star among the activist, renegade Catholic priests who, beginning in the 1960s, protested against the Vietnam War and nuclear arms in particular, plus racial, social, political, and economic injustice in general.

An award-winning poet and prolific author, Berrigan—along with brother Philip, also a Catholic priest, and seven others—staged a non-violent signal event in the anti-war movement: the 1968 ritual burning of draft cards at the Catonsville Selective Service draft board. Their group’s subsequent trial on charges of destroying government property galvanized activists nationwide. Found guilty, the Berrigan brothers went underground but were quickly arrested, with Daniel serving about two years in a federal prison. (Philip served two and a half years.) Daniel’s one-act play based on court transcripts, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, was made into a 1972 film produced by Gregory Peck.

Together, in 1980 the Berrigans established the no-nukes Plowshares Movement, their efforts resulting in repeated arrests, once for taking hammers to nuclear warheads at a weapons plant in 1980. Later, Daniel worked with AIDS patients and stoked the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

“His death symbolizes an ending of an era,” notes veteran local peace and justice activist Max Obuszewski. “One of my great memories is getting arrested with Dan in New York City’s Times Square as we protested Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program. Afterwards, the arrestees gathered at Dan’s apartment in Manhattan, a combination art gallery and resistance museum. Historic memorabilia covered most of the wall space.

“His wake and funeral at St. Francis Xavier church in Manhattan were memorable for the number of people who came out to honor this revolutionary. Before the funeral, hundreds of us marched in the rain from Maryhouse [where The Catholic Worker newspaper is published] in the East Village to the church. At the altar there was a banner that read, ‘Daniel Berrigan: priest, poet, prophet presente.’”

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AP Photo/NFL Photos

Willie Richardson, 76

While most of his teammates turned in subpar performances in the Baltimore Colts’ shocking 16-7 loss to the underdog New York Jets in 1969’s Super Bowl III, wide receiver Willie Richardson shone, catching six passes for a total of 58 yards. That came as no surprise, considering he was coming off sensational back-to-back seasons in 1967 and 1968, during which he caught a combined 100 passes, including 16 for touchdowns, efforts that earned him two-time Pro-Bowl status.

Drafted by the Colts in 1963 out of Jackson State College (now University), Richardson—a relatively diminutive 6 feet 1 inch and 198 pounds—played seven seasons with the team, then spent one with the Miami Dolphins, before finishing his career back with the Colts. Overall, he caught 195 passes for 2,950 yards and 25 touchdowns, retiring after the 1971 season. But he stayed in town, where he owned a liquor store, helmed sports director duties at Channel 45, and served as football coach at Johns Hopkins. In 1980, he returned to his native Mississippi, working for the state government for 25 years.

“He had all the attributes of being a phenomenal, all-around athlete,” recalls Richardson’s former Colts teammate, running back Tom Matte. “He had great hands for receiving and was wonderfully coordinated. [Colts quarterback Johnny] Unitas had a a lot of confidence in him. Willie would always get out there and get open, and that’s what helped keep us going. He was one of the integral parts of our team when we had so much success, when we were very, very close-knit.”

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Ted Marchibroda, 84

Moving over from his post as offensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, Ted Marchibroda assumed head coach duties for a 1975 Baltimore Colts squad that the previous season had chalked up a woeful record of two wins, 12 losses. He quickly reversed the team’s fortunes, as the Colts went 10-4 to cop the AFC East division title, then repeated as division champs in 1976 and ’77, although they lost in the first round of the playoffs all three years. After dismal seasons in 1978 and ’79, he was fired.

An innovator, Marchibroda pioneered the hurry-up/no-huddle offense as offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills from 1989 to 1991, a team that made it to the Super Bowl four consecutive times (1990 to 1993).

AP Photo/Darron Cummings

Later, he revived a moribund Indianapolis Colts franchise, and, in 1996, returned to Baltimore to serve as the Ravens’ first head coach, retiring after three losing seasons.

“He was a man of vision when it came to professional football,” recalls former Colts defensive back Bruce Laird, who played under Marchibroda from 1975 to 1979. “He developed the three-wide-receivers formation before anyone was really into it. But the biggest thing about Ted was he knew how to talk to his football team and how to have them understand that winning is a process. In the NFL, just wanting to be a winner is not enough: You have to work at it, you have to believe in it—and he was able to get that across to 50-some guys year-in, year-out.

“He talked to his team every day. I thought that was very important. We had a rapport. He knew his players, their personalities, their likes and dislikes. He was a gentleman who really taught a group of young men how to win.”

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Louis Grasmick, 91

Louis Grasmick batted a thousand—literally! Justly hailed for his achievements as a businessman, developer, philanthropist, and political go-to guy for Mayor William Donald Schaefer, Grasmick also holds the obscure but noteworthy distinction of briefly playing major league baseball, pitching in two games for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1948, and connecting for a hit in his lone at-bat.

More pertinently, Grasmick expanded his Pier 6-located lumber company from a small operation catering to the maritime industry into an international concern. Locally, he supplied goods to the National Aquarium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the World Trade Center. Additionally, his company helped plan and develop The Anchorage condos.

A key member of Schaefer’s kitchen cabinet, Grasmick spearheaded a successful city initiative to raise money to house the homeless, and put time and energy into his role on the board of the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Ever charitable, Grasmick, along with his wife, former state schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick, gifted the Johns Hopkins Heart Institute with $2 million and, at Schaefer’s urging, convinced his long-time friend, ex-City Solicitor and Judge George L. Russell Jr., to head the commission that launched the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture.

“He was such a bright star in this community,” recalls Russell. “Beginning in the early ’70s with a drive to build the new Provident Hospital, we participated together in a lot of charitable events. There were so many things he was involved with, particularly as a top fundraiser for various projects and causes. He was just so dedicated to public service.”

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Courtesy of The Baltimore Sun

Leroy “Roy” Hoffberger, 91

After securing grants and donations from businesses and foundations, plus state bond money, the American Visionary Art Museum needed one last financial infusion to ensure its 1995 opening. Unhesitatingly, AVAM co-founder Roy Hoffberger—attorney, businessman, philanthropist, and art collector—reached into his own pocket to auction off a clutch of his cherished German Expressionist works on paper.

Hoffberger personified menschdom, walking the walk and talking the talk, a philosophy encapsulated in the subtitle of his 2014 memoir Measure of a Life: What we leave behind is far more important than how far we get ahead.

His family’s foundation, which he chaired, has benefited numerous local medical, academic, and religious programs, and he gave privately, too.

“Roy had so much impact on the arts in Baltimore in so many directions,” says former BMA director Doreen Bolger. “It’s actually hard for me to think of anyone else who approaches his stature. He was a co-founder of AVAM. He was chairman of the board and a major donor to MICA, arguably the nation’s leading art school—the graduate program in painting bears his name. He formed an amazing collection of rare German Expressionist works, a significant number of which have been given to the BMA. Any one of these legacies would qualify him for everlasting gratitude. But all three? Wow!”

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Thomas Ward, 89

In 2007, a Bolton Hill burglar found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Retired judge and former Baltimore City Council member Tom Ward, 80 at the time and out for a walk in his neighborhood, heard cries for help and leaped into action, tackling the suspect (6 feet tall!) and holding him until police arrived.

An attorney, Korean War veteran, and long-tenured member of the Mount Royal Democratic Club, Ward loved the city, working hard to protect its historic fabric. In 1967, he alone among council members voted against the proposed East-West Expressway, which would have wiped out vast swathes of several neighborhoods, particularly Fells Point. Ward also co-founded the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point.

Jed Kirschbaum / The Baltimore Sun

He was elected to the Baltimore Circuit Court in 1982, retiring in 1997, and, in 2014, was appointed chairman of the Baltimore City Liquor Board.

“One of the best friends that I ever had, who was originally a political enemy,” says city councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. “We went to war every time there was an election. But I’ll never forget the most wonderful thing happened: At one time, finally, I was invited to the Mount Royal Christmas party at Maryland Institute, and Tom Ward was there to welcome me. And it was like a coming-out party for me, like I had really made it. He was a skinny Irish guy with all the power they bring to every challenge. And he just never quit. He was honest, he was insistently ethical, and he was wonderfully loved—and feared.”

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Allan Prell, 79

An unusual combination of creative showman and meticulous newsman, WBAL Radio talk show host Allan Prell entertained listeners with novel antics, and, not incidentally, brought a left-of-center point of view to a station dominated by conservative on-air commentators. For example, there was the time Prell presided over a passel of taffy makers while broadcasting from WBAL’s penthouse. And the time listeners ear-witnessed the predictable chaos that ensued when he brewed root beer amid the comings and goings of colleagues in the station’s elevator. Not forgetting his weekly Craigslist-like “Honest Al’s Yard Sale,” whereby he hawked sundry items—some in worse-for-wear condition—offered up by his audience.

More seriously, Prell, an unvarnished liberal, sat down for a weekly informed exchange with staunchly conservative WBAL talk show host Ron Smith in a segment called “The Friday Tiff,” during which they would discuss —sometimes contentiously—current political affairs. Prell held court at the station from 1982 to 1999, when, after tensions apparently rose between him and WBAL management, he decamped to a post at a Seattle radio station, and, later, one in the Washington, D.C. area.

“He was the last moderate voice that ‘BAL had, the last holdout before they went to strictly conservative voices,” recalls Michael Olesker, former long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun and commentator on both local TV and radio (where he worked with Prell), who now does radio broadcasts for the national Talk Media News and writes columns and blog posts for JMORE. “And he was one of those rare birds from talk radio who actually left the studio to do some real reporting—went out and did some of his own legwork—whereas most radio talk show guys sit in the sanctity of the studio and pretend to see the whole world.”

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Jody Albright, 82

Tireless, implacable promoter and enabler of arts and culture left an indelible imprint both citywide and statewide by helping to create Artscape, launch the original Children’s museum at the Cloisters, found the Baltimore Book Festival, establish School #33 Art Center, and set up BMA tours for city students via the Art to the Schools program.

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Nathan Barksdale, 54

Convicted drug kingpin claimed to be the model for drug warlord Avon Barksdale on the HBO series The Wire. (Show creator David Simon said this was partly true.) Sentenced to 15 years, the real-life Barksdale participated in the anti-violence Safe Streets program upon his release, but was re-arrested in 2014 on drug charges and died in prison.

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Andre Brewster, 90

Piper & Marbury law firm managing partner represented numerous eminent local companies while shepherding the firm’s considerable expansion. Additionally, he protected key tracts as co-founder/board member of Baltimore County’s Land Preservation Trust, and, as board chairman, guided Johns Hopkins Hospital through crucial growth.

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Reginald “Reggie Reg” Calhoun, 50

Personable DJ initially made his rep on the city’s club music scene, before becoming a dominant on-air force in the mid-90s with 92Q (WERQ-FM), where he recognized the talent of emerging rapper Jay Z before he broke big nationally.

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Johnny Dark, 82

Highly rated Top 40 radio DJ at WCAO-AM when the station ruled the local airwaves during the 1960s. Holds the distinction of emceeing The Beatles’ 1964 concert at the Civic Center, the only time the group appeared in Baltimore.

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Edith “Edie” Dasher, 71

Co-founder (with husband Jim) of Worthington Valley nonprofit Garden Harvest farm, a donater of organically grown/raised fruits and vegetables, eggs, and meats to local soup kitchens and homeless shelters, while also offering on-site instruction in sustainable farming methods.

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Chris Delaporte, 75

Far-sighted director of Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks oversaw transition of municipal golf courses and the city zoo into nonprofits, brainstormed the Patapsco River’s Middle Branch’s rowing club, and brought Outward Bound to Leakin Park; later helped plan Oriole Park at Camden Yards as chief of the Maryland Stadium Authority.

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Julie Drake, 64

Assistant state’s attorney prosecuted the city’s most notorious child abusers, among them a mother, under the spell of a religious cult, who starved her 1-year-old son to death. As head of the State’s Attorney’s Office’s family violence division, she closed loopholes in the law in order to help prevent child abuse.

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Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 88

Physician and anesthesiologist who, as medical director of the national assisted suicide organization Final Exit Network, unapologetically advocated for “death with dignity,” purportedly helping arrange the deaths of approximately 300 people, prompting the state Board of Physicians to revoke his medical license.

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D.A. Henderson, 87

Spearheaded the World Health Organization’s successful initiative to eradicate smallpox in the 1960s and 1970s, before becoming dean of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose facilities and enrollment he greatly expanded. Also advised the White House and Department of Health and Human Services on bioterrorism.

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Joye Marino, 77

Doyenne of Baltimore hairstylists and colorists ran her Roland Park salon as a cozy coffee klatch, catering to local ladies and celebs alike, with a clientele that included Sen. Barbara Mikulski, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, and stripper Blaze Starr, whose flaming red hair hue she concocted.

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Carolyn Manuszak, 82

Assumed presidency of tiny women-only Villa Julie College in 1964, and, over 35 years, transformed it into a co-educational institution with 10 times as many students, a significantly larger campus, and the school’s first four-year degree and master’s programs, paving the way for its rebranding as Stevenson University nine years after her 1999 retirement.

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Tom Marr, 73

Memorable radio personality who started as a news reporter with WFBR-AM, ultimately becoming the station’s news director and member of its Orioles broadcast team for nearly a decade. Best remembered, however, for his subsequent role as a perceptive, informed conservative talk show host at WCBM-AM.

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Harry Meyerhoff, 86

Real estate developer and thoroughbred- racing enthusiast hit the jackpot as principal owner (with then-wife, Teresa, and son, Tom) of Spectacular Bid, who won the 1979 Kentucky Derby and Preakness before coming up short as a Triple Crown winner by finishing third in the Belmont Stakes. The colt returned to dominate the sport in 1980, copping Horse of the Year honors.

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Lou Michaels, 80

Versatile 13-year NFL left-footed placekicker/defensive end spent six solid seasons (1964-1969) with powerhouse Baltimore Colts teams, connecting on 107 field goals and scoring 586 overall points, but missed two key field goal attempts in the Colts’ deflating 16-7 loss to the upstart New York Jets in 1969’s Super Bowl III.

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Sidney Mintz, 93

The Johns Hopkins University anthropology professor (he co-founded the department) meticulously probed how food wrought enormous influence on international political, economic, cultural, and social institutions, writing about the phenomenon in several books, most unforgettably 1985’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.

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Susan Souders Obrecht, 61

Fashionable, formidable, and energetic publishing exec overhauled a sleepy Baltimore County community newspaper chain whose properties included the Towson Times, building it into a more dynamic operation. Later, she owned and operated regional lifestyle magazine Mid-Atlantic Country, before acquiring Baltimore magazine for two years, 1992 to 1994.

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Milt Pappas, 76

Right-handed starter won 110 games (and appeared in two All-Star games) for the Orioles between 1957 and 1965, before being traded to the Cincinnati Reds for outfielder
(and 1961 National League MVP) Frank Robinson.

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Royal Parker Pollokoff, 86

Ubiquitous Channel 11 presence from the 1960s to the 1990s played the kid-friendly part of P.W. Doodle, rode herd on countless children contestants on bowling program Pinbusters, and, perhaps most famously, shouted, “Hey, you kids, get off that furniture!” in a voice-over for a long-running slipcover commercial.

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Gene Raynor, 80

Parsed the complexities of city politics for public and press alike as director of the Baltimore City Board of Elections under Mayor William Donald Schaefer. He performed the same task statewide when Schaefer become governor, while also dabbling as a restaurateur at the Waterfront Hotel and Dalesio’s.

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Carl Schoettler, 83

Baltimore Sun news feature writer infused his prose with style, insight, and attention to detail and texture, whether profiling high-visibility figures or covering major news events such as the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

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Lor Scoota, 23

Promising rapper (born Tyriece Watson) on the cusp of attaining national recognition with rhymes that deftly captured the gritty reality of Baltimore’s streets was murdered while driving shortly after hosting a charity basketball event that also served as an anti-violence rally at Morgan State University. The crime remains unsolved.

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William Steinmetz, 89

Designer and artist who, along with his wife, Betty Cooke, established The Store Ltd. in The Village of Cross Keys in 1965, selling thoughtfully selected home goods and clothing, plus elegant jewelry designed and made by Cooke. The MICA alum also served the college as a trustee and devoted benefactor.

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Robert Timberg, 76

Naval Academy grad who suffered life-altering wounds as a Marine in Vietnam, then became an esteemed political reporter with The Evening Sun and The Baltimore Sun. In 1995, he authored the well-received book The Nightingale’s Song, which recounted the Vietnam War experiences of fellow Middies, including Sen. John McCain.

Back in the early 1960s, the folks at McCormick & Company were sure they had a hit on their hands. The homegrown spice and flavoring giant was launching a powdered, effervescent, children’s drink in foil packs they cleverly called “Fun.”

Charles “Buzz” McCormick Jr. was a company product manager at the time (he retired as CEO in 1999) and remembers the Fun days well. It seems Emerson Drug, Baltimore’s maker of Bromo-Seltzer, was having some success with Fizzies, a tablet that turned water into a bubbly soft drink—kind of like a fruit-flavored Alka-Seltzer. The spice guys decided to beat the Bromo boys.

“We came up with a granular product, which we thought was better,” the 85-year-old retiree says by phone from his Florida home. “We actually did a lot of TV advertising on it in three test markets [10 more the second year] and we did absolutely great.”

The Mad Men-era ad copy practically wrote itself: laughing, eager-eyed kids yelling, “We’re going to have Fun!” Buzz McCormick even recalls witnessing a boy having a full-on temper tantrum in a Baltimore grocery store after his mother refused to put Fun in their shopping cart.

A major, multi-state rollout was launched and McCormick execs sat back waiting for Fun sales to explode. But instead, the product did. Literally. The foil packaging technology of the day wasn’t up to the crushing production demands and many Fun packets leaked, allowing moisture to seep in. Water is what made Fun bubbly in a glass. And water in the foil packet is what made Fun a ticking time bomb on the warehouse shelf.

“The packets swelled up and burst so loud,” Buzz McCormick explains. “I remember a sales call with a [supermarket] broker in Florida one day, and he happened to put a couple packs on the floor in front of his foot and, by mistake, he stepped on one and it blew up like a balloon.

“Oh Lord, it was a disaster,” especially so in the South’s humid air, he concludes with a chuckle.

Buzz McCormick can laugh about the blunder now that it’s decades behind him. But perhaps his ready mirth is also born of the knowledge that such product flops—or busts, in this case—have been few at McCormick. How else to explain how the company his great Uncle Willoughby founded 125 years ago, peddling root beer extract door-to-door out of a Baltimore cellar, grew into the world’s largest spice maker, with more than $4 billion in annual sales and some 10,000 employees around the world?

In fact, the international business has flourished well beyond the spice rack into a global food giant, with its flavor concoctions now found in most grocery aisles—from baked goods to frozen foods—and in some 125 countries. Huge food chains use them, too. Kentucky Fried Chicken’s 11 herbs and spices? Yes, McCormick supplies some of those. Of course, there’s a certain crab seasoning they produce, too—all part of the company’s compelling history.

Old Bay, the spice most closely associated with McCormick today—at least for Baltimoreans—is celebrating two-dozen years as part of the company’s product line. McCormick, however, didn’t invent the beloved summertime spice, which was the work of one Gustav Brunn, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis and set up the Baltimore Spice Company in 1939. Over time, the unusual spice blend in the yellow tin has even made its way beyond the Mid-Atlantic and across the country, into Canada, and even parts of Europe. “I know I have personally seen it on the menu in the Netherlands,” says Old Bay brand manager Jessica Schatz. “The popular flavor profile of Old Bay is the one people have loved for 75 years. It’s classic, and we would never change that.”

The folks at McCormick also say Oprah lent a hand in broadening the Old Bay fan base when a multi-million selling 1994 cookbook she co-authored called for it in a couple of recipes. (Remember, before she was a one-woman media juggernaut, she was an ambitious young TV personality at WJZ.) Beyond the crab pot, the salty-hot mix is showing up in all kinds of places, possessing a near cult following. The Charmery ice cream parlor in Hampden has a popular Old Bay caramel flavor, while Frederick’s Flying Dog Brewery recently released its Old Bay beer, Dead Rise.

And, although McCormick & Company didn’t give Old Bay its name, Buzz knows how it came about, and it takes him back to his days working at the company’s plant on the Inner Harbor. “Right across the street, the Old Bay Line and Chesapeake Line sent ships to Norfolk every evening at 6 and 6:30,” he says. These passenger steamers sailed into the sunset in the 1960s, but what was initially called Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning, he notes, didn’t take off until Brunn renamed it in honor of these boats.

Still, long before the acquisition of Baltimore’s favorite crab seasoning, as the Fortune 1000 company was cutting a wide swath through the food world, McCormick was leaving a substantial mark on its hometown as well. And it all started with a hard-bitten Virginian armed with borrowed cash and big dreams.

Buzz McCormick was a tyke of four when great uncle Willoughby McCormick died in 1932 at age 68, but he has distinct memories of his ancestor. “He lived two blocks away from us in the Warrenton Apartments on Charles Street,” he says. “I remember being up in his apartment and seeing him and his wife, and she played Chinese checkers with me.

“He had an electric car in those days, and a chauffeur, and he used to go down to the plant in his electric car,” he adds. “How many years has it taken to get back to that?”

Owning the Prius of its day might have been a nod to modernity, but the founder was largely an old-school, autocratic industrialist of the high-collared, 19th-century variety. Or, in his great-nephew’s words: “He was a tight-fisted Scotsman who never threw away a used envelope so long as it still had room for additional writing.” Willoughby McCormick was born in Northern Virginia and developed an interest in the food trade while working at a family general store in Texas. He birthed his business in Baltimore in 1889 because the port city was well positioned as a distribution center. (Coincidentally, the same year that he began peddling root beer in Baltimore, a man named Emile Zatarain began doing the exact same thing down in New Orleans; his effort grew into the bulging Zatarain’s brand of Cajun and Creole food products that McCormick bought 11 years ago for $180 million.)

Along with extracts and juices initially sold door-to-door, there were curious non-food items, including Uncle Sam’s Nerve and Bone Liniment “fit for man or beast” and the smelly, fish-based Iron Glue that “sticks everything but the buyer.” Spices didn’t join the fold until Willoughby McCormick bought the F. G. Emmett Spice Company of Philadelphia in 1896—growth by acquisition eventually becoming a McCormick & Company hallmark.

The business had already emerged from its initial year in a glorified cellar to reside in a series of ever-larger downtown locations. But don’t look for any of these old buildings today, because in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, you’ll recall, some 80 blocks of the city went up in smoke. “We lost everything but our books, which we got out at about 3 o’clock this morning,” Willoughby wrote in a letter home to his mother. “We had to run for our lives.” The tenacious McCormick had a spanking new five-story factory erected on the ashes of the old before the year was even out. The company soon added tea to its line and helped pioneer the manufacturing of tea bags. (Before machinery was developed to stitch them, the tea bags were handsewn by local church groups as piecework fundraisers.)

The building Baltimoreans of a certain age will most associate with McCormick is the aromatic, cream-colored, nine-story leviathan that loomed over Light Street and the Inner Harbor for nearly seven decades. Erected in 1921, it competed with the Bromo-Seltzer tower’s spinning blue bottle with a giant rooftop pepper tin and vanilla bottle. Documents of the day gush over the sheer enormity of place—over 12 acres of daylight floor space and some 37,000 windowpanes. Business was booming.

And then it wasn’t. By 1932, the Depression had delivered the company years of red ink. Willoughby McCormick made a desperate trip to New York to secure new loans. Instead, he died of a sudden heart attack. He didn’t have any children, but there were relatives in the business, most prominently his vice president, nephew Charles McCormick Sr.—Buzz’s father, known by all as C.P. And so, at the ripe age of 36, he was the lucky one to assume the helm of the beleaguered business. Previously, the company’s response to the Depression had been hard-handed austerity: Wages were cut multiple times, work hours were increased. The new McCormick in the corner office charted a different course.

“What C.P did was rather incredible,” Buzz McCormick says. “He held a meeting with employees and told them that he was not going to cut wages again but was going to give everybody a 10-percent increase.” Some in the Baltimore business community branded him a communist for his liberal personnel policies, which included profit sharing and free turkeys for workers at Thanksgiving—a practice the company continues to this day via vouchers for the cost of a full holiday bird. His benevolent moves, designed to foster teamwork, were actually the concepts of a shrewd capitalist. This carrot-instead-of-the-stick approach had the business back in the black by 1933. His progressive policies also included something he branded “multiple management,” wherein workers of all ranks were invited to form junior boards with a say in corporate governance. (Well, all male employees—things weren’t that progressive yet.)

McCormick became a coast-to-coast company in 1947 when it acquired San Francisco’s A. Schilling and Company, the largest spice company west of the Mississippi. It, too, dated to the 1880s and also had overcome catastrophe after the 1907 earthquake leveled its facilities. Buzz calls it “the world’s perfect merger,” and the Schilling name didn’t begin to be phased out in the western U.S. until the 1990s.

The second-generation McCormick brought some whimsy to the work as well, most colorfully through the construction of Friendship Court, a detailed recreation of an Elizabethan village—timbered frames, leaded widows, thatch-and-slate roofs—rambling through the Light Street building’s 7th floor. A centerpiece was the Ye Olde McCormick Tea House where, as late as the 1980s, women in hooped skirts and petticoats distributed free tea and cookies to tourists beneath a beamed ceiling.

Although McCormick is a public company, not a family one, there have always been namesake employees in the business. John McCormick, Buzz’s half brother, is presently vice president of government affairs and community relations, though slated to retire in December after 45 years. He, too, started as a teen on Light Street.

“My worst memory was getting inside of a steel container we used to make mayonnaise to clean it out,” he recalls. In the summer of 1976, an armada of tall ships arrived at a pre-Harborplace Inner Harbor for a four-day celebration, and he remembers this, too. “Mayor Schaefer called [us] and asked, ‘What can you do to make the harbor smell good?’” John McCormick says. “Of course, we always tried to do everything to keep odors to a minimum. But, we scheduled all our cinnamon to be processed on those four days, and we allowed more of the cinnamon dust to get out than would normally be the case. I won’t go into how, but the harbor smelled great.”

The harbor also smelled great on a more somber occasion—during the weeks it took to knock down McCormick’s cement behemoth factory in 1988. Each blast of demolition equipment ushered up decades’ worth of spilt spice dust—a scented swan song.

McCormick had begun the piecemeal relocation of operations to the Hunt Valley area in the early 1960s. Eventually, only a bit of spice milling was left on Light Street, where the railroad tracks and cobblestones had been replaced with carloads of daytrippers flocking to Harborplace. The empty structure was sold to the Rouse Company, which demolished it over the ardent cries of preservationists, who lamented losing such a landmark of industrial heritage. Plans have come and gone for the parcel, which has remained a parking lot to this day, and proposals are again afoot to erect a skyscraper there.

Two years ago, McCormick opened its World of Flavors “retailtainment” center in Harborplace, returning, if on a much smaller scale, some scent of spice to the Inner Harbor. But now that McCormick HQ is tucked away in a leafy suburban office park, rather than perfuming downtown from a mammoth building topped with an oversized pepper tin, it’s safe to say the company has a much lower local profile. (There are concerns, as McCormick looks to consolidate more of its office workers under one roof, that some local jobs could potentially move to nearby Pennsylvania, but the search for new office space has just begun, according to a company official.) Parts of Friendship Court were moved and rebuilt in the new building, though it’s no longer open for public tours. Also not open to casual visitation is what they call the “global market” tucked in the headquarter’s fourth floor. On a recent workday, corporate communications director Jim Lynn led a reporter on a small tour around the sprawling mock store where shelves are lined with McCormick goods from around the world.

The familiar McCormick spice display from your local Giant or Safeway is herewith its red-capped wares, as are some of the ethnic lines geared to the domestic market, such as Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia. But most of the shelf space is given over to a polyglot of foreign brands the company has acquired through the years: Club House (Canada, 1959), Schwartz (UK, 1984), Aeroplane (Australia, 1994), El Guapo (Latin America, 1999), Margão (Portugal, 2000), Vahiné and Ducros (France, 2000), Silvo (Holland, 2004) Kamis (Poland, 2011), and Kohinoor (India, 2011). Business with China began in the late 1980s, and McCormick China was founded in 1998 and two additional Chinese food brands were bought just last year.

“These retail consumer products represent about 60 percent of McCormick’s business today,” Lynn says. “About 40 percent of the business is selling to food manufacturers and restaurants. And it’s more than them just saying, ‘Hey, back up a truck-load of cinnamon,’ our R&D department actual helps them develop the products.”

As far back as World War II, when access to spices such as pepper and cinnamon were severed, McCormick has explored the natural and chemical components of flavor in the lab. Now, an army of white-coated scientists go at it like gangbusters here. It’s a safe bet that the flavor profile of the latest bag of chipotle cilantro chips, or what have you, was born in the Baltimore suburbs off of I-83.

In 1998, The New York Times ran an article on McCormick, “Trouble in Spice World,” and quoted a Goldman Sachs analyst’s warning that the business “does not have a lot growth in it.” People were cooking from scratch less and eating out more, the analyst figured. Oops. McCormick’s net sales and profits have nearly doubled in the last decade alone. Globalization is part of that. And so are the Food Network celebrity chefs and Martha Stewarts of the world engendering renewed interest in cookery. And if people do opt to dine out? Chances are they will eat McCormick there as well, at the drive thru or the white tablecloth restaurant. There is even a special “McCormick for Chefs” line.

“Make the best—someone will buy it” is the old McCormick motto carved into the Ye Olde Tea House mantelpiece—long said to be Willoughby’s words. But in his 1993 corporate memoir, Pepper People, Buzz McCormick came clean, reporting that his father created the quote and attributed it to his uncle (who was probably too busy squirreling away used envelopes and conjuring up new goods to go in for much sloganeering).

A less formal saying now floating around the corporate offices goes like this: “On any given day, the odds are you consume a McCormick product.”

Even flinty old Uncle W. would probably crack a smile at the thought of that.

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Brennen Jensen is a contributing writer for Baltimore.

When Debbie Nazelrod opened Spa in the Valley in 2005, she thought it
was perfect—but there was one minor flaw. “I remember a client saying,
‘You built such a beautiful space, but I’m very disappointed with your
bathroom,’” Nazelrod recalls. “And I’m thinking, ‘I just built a salon
so nice that this could be my home,’ but I also knew she was right.”
This feedback led Nazelrod to go all out in the bathrooms at her latest
venture, Spa on the Boulevard. “I take everything a client has to say
seriously,” she says. “Whether it’s positive or negative.”

Nazelrod
has always exhibited this perfectionism in customer service from as far
back as 24 years ago when she opened her modest first salon on South
Charles Street to this past year when she started her new venture, Spa
on the Boulevard. Opened a year ago this month and located in Abingdon’s
bustling Boulevard at Box Hill shopping center, the French-chateau
inspired space is the most recent addition to an ever-expanding
salon-spa beauty empire that includes the Moroccan-themed Spa on the
Avenue in White Marsh and Hunt Valley’s Spa in the Valley with its
Tuscan touches.

“We started with 800 square feet,”
says Nazelrod, 56, who owned and operated several salons prior to her
line Salon By Debbie, “and worked our way up to 11,500 square feet at
this location. I’ve never really been afraid of opening new locations.
All told, we’ve built 27,873 square feet through the years. But we have
always built from something small and then gone to the next location
and the next.”

Salons and spas come and go—and many last as long as a manicure, with cutthroat competition and more firings than an episode of The Apprentice.
But with a staff of 275—including Nazelrod’s devoted daughter who
suffers from a hair-loss disease and has a unique understanding of
guests’ needs—the salons are not only surviving, but thriving. Last
year’s revenues alone (not including the Boulevard, which had yet to
open) were close to $7 million.

“I’ve seen the dream
evolve,” says one of Nazelrod’s longest-running customers, Susan Wiley
who has been with her since the start. “When she was working downtown,
I’d drive all the way from where I live in Baldwin. I’d tell her, ‘Get
out of the city and come to the county.’ I’d say, ‘Trust me. You’ll have
customers. If you build it, we will come.’”

And they
have. With all locations open seven days a week—many salons
traditionally take Monday off—Nazelrod’s client base includes some
170,000 customers who flock for soothing stone massages, oatmeal and
licorice body treatments, balayage hair highlights, Brazilian bikini
waxings, lash extensions, and Ayurvedic facials. The spaces themselves
are immaculate and inspired (by trips to spas in Sonoma County, CA;
South Beach, FL; Florence, Italy; and other destinations), and services
such as a signature nearly two-hour Ultimate Facial (entailing
everything from extraction to a total body massage) are unique and keep
the appointment books brimming.

“I started coming
for facials and waxing,” says Wiley. “Now, they take care of this whole
61-year-old deal. I would never think of going anywhere else. A lot of
people put lip service to customer service and innovation, but Debbie
actually makes it happen. Debbie is a perfectionist who anticipates what
you need before you know you need it, and she has always been very good
at figuring out what is trending.”

The accolades
keep coming. Nazelrod has practically papered her walls with awards,
including America’s “200 Fastest-Growing Salons” by Salon Today, one of Baltimore’s Largest Women-Owned Businesses by the Baltimore Business Journal, and Top Female CEO by SmartCEO (not to mention numerous “Top Salons” nods from this magazine).

How
Debbie has done it boils down to a combination of pluck, passion, and
purpose. Sitting in the garden room—a relaxation area at the Spa on the
Boulevard with peach-colored walls, palm plants, and soft music—Nazelrod
seems to marvel at how she built a business from a single salon to
become a major player on the salon-spa scene.

“[My
husband] Rick and I both grew up in tiny row homes in Loch Raven
Village,” explains Nazelrod. “I come from a family of four children, and
Rick came from a family of five. My father was a firefighter and worked
his way up to lieutenant with Baltimore City. My mother was a
seamstress in a sweatshop.”

For Rick’s part, his
father worked for a Baltimore printing company as a bookbinder and his
mother worked part-time at Read’s drug store in Towson. Both grew up
understanding the value of hard work, though entrepreneurship was not on
the radar.

“We were both from blue-collar families,” says
Rick, who has known Nazelrod since she was nine and the best friend of
his younger sister. (They didn’t date until many years later, after they
both found themselves divorced.) “You work until a certain hour, and
you come home to eat dinner with your family—that kind of thing. If we
had tried to plan all of this as our life’s dream, it never would have
worked.”

While still in high school, Nazelrod, who always
loved playing with makeup, went to work for About Faces. “I worked
part-time as a receptionist for [then owner] Gloria Brennan,” explains
Nazelrod. “I felt at home there right away.” But when it came time to
pick a profession, Nazelrod felt limited in her options. “Since I had
come from a blue-collar family I thought that all I could do was be a
secretary, a nurse, or a teacher.”

But it was Gloria’s
then-husband Patrick Brennan who helped expand her horizons, encouraging
Nazelrod to learn the beauty trade and then work for him on the floor.
By 1980, she became an aesthetician and continued to work at About Faces
in Pikesville for 13 years, where she built a client base thanks to her
sunny personality and commitment to hard work.

Patrick says
he’s not surprised by his former employee’s success. “She was always
committed and competent,” he recalls. “She had good customer-service
skills as well as being client oriented and good technically—Debbie is very good at what she does.” (Though there are no hard feelings, About Faces is now a direct competitor.)

A
large part of Nazelrod’s success is also due to the fact that she has
surrounded herself with members of her own, extremely close-knit
family—all of whom are involved in aspects of the business. Her
27-year-old daughter Amanda Jeffries is the general manager at the
Boulevard and Nazelrod is currently grooming her, so to speak, to take
over the business in the years to come. Amanda has also been
instrumental in helping to forge ahead with plans for a dedicated
hair-loss area installed at Spa on the Boulevard for those who suffer
from thinning hair, hair loss due to chemotherapy, and other conditions.

Ironically, Jeffries herself suffers from alopecia (a
condition in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body,
usually from the scalp), which necessitates wearing a hairpiece, as well
as having her eyebrows tattooed on. “I would love to be able to help
others going through similar issues,” says Jeffries. “It definitely has
been a journey; a lot of tears and heartache.” But Jeffries’s struggles
have also proven of value on the job. “I am able to understand our
guests’ needs and appreciate that hair can change one’s image,” she
says. “While I face challenges every day—bad hair days, eyelash
problems, and hating summer weather—I love my job and surrounding myself
with watching our guests transform.”

While Amanda is
stationed on the Boulevard, Nazelrod’s son, Joe, does the bookkeeping
for all three locations (“I can honestly say there’s nothing bad about
working with my family,” he says); Nazelrod’s stepson, Tim, does the
electrical work; and Rick, who in the early days did the major
construction work on her smaller spaces, is in charge of facilities
management.

“There was a time when I did the drawings, I framed
everything out, and did the spackling and painting,” he says. In those
early days, Debbie’s salons were very much a grassroots, DIY affair. “We
had so much help from friends and family,” says Nazelrod. “I have a
picture [hanging in my foyer] that I purchased in Amish country of a
barn raising. It reminded me so much of what our friends and family have
done.”

And anyone who isn’t family still gets treated as
such. When a hairstylist needed a kidney transplant, Nazelrod and her
staff raised more than $30,000 at a benefit at Martin’s East, including
proceeds from a staff-written cookbook. “She makes each and every one of
us part of her family,” says longtime employee Megan Dulsky, the
general manager at Spa on the Avenue. Adds Avenue spa manager Elaine
Girardi, “She’s a good person and that helps her attract good people.”

The
love is clearly mutual. With her perfectly applied makeup and eyes that
sparkle when she speaks, Nazelrod gets emotional when she talks about
her staff. “I just came back from a family trip to Jamaica,” she says.
“I had a massage there, and their touch is incredible—you can’t teach
that. You can teach everything else, but they’ve got to have it in
here,” she says pressing on her heart. “Those are the people who I want
here and 98 percent of the people we hire have [that quality].”

When
Nazelrod isn’t spending two days a week at each spa-salon, she and Rick
enjoy season tickets to the Ravens’ games or cooking dinner for family
in their Perry Hall home. Another favorite pastime is hitting the road
in their 40-foot motor coach—“it looks like an apartment,” says
Nazelrod, laughing—for road trips to Key West, Ocean City, and
Gettysburg. “We don’t give gifts for the holiday,” says Nazelrod. “We
give memories.”

Despite the long hours and
occasional headaches that come with running a large group of businesses,
Nazelrod says she couldn’t be more pleased.

“I would
do it again and again,” she says, her voice catching with emotion. “I
love this business. I love being able to take care of my clients to the
point where I watch them walk out that door almost stumbling because,
after coming here, they feel like they are in La La Land.”

Being clean-shaven can be hard work. Not only do you have to get an
employee to unlock a case, but the disposable razors cost nearly $40.
Phil Masiello is changing that.

Last July, he and business partner Steven Krane launched e-commerce company 800Razors.com.

“In
2011, I was on the road in Arkansas, and my luggage got lost,” he says.
“So I stopped into Wal-Mart and I’m looking to replace eight
cartridges. It was $36. I wondered how could this not have been
disrupted by the Internet?”

Masiello, a veteran in the skin-care
business, did his research and found that Gillette and Schick own almost
the entire market. Refusing to use an Asian manufacturer, Masiello
found an American company—which has been making private-label razor
blades since the 1800s—and brought costs down: a handle and four
cartridges is $9.99, eight cartridges are $17.99.

Currently
800Razors.com has 20,000 subscribers and made just under $1 million in
sales at the end of 2013. Masiello says the key is targeting women and
men and keeping it local.

“Our office in Catonsville can ship just about anywhere in the U.S. in 1-2 days,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll ever leave.”

By Jess Blumberg, Ken Iglehart, Rebecca Kirkman, Christianna McCausland, and Christine Stutz with additional writing by Ron Cassie. Photography by Christopher Myers.

Timothy Barnhill, 39

architect

There was a clue to Timothy Barnhill’s fate as a boy: “For me, it was all about Legos,” he says. “I was constantly building things.” Now, when you scan Baltimore’s architectural landscape, the Hord Coplan Macht principal’s work is everywhere: His biggest clients are hospitals and retirement homes, but he’s designed scads of offices and a few restaurants, too (like the Ravens executive offices and Rusty Scupper). So when the Homeland father of two drives his kids (ages 7 and 9) around town, can they recognize dad’s projects? “They do,” says Barnhill. (Yes, he’s related: the nephew of the late investment banker Gregory H.) “My son’s more into it than my daughter, and he’s actually gone on job sites with me over the years.”

Hannah Brancato, 28

feminist activist

Hannah Brancato is dead serious about changing American attitudes about rape. Through a variety of bold “art actions”—such as the Monument Quilt installation planned for the National Mall in Summer 2014—she seeks to “upset the culture of rape and promote a culture of consent.” A 2011 MFA graduate of MICA, Brancato was deeply affected by the issues of sexual assault and domestic violence while working at the House of Ruth. In 2010, she co-created FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, a performance and art cooperative to foster frank conversation about these issues. “I was inspired by the possibility that art could be an effective way to change the culture,” she says.

Mike Brenner, 29

tech entrepreneur

Mike Brenner planned to live in Baltimore for one year then move West to “live the technology dream.” Instead, he funded an exciting group of web professionals and fell in love with the city. “Baltimore is a place where you can create new solutions and new ways of solving traditional problems, be it health care or education,” he says. “An area like San Francisco has a very well-developed culture, whereas in Baltimore I could be part of a creative class that’s helping define what this city looks like.” Brenner’s latest contribution is Betamore, a for-profit technology incubator, for which he is co-founder and CEO. Brenner calls it a “learning environment” as it is a hub for work, classes, talks by regional thought leaders, and mentoring. Through its Academy and Betamore Works initiatives, Brenner says they’re connecting their classroom grads with jobs.

Jeff Breslin, 30

youth advocate

Jeff Breslin sees his work with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation as “helping at-risk kids to understand that they have choices in life.” As vice president for programs, Breslin manages Badges for Baseball, which brings together police officers and youngsters to play ball, and is involved with the Youth Development Park Initiative, which builds synthetic turf fields in inner-city communities. “Our belief is if you give kids a chance to be involved in something positive, they’ll see that they can think about their future in a positive way,” he says. An active volunteer with several children’s charities, he says his drive comes from growing up with cystic fibrosis. “Sometimes I have to work twice as hard as other people,” he says.

Lindsay Buscher, 36

storeowner

Although Lindsay Busher opened her first Urban Chic boutique in Georgetown, she considers herself a Baltimore girl at heart. “It’s more me when it comes to style,” she says. At the store’s Harbor East location, she makes a point of carrying local designers, noting people underestimate the city’s style savvy. For Buscher, it’s about more than just fashion. She views Urban Chic as a platform to give back to the communities that have made the boutiques so successful. The annual Urban Chic fashion show, for example, benefits the American Visionary Art Museum. “Every morning I wake up lucky enough to have this company and to do this job that I love,” she says.

Jason Corace, 37

game designer

The first video game Jason Corace ever played was an Intellivision bowling game while helping care for his sick father for several months as a boy. Now, he’s an interactive media artist and game designer, having joined MICA’s Interactive Arts department in 2009 after working and teaching in design technology, game programming, and game-design strategy in New York. So why isn’t he working for 23k Games or Activision? “A lot of my work is more art-focused,” Corace says. “When it comes to games, I want to take a broad approach to them. If you’re working for a major company, there’s a couple of top people doing design, and most everyone else gets pigeon-holed designing help screens or something.”

Bill Ferguson, 30

state senator

Working in Baltimore City through Teach For America changed the trajectory of Bill Ferguson’s life from the career on Wall Street he’d anticipated to one in urban education. After stints as a teacher and administrator, he decided politics was the best way to effect change. Elected to represent the 46th district in 2010, Ferguson was involved in the passage of the 21st Century School Facilities Initiative that will build new city schools and renovate more—the largest investment in city schools infrastructure in 75 years. He advocates for early education, too: “Universal pre-K across Maryland would be one of the best public investments that could be made to ensure all children have access to equal opportunity.”

James C. Foster, 34

cyber security

James C. Foster took his first polygraph at age 15 (for an NSA internship) and has been hooked on security ever since. His first paycheck from the sale of a successful startup made him a serial entrepreneur. His latest security software company, Riskive, launched in January and is winning awards and drawing the attention of the mayor and governor, not to mention workers being recruited from Austin, New York, and the West Coast. A frequent lecturer, Foster speaks to high schools about how to start a business and works with parents, educating them about protecting kids online. Foster stays enthralled by cyber security because “you have the ability to save lives and safeguard organizations from being hacked.”

Jess Gartner, 26

education finance entrepreneur

Raised in an affluent New Jersey suburb, Jess Gartner was obsessed with two things: the city and new school supplies. So it’s no wonder that Gartner ended up in Baltimore (via Teach For America) and founded Allovue, which develops school financial-management software. “During my first year of teaching, we ran out of paper,” she says. “Meanwhile, I knew other schools that had iPad programs.” Gartner realized that a new budgetary model left it up to already over-burdened principals to determine school budgets, so she developed cloud-based software (which will replace the dinosaurs of Excel and Quickbooks) to help them organize finances. The Hollins Market resident is rolling out Allovue’s pilot program in eight to 10 Baltimore and D.C.-area schools this fall.

Chad Gauss, 33

chef and restaurateur

At The Food Market’s first birthday, 10 local chefs were there to celebrate. That camaraderie says something about the restaurant’s reputation in the community—and something about its chef and owner, Chad Gauss. “I’m trying to cook for you, Gordon Ramsay, and my mother all in the same night,” he says. That’s why Gauss creates dishes that are both approachable and impressive, a vision that has caused him to be embraced by foodies in Baltimore for both his restaurant and his newest venture, The Food Truck 450. All this and Gauss is just getting started. With dozens of new concepts on his mind at any given time, it seems it won’t be long before a new one comes to life.

Kevin R. Harris, 29

political communications director

Kevin R. Harris was 14 when he discovered a passion for public service. Helping his mother deliver hot meals to seniors in his native Bessemer, AL, Harris saw the struggles of people on fixed incomes. “I saw the the impact that folks in government can have on people’s daily lives,” he says. After studying journalism at Howard University and government at The Johns Hopkins University, he worked for then-Sen. Barack Obama on his 2008 presidential campaign and in his first-term administration. Last month, he moved to Baltimore to become Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s policy and communications director. “I wanted to work for a mayor because they are even closer to the ground,” he says. “It doesn’t get any closer than a mayor.”

Jacob Hodes, 32

private investment analyst

Jacob Hodes always wanted to be a congressman, but with time he realized that he could make more of an impact supporting community by fostering successful business development, which he now does as co-head of Brown Advisory’s private equity division. He also believes in the power of libraries, a lesson handed down from his mother, and is the board chair of Pratt Contemporaries at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. “Libraries are at a crossroads,” he states. “It’s important to preserve them so people of all walks of life have a place to go.” Through his board work with The Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, he takes part in a dialogue to end hatred and improve interfaith understanding.

Melissa Hyatt, 37

area police commander

Lt. Col. Melissa Hyatt stands out in the Baltimore City Police Department for lots of reasons: The 16-year veteran and daughter of a police major served seven years with the SWAT team, has a master’s degree in management from The Johns Hopkins University, and was chosen to participate in both a United Nations training program in Sweden and the 10-week FBI National Academy. And, after only seven months of managing the Central District, she was promoted to Lt. Colonel, serving as one of three area commanders. But the marathon runner (who also helps coordinate lacrosse programs) does get some free time. “Honestly, I love just relaxing with family and friends or taking my dog for a run—low-key, relaxing things where I can decompress a little.”

Jason Kalirai, 35

astrophysicist

Growing up in the remote town of Quesnel, British Columbia, Jason Kalirai always had an impeccable view of the stars. After an 11th-grade physics class, he was hooked on astrophysics, which he studied at the University of British Columbia. After a post at the University of California, Santa Cruz, he wound up at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Kalirai studies the life cycles of stars, gives astronomy lectures to kids once a month, and is helping build the James Webb Space Telescope (the Hubble’s successor), which is the size of a tennis court and will be 100 times more powerful than its predecessor when it launches in 2018. “We’ll be able to look at planets that are going around other stars and figure out their atmospheres,” says the Ellicott City resident. “Essentially answering, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’”

Chase Kalisz, 19

collegiate swimmer

Bel Air native Chase Kalisz says the reason he started swimming at the age of 3 was simple: “My parents needed to put me somewhere while my mom was pregnant with my little brother.” I bet they’re glad they did. Now Kalisz trains at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club (NBAC) under the direction of Coach Bob Bowman—yes, the same club and coach as Michael Phelps—and just returned from the FINA World Championships in Barcelona, where he earned a silver medal in the 400-meter IM. When he’s not traveling the world or in the pool at NBAC, Kalisz is studying business at the University of Georgia—but he never strays far from his passion. “The ultimate goal is Rio,” he says, referring to the 2016 Summer Olympics.

John LaMattina, 36

liver transplant surgeon

Good news for you prospective organ donors: You don’t have to be dead to help Dr. John LaMattina. The University of Maryland Medical Center’s director of living donor liver transplants (and licensed pilot of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft) can take a portion of kidney or liver from a donor to save a patient, something only a handful of docs in the world are trained to do. A memorable case came early in his career at Maryland. “It was our first living donor case at Maryland—a very young woman with total liver failure, getting sicker before our eyes,” LaMattina recalls. After futile calls to area donor centers, her boyfriend stepped up as the donor. “They’re both doing fine now.”

Sean Lane, 33

military tech CEO

After doing five tours as an intelligence officer in the military, Sean Lane realized there was a need for more software out on the front lines. So, in 2008, he founded Battlefield Telecommunications Systems (BTS), which develops mobile, telecom systems for the military. After that he started OmniScience Technology Partners to invest in other startups (like Parking Panda and SocialToaster). He’s also the co-founder of Betamore and Digital Harbor Foundation, which teaches tech courses to kids. But the Inner Harbor resident says his main passion remains in military technology. “The military has all of this data that it started gathering a decade ago with the war on terror,” he says. “I wanted to start a company to handle all of that data in a high volume.”

Beth Laverick, 31

event manager

Renaissance woman might be an understatement. Butchers Hill resident Beth Laverick is the event manager for Waterfront Partnership (the organization’s first full-time employee), where she plans dozens of family-friendly waterfront events a year and is also the events coordinator for the Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance (DBFA). On top of that, she runs the Baltimore franchise of Wonder Sitter, a high-end babysitting service. (“It’s almost like Uber for kids.”) Additionally, she moderates the Southeast Community listserv, volunteers with the Friends of Patterson Park, and raises her two kids (2 and 4). And she has no plans of slowing down. “I’m not leaving the city,” she says. “And it’s my mission to keep other families here, too.”

Brooke E. Lierman, 34

civil rights attorney

When she was nine months pregnant, Brooke E. Lierman stood for hours to represent a community group—pro bono—in a hearing with the city’s liquor board. Helping neighborhoods close irresponsible bars is just one cause about which Lierman is passionate. As an associate at Brown, Goldstein & Levy, she does civil-rights litigation, working on issues of disability, fair housing, and better treatment of low-wage workers. Inspired by the dysfunction she saw through work and her frustration as a member of the Fells Point Residents Association, she’s running for state delegate for the 46th district. “I think Baltimore is an underdog and I love to fight for an underdog,” she says, “We’re ready and want it to be the city we all aspire for it to be.”

Jennifer Lockhart, 36

nurse and practice administrator

Growing up, Jennifer Lockhart admired her mom’s nursing work at Health Care for the Homeless and Bon Secours. The apple didn’t fall far, as Lockhart has been an OB/GYN nurse at Johns Hopkins for 14 years, ascending from staff nurse to coordinator. During her career, she traveled with doctors to Ecuador, Guatemala, and Colombia to assist with various GYN surgeries. Now she manages two clinics for Hopkins Community Physicians in Wyman Park and Odenton. Lockhart is also the vice chair for the United Way of Central Maryland’s young professionals group. “I’d like to see everybody be more responsible for their health care,” she says. “People should take advantage of the two big powerhouses we have right here in the city.”

Kevin Lynch, 32

new media founder

Since launching his news website SouthBmore.com in 2012, Kevin Lynch has gotten hundreds of e-mails from locals thanking him for providing easily accessible information about their neighborhood. “We’re taking all those conversations at the bar, at the dog park, and on the street, and bringing them online,” he says. What started as a hobby has become critical as hyper-local coverage shrinks at larger newspapers. While other sites can “look like a police blotter,” Lynch aims to provide visibility to positive things happening in South Baltimore’s vibrant, entrepreneurial community. And the concept doesn’t stop there. Someday, Lynch hopes to expand the model to other areas throughout the city.

Hyeseung Marriage-Song, 35

artist and professor

At Hyeseung Marriage-Song’s Bolton Hill row home, you might find a roboticist, astronomer, and an installation artist engaged in lively conversation over dinner. A transplant from the Manhattan art scene, Marriage-Song describes herself as a connector. “I see my role as appreciating Baltimore for what it is, and pushing it to what it could be,” she says. With her husband, a cosmology professor at Hopkins, the artist has the ability to bring together the city’s scientific and artistic communities, hosting reading groups and informal salons in her home. While the spark might ignite between MICA and Hopkins, Marriage-Song wants to light a fire within every Baltimorean. She sees her contribution as “trying to, wherever I go, electrify [the city] in my own way.”

Jennifer Meyer, 36

economic development leader

Attracting new businesses and jobs to the region is her game, and non-stop is her name: Sure, Jennifer Meyer has her hands full as COO of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, but then there’s also teaching at Loyola University, co-organizing the Ignite Baltimore and TEDxBaltimore speaking series, and teaching financial education in public schools, plus involvement in Casey Cares, the Bea Gaddy Foundation, and the Digital Harbor High School. So which of these really gets her blood pumping? (Speaking of pumping blood, she also coaches at CrossFit gym.) “Teaching is a big thing for me,” says Meyer. (The former Jen Gunner was married in April.) “If I can make a difference in someone’s life in a small way, that’s huge.”

Wes Moore, 35

author and youth advocate

While on a study program in South Africa, Wes Moore got a call from his mother telling him that there were wanted posters in their neighborhood with his name on them. Thus begins the story of Rhodes Scholar Wes Moore and another Wes Moore, just blocks from him, who would be sentenced to life in prison. Moore turned these parallel lives into a book, The Other Wes Moore, which is being adapted into a film produced by Oprah Winfrey and HBO. He also works with youth in the criminal justice system and aims to attract and retain talent in the city. “There’s a very thin line that divides all of us,” says Moore, who lives in Guilford with his expectant wife and daughter. “I want to show young people that second chances do become last chances.”

Evan Morville, 35

real-estate developer

When college freshman Evan Morville responded to an ad in the Towson Times to clean a boat, he didn’t know his life would change forever. The boat owners were real-estate developers at Southern Land Company, where he ended up working for the next 12 years. Then, in 2005, at a dinner party, again by chance, he met Donald and Thibault Manekin who started Seawall Development Corp. three years later and brought on Morville as partner and principal. Working with Teach For America, Seawall renovates old buildings to provide housing for teachers and office space for nonprofits, like the Baltimore Urban Debate League. So far, they have developed Miller’s Court in Remington and Union Mill in Hampden. “We don’t want to do it like our fathers,” the Mt. Washington resident says. “We want to use real estate to affect social change.”

Marilyn Mosby, 33

prosecutor

Now that she’s a candidate for Baltimore state’s attorney, you’ll hear a lot about Marilyn Mosby—about how both of her parents, grandfather, two aunts, and three uncles were Boston police officers; about her years as an assistant state’s attorney; and about her commitment to safe neighborhoods. Mosby married her Tuskegee University sweetheart, City Councilman Nick Mosby, and together they rehabbed a Reservoir Hill shell where they live with their two girls. Policy-wise, she emphasizes repeat offenders and working with victim’s families and witnesses. “When I was 14, my cousin was killed on his doorstep over a pair of sneakers,” she says. “It’s only because a witness came forward that the guy is off the streets.”

Shalita O’Neale, 30

foster youth advocate

After growing up in foster care and group homes, Shalita O’Neale dedicated herself to helping young people make the difficult transition from the foster system to independent living as adults. As founder of Maryland Foster Youth Resource Center (MFYRC), O’Neale is a passionate evangelist for the needs of this at-risk population. MFYRC provides mentoring, life-skills classes, help finding work and housing, and grants for expenses such as food, utilities, bus fare, and rent. How did O’Neale emerge unscathed from such a difficult childhood? “What really helped me was the mentors I met along the way,” she says. “If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Mark Parker, 31

pastor

Rev. Mark Parker became pastor of Breath of God Lutheran Church in 2009 and set out to reinvigorate the 109-year-old institution, formerly St. Paul Lutheran, whose worship attendance had dwindled to about 25. He wanted the church to reflect the increasingly diverse Patterson Park neighborhood and ignite dialogue, and unity among its parishioners. With his welcoming demeanor and a knack for building partnerships, he has succeeded (there are now 160 active members). “The church is about as fully integrated as you can get into community,” he says. “Whether [our neighbors] are interested in going to church or not, they see Breath of God as a place that belongs to them.”

Jason Reed, 29

urban agriculturalist

Jason Reed was born on a 4-H farm before eventually ending up in Baltimore to study composition at Peabody Conservatory. After being let go from a teaching position, he used his green thumb to start the Filbert Street Garden in Curtis Bay, a green space for residents and schools (Curtis Bay Elementary/Middle and Ben Franklin High). Elementary classes are taught by middle-school kids, who keep a harvest calendar, which turns into a farmers’ market run by the high schoolers. Students have come a long way from when Reed started, and they didn’t know what carrots looked like. “The result now is a community-managed food source centered around a learning space,” he says.

Christopher Sachse, 32

IT entrepreneur

Christopher Sachse says he wants to be a serial entrepreneur, and he’s well on his way. He started his first company when he was 19, launched Horsetail Technologies—an IT outsource company for regulated industries—two years ago, and has two new businesses getting started. While he’s full of business ideas, he also wants to play a role in breaking what he calls “The Wire mentality” outsiders have of Baltimore. Until he can create his own mentoring foundation, he supports Year Up, an education and internship program for under-served youth, hosting interns and teaching. “I like to teach a person to fish,” he says. “That will continue to perpetuate the growth of the city.”

Sophia Silbergeld, 32

political fundraiser

Sophia Silbergeld knows that political fundraising gets a bad rap, but, “you’re working for people you know and believe in and new people, challengers in elections, or issue campaigns like the Dream Act, so it’s always exciting.” A Quaker born to politically active parents, she now works as the senior fundraising associate for Martin-Lauer Associates and was particularly happy to be chosen treasurer and a lead fundraiser for the Marylanders for Marriage Equality campaign. She puts her know-how to work outside the office on The Walters Art Museum Government Relations Committee, and, in her free time, she’s learning to knit for the 500 Hats Project, which donates winter hats to city school children.

Blake Smith, 28

restaurateur

Everybody likes pizza. It’s why Blake Smith started his entrepreneurial career with Bagby Pizza Co. in 2009. The Harbor East pizza shop’s success led to two neighboring restaurants: the casual fine-dining joint TEN TEN in 2011, and the upscale Fleet Street Kitchen in 2012. Together, these three have made their mark on Baltimore’s culinary scene. What sets them apart is Smith’s commitment to local ingredients, most of which come from the group’s own Cunningham Farms in Cockeysville. Inspired by the farm, the newest venture, Cunningham’s, opens next month in Towson. But Smith says his firstborn is still his passion. “I’m most proud of the pizza shop,” he says. “I still run that place myself, without any managers.”

Torrey Smith, 24

NFL wide receiver

Though Torrey Smith has only been a Raven since 2011, he already feels like a mainstay. Last season alone, the University of Maryland grad had eight touchdown receptions, including two TD’s in a division playoff game that led to a double-overtime-win against the Broncos. His Baltimore-based Torrey Smith Foundation works with at-risk youth and those affected by domestic violence. During the off-season, Smith worked for several weeks as an unpaid intern in the office of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings. “Football doesn’t last forever,” Smith says. “So I like to see what else is out there. I learned more about the government and how much your congressmen really do to help the community.”

Brian Strumke, 37

independent beer brewer

Brian Strumke wasn’t the biggest beer fan, so, nine years ago, he started home brewing in his Conkling Street backyard to make something he actually liked. Inspired by Belgian-style beers at The Brewer’s Art, Strumke founded Stillwater Artisanal, which released its first beer in 2010. Within six months (and after being named the world’s second-best brewer by RateBeer.com), Strumke quit his full-time job at Hopkins. Stillwater is now distributed to 35 states, 75 percent of Europe, and to Singapore, Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand. But Strumke hasn’t forgotten his roots—he opened gastropub Of Love & Regret last year, on the same block where he began brewing in the first place. “It makes it very poetic,” he says.

Mike Subelsky, 36

entrepreneur

Mike Subelsky first experienced what he calls Baltimore’s “can-do, supportive attitude” when he co-founded the Baltimore Improv Group in 2003. “I’ll always think of Baltimore as a place where any creative ambition I had was magnified 1,000 times,” he says. And his ambitions didn’t stop there: Subelsky’s founding roles in Baltimore Hackathon and Ignite Baltimore brought him to the center of the city’s tech community, in which he’s founded a number of companies, including his latest venture STAQ, an advertising technology firm. Now, Subelsky’s goal is to bring his passion to the next generation. “Software is disrupting so many industries in America,” he says. “We need more people who can code.”

Ashley Valis, 31

Governor’s assistant chief of staff

Ashley Valis is a true testament to rising up the ranks. The University of Maryland social work grad started on then-Mayor Martin O’Malley’s gubernatorial campaign as a volunteer, then volunteer coordinator, then wound up in the intergovernmental affairs office (for which she became deputy director), and now is the governor’s assistant chief of staff, focused on restoring the Bay and combating climate change. “It’s pretty non-sexy stuff,” she says. “Touring a Back River waste-water treatment plant is just another day.” Though O’Malley is only in office for 16 more months, the Ridgley’s Delight resident says she wants to remain in public affairs. “I still want to make a case for a good cause,”

Adam Van Bavel, 34

philanthropist

“It always starts this way for me,” says Adam Van Bavel, discussing his bid for Baltimore City Council. “I want to get involved a little bit and end up doing pretty much the most you can do.” Though he has a day job (doing marketing sales at Vocus), Van Bavel is best known for the work that doesn’t come with a paycheck—whether it’s fighting to improve Baltimore by being a write-in candidate, becoming director of the Pigtown Festival, or even growing facial hair to raise money for city schools through Mustaches for Kids. Seeing more potential for networking events, he just launched BmoreLocal to unite businesses, nonprofits, and individuals from different walks of life.

Jessica Watson, 30

graphic designer

Jessica Watson knew she was an outside-of-the-box thinker when she was a sophomore at McDaniel College and she turned her dorm into an art gallery—where students bought art off the walls. So it’s no surprise that she now owns JWatson Creative, a design studio that builds brands, websites, and marketing campaigns. Watson also heads up B’More Creatives, a networking and support group for women in the creative profession. “We have a lot of great talent in Baltimore,” she says. “The one thing we have to do better is connect the dots.” Currently, Watson is traveling the country, scoping out other cities’ creative scenes and chronicling the whole thing on her website’s Design By Travel blog.

Rochelle L. Williams, 32

educational researcher

Rochelle L. Williams is unimpressed by media’s representation of women and hopes to be a better role model. “You don’t have to keep up with the Kardashians, and what you see on Basketball Wives is not reality,” she says. “It really scares me when I turn on the TV, and I know this is what little girls are watching.” Williams advocates for women and under-represented populations in STEM careers through her work at ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), by tutoring high schoolers, and as a member of The National Society of Black Engineers’ Public Policy Interest Group. She strategically bought her first house in the redeveloping Preston Place neighborhood so she could make an impact. “I don’t need to be in the ‘hottest’ area of Baltimore, but in the area where I think I’m needed.”

Andres Zapata, 37

advertising executive

Coming to the United States from Colombia made Andres Zapata aware of cultural differences. “I’m fascinated by culture—how it works or doesn’t, how you can influence action, change behavior, or celebrate certain aspects of culture,” he explains. Integrated advertising agency IDFive, where Zapata serves as executive vice president, taps the cultural zeitgeist using digital analytics to revolutionize communications, but that isn’t enough to keep him enthralled. He teaches at MICA (and has recruited employees from his classes) and self-published several books, including The Recession Nation, an artistic perspective on the recession. When he couldn’t find a version of a Colombian children’s story for his son, he simply recreated one; Los Pollitos has since been downloaded more than 33,000 times from iTunes.

Less than a year and half ago, Andrew Alter Buerger was the publisher of the weekly Baltimore Jewish Times—toiling away at the helm of a family newspaper business his great grandfather, David Alter, began when Woodrow Wilson was in the White House back in 1919. At its zenith in the late 1990s, this mini-media empire included Jewish publications in six different cities and the local lifestyle magazine, Baltimore Style. All that came to an ignoble end in April of last year after a costly and losing legal battle with the paper’s printer, in combination with long-battered balance sheets, forced Alter Communications to be sold at bankruptcy auction. The owners of Washington Jewish Week bought the nearly century-old institution and now publish the Baltimore Jewish Times. “Basically, they took over on a Friday and I was gone Monday,” Buerger says.

Today, the 48-year-old is in an entirely different field—quite literally. It’s a sunny, late-spring afternoon and the erstwhile publisher is tromping through pastureland near Bird-in-Hand, PA. His family once prospered from the labors of editors and advertising reps, but he’s here to show a reporter the front-line workforce for his latest venture: contented cows.

Amish dairy farms serve as home to the two bovine herds supplying the grass-fed milk (later skimmed) used to make B’more Organic smoothies, a line of health drinks based on an Icelandic form of strained yogurt that Buerger and his wife, Jennifer, began bottling in 2010. Sales have grown four-fold every year since, with the $3.99 pint bottles now available at hundreds of outlets from New York to Virginia, including Whole Foods and Wegmans.

As Buerger gingerly dodges the cow pies dotting the greenery beneath his feet, he reflects back on his former life. “Let’s see, it’s a Wednesday—that was press day,” he says. “We’d be on deadline, proofing copy and checking ads. I don’t miss that.

“I’d rather be out here,” he adds after a pause, squinting into the distance where some 40 piebald cows are languidly munching grass.

Buerger jokes that as a newspaperman much of his work was “avoiding cow patties of a different sort.” But there were some troubling things he couldn’t side step: The economic downturn, the Internet’s ravaging of print-media revenue, and the waning interest in Jewish newspapers among younger Jews. Perhaps most damaging of all, a bruising three-year legal battle with the printing company that had inked the newspaper since the 1950s. Buerger pulled out of a contract with the paper’s longtime printers, family-owned H.G. Roebuck & Son, Inc., whose terms, he felt, were crippling a business already facing financial headwinds. There were multiple lawsuits, a Chapter 11 filing—and a war of words and lawyers that got personal.

Buerger always thought he would die, figuratively, in the publisher’s chair, as his father Charles Buerger had in 1996. It was his dad’s passing that first brought the younger Buerger home to the helm from where he’d been running one of the family’s papers in Vancouver, Canada.

“No one ever retired from that position,” Buerger says. No one had ever been booted out of it, either. But any anger or bitterness about the loss of the family’s vocation is all in the rear-view mirror, Buerger insists. This fourth-generation publisher’s transition to first-generation yogurt maker is unfolding as a joyful second act.

“I had a great run in the media business,” Buerger says. “But I love what I’m doing now. I love the product and the industry. It’s a passion. I’m excited to put my feet on the floor each morning because I know I’m helping people eat healthier with a lower impact on the environment.”

Back in Baltimore, B’More Organic’s global headquarters is an under-the-eaves office tucked into the third floor of the Buerger’s Roland Park Victorian house. Just one floor below are the bedrooms of 3-year-old twins Joss and Bronner, whom the Buergers adopted from Ethiopia in 2010. At nap time, one must tippy-toe around the office. It’s just as well that the company’s sole employee besides the Buergers—marketing manager Eric Chessler—spends most of his time out in the company Chevy Volt visiting merchants.

It’s always causal Friday at the home office, as Buerger has shed the suits and ties of the media world for polo shirts and jeans. And he’s one of those guys who looks like he can still fit into clothes from his college days, thanks to a rabid interest in healthy eating that goes back more than a decade. Adopting a diet of lean protein while nixing sugar and white flour helped him drop 20 pounds and tame spiking cholesterol levels.

“From the day I met him, Andy has always been looking for the perfect food,” Jennifer Buerger says. The pair believes they finally found it on a mountainside in Iceland four years ago, where they had gone to climb the country’s tallest peak, Mount Hvannadalshnjúkur. The trip was a fundraiser for Jodi’s Climb For Hope, a charity they launched in 2006 using mountain climbing as a means to raise money for breast cancer research, while honoring Andrew’s sister, Jodi, who had battled the disease for years before dying in 2009. (Today, the charity also raises money for multiple sclerosis.)

“You have to eat what the guides give you on the mountain, and they served this yogurt-like stuff,” Jennifer Buerger recalls. “I looked at Andy and said, ‘You’re not eating this—I have to share a tent with you!’”

(To clarify: Andrew Buerger is lactose intolerant, and without getting graphic, let’s just say a mountainside tent is perhaps the last place he’d want to experience the intestinal backlash that can occur from ingesting dairy.)

Still, with heaps of calories needed for a strenuous climb, he felt he had little choice but take a few spoonfuls. Turns out, nothing untoward happened. He ate still more the next day and, again, no gut protests. Their hosts told them it was skyr (pronounced “skeer”), a dairy product, technically a cheese, in its Old World form, dating to Viking days. It is similar to Greek yogurt, in that it is strained to concentrate protein, while having the added bonus that its probiotics consume most of the lactose, thus sparing Buerger’s digestive system.

On the plane ride home the pair decided to go into business importing the stuff—until they discovered someone had beaten them to the punch: It was already on the shelves at Whole Foods. They contented themselves with buying a case of it a week, which they usually tossed into a blender with fruit for a nutritious drink. “One day we just looked at each other and said, ‘This is crazy, why don’t we sell a skyr smoothie?’” Jennifer Buerger says.

They worked with a food scientist in the dairy department of the University of Vermont, Andrew’s undergrad alma mater, to come up with a recipe and three flavors: banana, banana mango, and vanilla. Each has at least 15 grams of protein per 8-ounce serving, with zero fat, zero added sugar, and only 120 calories. (Compared to the average cup of flavored yogurt, which, ounce for ounce, has about the same sugar as soda.)

When it came to sourcing the skim milk used to make the smoothies, they looked in Maryland and further north before settling on the Amish countryside. It seemed a natural fit. The Amish were organic before organic was cool. “They were very welcoming,” Buerger says. “I love the way their families farm without hurting the environment, and I wanted to support that.

“And I’m still talking to guys in beards, hats, and black pants,” he adds with a smile, a nod to the sartorial similarities between the Amish and Orthodox Jews.

The drink is made in Amish country as well, and a year ago they moved smoothie production to a second, larger Amish-run plant near Lancaster, PA. (Yes, it uses electricity and modern equipment.) The Buergers invested some $100,000 in a special milk separator required to make skyr. “There went the college fund.” Buerger jokes.

When Buerger was still in publishing, Jennifer ran the company during the day and served as its chief cheerleader. Today, Buerger does the lion’s share of the heavy lifting while she is back at her initial career as a psychotherapist. She puts it another way: “My job now is to pay the bills.” While B’More Organic is growing like gangbusters—they expect another four-fold increase in sales to 35,000 cases this year—it’s still a couple of years away from making money, which is pretty much the norm for such startups. The pair is encouraged by the rise of Greek yogurt, which came out of nowhere to become a multi-billion-dollar industry. And, a new espresso flavor is also in the offing. (They plan to donate a percentage of B’More Organic’s profits to Jodi’s Climb for Hope once the company goes into the black.)

“Not to sound arrogant, but it was really easy to get our products into stores,” Buerger says, noting that Whole Foods and Wegmans took to the healthy, green products right away. “But now you have to go to each store at least once a month, if not more, and pass out samples because if they don’t sell the product, it gets kicked out.”

With his burgeoning business, young children, and not-infrequent trips to Lancaster to talk with his bearded, buggy-driving dairy associates, does Andrew Buerger ever pause to read the Baltimore Jewish Times?

“You know, I don’t even look at it—for a number of reasons,” he says. “I’ve moved on.”

Nicole Doenges strolls onto the water taxi, sits on a plastic bench,
leans back, and watches the Canton shore fade from view. No blaring car
horns or wailing sirens pollute the air, no construction zones or red
lights impede progress.

The gentle hum of the boat’s motor, the reflection of bright sunshine
off the calmly lapping blue water, and the sound of seagulls calling
out as they glide through the sky are the soundtrack of her morning
commute.

This is rush hour?

“It’s a really relaxing way to get my day started,” says Doenges, 26,
who certainly looks anything but stressed. “I don’t even use my car
most of the week.”

She’s one of a half-dozen Under Armour employees aboard on this sunny
but brisk May morning. They’re all young, fit, and sporting at least
one item with the familiar interlocking UA logo that has become as
inescapable in Baltimore as Natty Bohs and Old Bay.

Like Microsoft in Seattle, FedEx in Memphis, and Ford in Detroit, Under Armour has become a part of its home city’s fabric.

The boat heads west toward Tide Point, where they used to make
detergent. Now, they spend their days making would-be athletes like you
and me better.

Some of the passengers hold travel coffee thermoses or their phones.
Most clutch both. Doenges, a graphic designer, has a yoga mat with her.
There’s a company-sponsored class after work, one of the many perks, she
says, that definitely elevate the job.

The Water Taxi, free to the public and paid for in part by her
employer, is another. Fifteen minutes after it leaves Canton Waterfront
Park, it reaches Locust Point. Doenges grabs her bag, smiles, and says,
“Thanks, Lar,” to Capt. Larry Pinker, and sets off up the gleaming metal
pier toward the campus where a company is transforming a city.

Or is it the other way around?

By now the microfiber-to-riches story of Kevin Plank
and Under Armour has become the stuff of business-school legend. In
1995, Plank, special teams captain for the University of Maryland
football team, noticed that the cotton T-shirts his teammates wore under
their jerseys constantly were drenched in sweat. Thinking there must be
a better way, he created a prototype that wicked moisture and kept the
athletes cool and dry. Working from his grandmother’s Washington, D.C.,
row house, Plank started the company he’s built into a
multi-billion-dollar behemoth.

Under Armour’s move to Baltimore was based partly on strategy, partly
on practicality, and partly on gut instinct. In 1999,the company signed
Georgia Tech as its first major client. It needed to leave grandma’s,
and fast. Plank, a Kensington native who, like so much of the non-Hon
speaking world, associated Baltimore primarily with the Orioles, Colts,
and the Inner Harbor, essentially was a free agent.

“We were getting pushed to places that people thought were suitable
for us, like out in Springfield, VA,” Plank says. “But my partner who
had just joined me, Kip Fulks [now COO], was a lacrosse player, and I
was thinking we should own lacrosse. Baltimore was a hotbed for that. I
had been here a few times when I was in school. The mayor [Governor
Martin O’Malley] was this energetic guy from D.C. There were a lot of
things that felt compelling.”

After meeting with a friendly landlord, Plank sealed the deal on his move to a 2,400-square-foot space on South Sharp Street.

“It was myself, Kip, a bookkeeper, and another person who answered
phones,” Plank recalls of those early years. “If we had someone
visiting, I’d hire my friends to come in and sit in chairs behind rented
computers and act like they were doing work.”

Enough got done that Under Armour quickly outgrew that space and
moved to a 15,000-square-foot facility on Bush Street in Pigtown. By
2003, the company was bursting at the seams and signed a deal to move to
the waterfront in Tide Point. Leaving the city, Plank says, was never
an option.

“When I looked at the factors, the culture and identity of Baltimore
is one of the things that attracted me as much as anything else,” he
says. “We wanted to build a hard-edged, blue-collar company, and that
attitude fit with what Baltimore was. We had a chip on our shoulder. I
think our city still does, and I think our company does.”

In the former Proctor & Gamble plant, Under Armour’s 25 or so
employees occupied about 20,000-square-feet. As the company continued to
grow, it gobbled up office space vacated by departing tenants. In 2011,
it bought the facility for a reported $58 million and almost
immediately mapped out an ambitious expansion plan. Today, 1,300 of its
employees occupy six buildings on the campus.

“We’ve seen every inch of this city,” Plank says. “Bush Street was
cool. The day we moved we threw a big block party with keg stands and
the whole nine yards. We played ‘Movin’ On Up’ from The Jeffersons. We
moved from across a scrap metal yard to the lap of luxury. We tell our
people that this campus should be the center of energy for our company
globally. We’ve stuck a flag in the ground here.”

Larger-than-life photos of Under Armour athletes
greet visitors who pass through the front doors of the Ivory Building.
(Each building in Tide Point is named for a Proctor & Gamble
product.) The players—Kemba Walker (basketball), Bryce Harper
(baseball), Sloane Stephens (tennis)—are, perhaps like the company
itself, not yet superstars but hard-working young talents whose best
days are yet to come. In the third-floor lobby, three framed Baltimore
magazine stories proclaiming Under Armour one of the best places to work
in the city hang alongside copies of Plank’s business cards throughout
the years. In the early days, he carried both one that identified him as
the president of the company and one with the title “sales manager.”

Construction is underway on a freestanding visitors center in the middle of the 21-acre campus, but for now, guests report here.

“We thought Tide Point and this city fit our culture and our
company,” says Matt Mirchin, senior vice president of global brand and
sports marketing. “Blue-collar, inner-city tough. When people visit us
for the first time, they say they feel the energy. They say, ‘This is
how we envisioned Under Armour.’”

The workspace for many of the teammates, as Under Armour calls its
employees, is a maze of cubicles and seemingly never-ending racks of
clothing and shoes. There are several open spaces on most of the floors,
which have high ceilings and an industrial feel. Many people have
sports memorabilia surrounding their desks—a South Carolina football
helmet, a University of Utah jersey.

“We don’t have favorite teams,” Mirchin says. “If they’re not an Under Armour team, they don’t exist.”

As Plank’s alma mater and the company’s home state flagship school,
the University of Maryland is perhaps Under Armour’s most visible
client. (There’s a 55-yard replica of its football field on the Tide
Point campus.) In 2011, the company responded to the school’s request to
generate some excitement around the football program, redesigning the
team’s uniforms using the colorful state flag as inspiration. When the
primetime national television audience got its first glimpse during the
opening game, reaction was decidedly mixed.

“OH GOSH. Maryland uniforms. #Ewwwwww!” LeBron James declared on Twitter, where the uniforms were the top trending topic.

“We loved the fact that it generated such buzz,” Mirchin says. “Some
of it was negative, a lot of it was positive, but once you get that
conversation started, people can have their opinions. We loved it, we
thought it accomplished the goal.”

Under Armour employees don’t dress quite so flashy. They can wear
jeans, T-shirts, really anything they want (though you’d be hard-pressed
to find a Nike swoosh). Employees get a 50-percent discount on Under
Armour merchandise.

Each person who passes in the hall is somehow better looking than the
last, and most appear to be in top shape. When a new employee is hired,
they receive $50 a month toward a personal or group training session.
It’s up to the person whether or not to use the service, but a
commitment to physical fitness is strongly encouraged, if not expected.

The Under Armour Combine Training Center is a gym housed in the Tide
Building next door. It’s a state-of-the-art 10,000-square-foot facility
that is open to the general public and UA employees at a discounted
rate. It hosts group fitness classes and competitions, and generally is
packed in the early mornings and after work.

“We try to encourage an active lifestyle because it’s representative
of who we are as a brand,” Mirchin says. “You don’t necessarily need to
be an athlete to work here, but you need to know how to compete, and you
have to hate to lose.”

The campus essentially is divided by railroad tracks, on which
several freight trains pass through weekly. CSX sends an e-mail to
employees alerting them to a forthcoming train, which can take up to 45
minutes to chug by. Expansion plans call for a pedestrian overpass
(which will be 100 yards, the idea being for employees to sprint across
it) to connect the waterfront portion of the campus to the other side,
which houses the showrooms, cafeteria, and innovation lab.

Considering all the exercising they do, it’s no
surprise that Under Armour employees crave calories. Many fuel up at the
Humble & Hungry Café, the company’s beloved eatery that serves
everything from sandwiches to sushi.

Each menu item is marked with a color-coded dot. Green denotes
healthy options, like a grilled salmon sandwich ($5.50) or a turkey
burger ($6, with one side). Yellow choices like the Philadelphia roll
($5) or bison burger ($7.50) are iffier, and red, plastered like a
scarlet letter next to items like mac and cheese and fries ($1 each),
are flat-out fattening.

“You can still have them if you’re having a bad day,” Mirchin jokes.

The large bay windows open when the weather is nice, and games
involving Under Armour teams are shown on the big screens. Coffee, tea,
and fountain sodas are free if employees use their own cups.

In another part of the Cheer Building, there’s a basketball court
that hosts pick-up games and tournaments. Hours had to be cut back when
the noise from hypercompetitive games got too disruptive.

Large showrooms allow the company snazzy venues in which to host
clients. Each one is dedicated to a specific market. For example, there
is quickly growing women’s apparel, which Mirchin says is 30 percent of
Under Armour’s business today but soon will be half, and Next, the
company’s name for its children’s line. Each showroom is
named—Dedication, Commitment, Inspiration, Vision, Pride.

“We try to brand everything,” Mirchin says. “People ask me all the
time what makes Under Armour different than our competitors, because
there are a lot of things we don’t have patents on. Anybody can buy the
same fabrics. It’s the people, it’s the culture, and it’s the brand.
When people buy Under Armour, they feel like it protects them and makes
them perform better.”

Much of what they’re purchasing is born in the adjacent innovation
lab. A top-secret facility to which only about 1 percent of the
company’s 6,000 worldwide employees have unfettered access, it’s headed
by Kevin Haley, an easy-going, deep-thinking former collegiate track
athlete and Under Armour’s first general counsel.

“Everything you could possibly want to do to a piece of fabric,
material, or textile, we do here,” says Haley, 44, senior vice president
of innovation. “It’s not enough just to make it look cool. We’ve got to
make sure it works.”

“Make All Athletes Better” declares a metal sign above the 007-like
entrance to the lab. A vascular scanner matches an employee’s ID badge
to the vein pattern on the back of their hand before the door
automatically opens.

Inside is a soaring, bright, multi-story open space, with work
stations on the second level. The lab contains technology ranging from
cutting edge—an environmental chamber that allows testing of apparel in
precise heat, cold, and humidity—to a boring, everyday washing machine.

Products must pass durability, abrasion resistance, and flexibility
tests before they are green lit. Haley occasionally refers to the lab as
the “proving grounds.”

“Sometimes you’ll get something to work, but then you’ve got to get
it through the washer and dryer,” he says. “It’s not too sexy, but it’s
one of the most challenging things we do.”

The company’s latest innovation is Armour39, a workout-monitoring
system that measures, tracks, and analyzes every move an athlete makes
though a module on a chest strap and an iPhone app. Today, engineer Mark
Oleson is testing it in the curtained-off variable-free workout center
on the lab floor.

Wearing shorts and a white Under Armour HeatGear Prototype shirt,
Oleson, 39, has been tracking his WILLpower, a single number calculated
using data collected from the device during a workout. After some
intense full-body exercise on the rowing machine, he does 30-pound curls
and 60-pound shoulder presses before declaring that he has the best job
in America.

“I’m getting paid to work out,” says Under Armour’s director of
product and innovation. He’s got the sweat to prove it. Aside from the
maddening “thinking outside the box,” “work hard and play hard” might be
the most overused, hokey cliché in all of business.

At Under Armour, it actually fits.

In between the yoga classes, basketball games, and cross-training,
Under Armour teammates are expected to complete exemplary work. A whole
lot of it.

“It’s definitely not a nine-to-five culture,” Mirchin says. “When
you’re growing at the rate we are, a lot of times people are doing more
than one job while you’re looking to hire more people. I would say
people here tend to stay later.”

That’s rubbed some former employees the wrong way. One person who
recently left the company after two years said they averaged 65- to
70-hour workweeks.

“We all drank the Kool-Aid,” the former employee says. “They promote a
work-life balance with the gym, the food, lots of fun activities. But
most nights I wouldn’t get home until 10, after my daughter was already
in bed. When you sign up for Under Armour, you know that they expect you
to put them first.”

Plank is very specific about the type of employee the company seeks to hire.

“You’re always looking for leadership,” he says. “I want people who
are going, ‘I was a lacrosse player and my fifth metatarsal was always
bothering me by the end of a game. How can I make a shoe that makes that
better?’ Everyone’s a salesperson for our company. The environment
we’ve created here, you’re treated like an adult, and we expect you to
bring a great attitude.”

When Terry Hickey moved to Locust Point six years
ago, many of his neighbors weren’t even aware Under Armour was
headquartered in Tide Point. By 2011, however, the company was seeking
approval from the Locust Point Civic Association for its expansion plan
that included more office space, parking, and a retail outlet.

“From the beginning, Under Armour was very smart,” says Hickey, now
the civic association’s president. “They avoided the
we’ll-do-this-with-or-without-you approach. I was on the board when this
started, and I can tell you, support certainly wasn’t unanimous. There
were folks who were taken with Under Armour—its jobs, its prestige. On
the other hand, there were people who think any big company is bad. The
folks in the middle realized that we needed to work with them to get a
good outcome.”

The company committed more than $200,000 to the civic association for
improvements to Latrobe Park, an area rec center, and street-scaping
along Fort Avenue. In January 2012, more than 100 members of the
association unanimously voted to support the PUD (Planned Unit
Development) amendments and a separate agreement with Under Armour to
make its neighborhood investments.

Later that year, the city approved $35 million in Tax Increment
Financing for infrastructure upgrades in the area. It will potentially
issue bonds to pay for street and promenade improvements and new
athletic fields for the company and the public. The debt will be repaid
by property taxes generated by the company.

“They’ve done their best to be active community partners and work
with the neighborhood on issues,” said Baltimore City Councilman William
Cole, who represents the area. “It never hurts to have one of these
strong companies with ambitious plans wanting to expand in your city
because they’re bringing in a lot of people to work here. That helps
sustain our tax base.”

Under Armour funnels about $55 million into the state and city
coffers, based in part on its property taxes, taxes paid by its
employees, and tax revenue from its stores, according to a study by
Daraius Irani, executive director of the Regional Economic Studies
Institute at Towson University. That’s a significant figure for a
cash-strapped city. Add the company’s philanthropic exploits—its goal is
to spend $10 million over the next five years on athletic and academic
improvements to local schools (a new football field and 65 computers at
Dunbar High came first) as part of its WIN Baltimore initiative,
according to Mirchin—and it’s easy to see why its neighbors are willing
to stomach increased traffic or tight parking.

“They send somebody to pretty much every one of our monthly community
meetings,” Hickey says. “In that way, I think they’ve been a model.
When construction on the campus really starts in earnest, and if they
have plans to expand outside their campus in the future, there are going
to be some tough conversations and some people leveraged against it,
but I think they’re smartly building a relationship with the
neighborhood.”

Among the most contentious issues in Under Armour’s expansion
negotiations with the Locust Point Civic Association was its plan to
build a retail store on its campus. The company quickly shelved that
idea, deciding instead to open its “Brand House” in the Legg Mason
building in Harbor East.

“We’re a global company, and we’re opening offices all around the
world, but we are proud that Baltimore is our home,” says Henry
Stafford, senior vice president for apparel, outdoors, and accessories.
“We want people to know what we’re capable of, so we’re bringing our
best and brightest products to Baltimore.”

The 6,100-square-foot store has been open since February. Among its
most popular sellers are T-shirts that tap into Baltimoreans’ provincial
love for their neighborhoods. One features a UA logo smacked on the
side of a flamingo, above the word “Hampden.” In keeping with its flair
for the dramatic, there’s a four-sided JumboTron suspended from the
ceiling and a 750-pound carved wooden UA logo hanging on the back wall.

“Whether we open in Baltimore or New York City or Chicago or
Shanghai, we’re from there,” Stafford says. “There’s an element of that
hometown pride, that underdog, in every city. We’re the next great
brand, but we’re always going to be an underdog. We’re always going to
scrap and fight.”

Before it opened, more than 300 people interviewed for the initial 25
store associate positions that Under Armour calls “specialists.”

“I think all things aside, its impact is bigger than its numbers,
because it’s everywhere,” Irani says of the company. “The Under Armour
brand is becoming ubiquitous.”

In many ways, however, it’s still a piranha when compared to the
great white shark that is Nike. In April, Under Armour reported a
23-percent increase in first-quarter sales, to $472 million. Still, its
$2 billion in sales last year was less than one tenth of Nike’s,
according to Sports Illustrated.

“We know who they are, we know what they do, but we play our own
game, and we think we can continue to grow,” Mirchin says. “We just said
publicly that the next three years we’re going to double to $4 billion,
and, if you start worrying about what other people are doing, it’s very
difficult to achieve that.”

But Under Armour has certainly made its mark here. At night, a
reflection from the illuminated freestanding UA sign outside the Harbor
East store shimmers off the water. Light from the Under Armour complex
sign, as Tide Point now officially is known, shines from the other side
of the harbor.

Baltimore’s been branded a company town.

“The big, long-term vision is that some 22-year-old graduating from
college is going to say, ‘I applied to get a job at Under Armour,’”
Plank says. “‘I’ve got a [slim] shot, because it’s the greatest place in
the world to work, but regardless, I’m going to move to Baltimore,
Maryland, because it’s the coolest city in the world.'”

Several years ago, David Swartz stumbled across an archival story from The Baltimore Sun recounting a brawl between his great grandfather, furrier James Swartz, and a customer who had come into his store to buy a coat for his wife. “The article said there was a disagreement and then an assault,” recounts David. “It said that James Swartz was arrested and the other man was taken out in an ambulance . . . so I guess we know who won.” Sitting by his son’s side, inside the stylish Lutherville-Timonium showroom of Mano Swartz, company president Richard Swartz smiles proudly at the story—not just because David, 23, joined the fifth-generation family business last fall, but because Richard loves family lore.

“There is a thread of strength that runs through many of my family’s stories,” says Richard, his voice thick with a Baltimore accent, the result of living here for most of his 53 years. “Hard times make you strong—hard has wiped out a lot of businesses, but it’s about your interaction with those obstacles that can make you strong.”

Indeed, the “fighting furrier” story is an apt metaphor for a family business—founded in 1889—that, despite the odds and the obstacles, still survives. Through the years, Mano Swartz has battled its way through the Great Depression (James Swartz lost part of the family fortune during that time), two recessions (the 1992 recession led to the business closing for a year), civil-rights opposition (in the ’50s, the store opened its doors to African-Americans—leading to an eventual death threat against James), and, of course, the wrath of animal-rights activists, who question the morality of wearing fur and try to make people feel threatened for choosing to wear it. (Who could forget Vogue’s fur-wearing editor Anna Wintour having a dead raccoon lobbed on her plate during a luncheon at The Four Seasons hotel?)

But 123 years since its founding, Mano Swartz is still going strong, selling upwards of 500 coats a year, remodeling between 600 and 800 coats (a “Mano makeover” they call it), and storing thousands of fur items—including a leopard rug given to James by his friend Winston Churchill—in a climate-controlled warehouse located several miles from the showroom.

Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Gov. William Donald Schaefer, and Colt’s Quarterback Johnny Unitas have all been Mano loyalists. (“When I gave Johnny Unitas a price for a coat, he went into a huddle with his wife,” cracks Richard. “Here’s a guy who invented strategy.”) And although the heyday for traditional, full-length furs was back in the glamorous Dynasty era of the ’80s, Mano Swartz, one of four fur retailers remaining in Baltimore (down from 50 or 60, according to Richard), isn’t going away any time soon.

Swartz’s story is a classic tale of survival of the fittest that begins in the late 19th century in Hungary where “Papa”—the original Mano Swartz , that is—worked as a forester (a modern-day park ranger) in Kishvarda, a small city in the northeast.

“My great-grandfather lived in a typical European place where 100 families had all the money, and there was no middle class,” says Richard, who relishes recounting his family’s colorful history. “The government said, ‘What are we going to do with all these [poor] people?’ So they put them in the military for life.”
To escape a lifetime of military service, Mano immigrated to New York City.

“He pursued what he knew well—animals,” says Richard. Like many other Jewish immigrants of the time, he got into the fur business, but he was an entrepreneur and pursued other avenues as well. Family legend has it that at one point, “Papa” headed to Colorado to capitalize on the California Gold Rush, entertaining the miners with his own “dance hall” (i.e. brothel) and even staging a bull fight, but the evening before the event, the animal escaped, so Mano, who had already collected his money, fled back to New York where he continued to work in fur. He eventually headed to Baltimore where he opened his eponymous store, Mano Swartz Furs, and later married Dina Saks (of the Saks Fifth Avenue family).

For decades, Mano Swartz Furs was a Baltimore City fixture, first on Lexington Street and later on Howard Street before moving to York Road in Towson in 1976, The Village of Cross Keys in 1992, and finally to Falls Road in 2006. In the ensuing years, Mano groomed his son, James (who, in turn, groomed his son Mano II, who groomed son, Richard) to take over the business. Entrepreneurship was in the family genes.

“My grandfather [James] was way ahead of his time,” says Richard. “He created the Veteran’s Day sale in Baltimore after the Second World War and offered anyone with honorable discharge papers 10 percent off. There was no discounting in retail back then—this was not done. In one day, he sold 150 coats!”

On a hot summer’s day, when fur is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind (unless you’re a Swartz, that is), Richard reflects on how his small family business (with only seven employees these days) has lasted for more than a century.
“Much of why we have flourished is due to our founding fathers,” explains Richard, noting the early adversity they faced. “My grandfather used to say that if it hadn’t been for the [Great] Depression, he would have been a millionaire many times over. But going through that added an element of conservatism, and, as a result, we never over expanded as so many businesses do once they are successful. Through the years, we have focused on getter better not bigger. And what could be timelier today?”

The family also cites consistency as a key to the company’s success.

“[There’s a certain way] way we answer the phone,” explains David, describing his very detailed training protocol. “This is how you present a coat to the customer after dropping off a delivery. This is how you greet customers and this is how you inspect a coat.”

Chimes in Richard: “We’ve had so many challenges through the years. We are ahead of other boutiques today because we’ve already had to face all these challenges.”

So, for instance, in the late ’90s, when business got tough because of changing tastes and trends, it occurred to Richard that many people had shelled out substantial sums for fur coats that were no longer in style. What if Mano Swartz took those coats and restyled them for contemporary tastes? And with that, the “Mano makeover” was born.
“Why does one business survive and another doesn’t?” asks Richard rhetorically. “It comes down to, how good are they are replacing lost sales? For us, what’s really driven our business is making over coats.”

And when the fur protests became heated in the ’80s, with the founding of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Swartz family took a balanced approach. “Our position all the way through has been that we embrace the freedom to choose not to be involved in furs,” says Richard. “But we also want respect for people who choose to wear fur.”

The naysayers, Richard claims, have quieted down because “they realize that the fur business is completely in sync with nature . . . It’s a renewable resource and all the products are bio-degradable and used responsibly. The protesters have moved on—9/11 changed things. After that, terrorizing people wasn’t okay anymore.”
David adds some trademark family humor to the dialogue. “There’s a joke in our industry that goes, ‘Why do people care about people wearing fur and not about people wearing leather?'” he says, pausing before he answers. “It’s easier to fight old women than bikers.”

Every year, when the mercury drops, the fur—from gloves to shearlings, vests, and coats—flies out of cold-storage and off the racks at Mano’s showroom. In 2011, U.S. fur retail volume hit $1.34 billion, a 3.4 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Fur Information Council of America (FICA). And while Richard doesn’t sell and tell, refusing to discuss profits, he does say that while sales peaked in the 1980s, they “are very steady and strong now—enough [for us] to eat steak every night.”

Richard’s wife, Debbie, also works for the family business (until recently, so did the late, great Teddy, a black miniature poodle who increased the cuteness quotient on the sales floor). A former curator at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, the down-to-earth Debbie—whose primary adornment is a tape measure around her neck—designs, edits, and curates the collection.

“If anyone ever told me I’d be married to a furrier and living below the Mason-Dixon line, I would have laughed,” says Debbie, who hails from New England and works with high-end fur designers such as Prabal Gurung to create exclusive designs. With Feng Shui in mind, Debbie also designed the elegant, well-appointed showroom that includes a pair of antique benches from the swan boats in the Boston Common and the original, stainless-steel vault door from the Lexington Street store. “My goal was to have small collections with some things in the back so you can really see the merchandise and appreciate it,” says Debbie. “I didn’t want, as Salieri [Mozart’s rival] said, ‘Too many notes.'”
While there are still floor-length minks for sale (with price tags ranging between $3,000 and $15,000), this is not your grandmother’s closet. In the showroom, merchandise runs the gamut—from fingerless fur-trimmed gloves and trendy boot toppers (for as little as $99) to chic fur pillows and Debbie’s own line of stylish handmade handbags. Fur is also used in more creative and unexpected ways—a cashmere cape with sable trim or a silver fox scarf that’s been dyed a deep burgundy.

“Mano Swartz has been a retail innovator,” explains Keith Kaplan, executive director of FICA. “[They] continually evolve their retail concept to reflect changing consumer tastes and fur and fashion trends.”

In early fall, longtime Lutherville customer Bernie Cook arrives at the store to pick up her beaver jacket which Debbie has refashioned into a vest. “The winters have been so warm, I wasn’t wearing it,” says Cook as she tries on her reversible silk-lined vest, which she proclaims is “perfect.” After a consultation with Debbie, Cook decides to add to her ever-growing fur collection (one coat, two jackets, two “Mano make-over” vests, among other pieces) and asks Debbie to design a chic French tam with the leftover fur scraps from her jacket. “I’ve never bought a fur anywhere else,” says Cook.

Cook’s first coat was an unexpected purchase. Thirty years ago, unbeknownst to her, Cook’s daughter had dropped out of college.

“When I found out, I went to Chiapparelli’s which was then in Towson, ordered a scotch, told them to save it for me, and went across the street to put $10 down on my first fur—a mink coat,” recalls Cook. “I came back and bought it the next day from the money I was saving on tuition.” Cook has been a customer ever since (and, five years ago, that mink was restyled into a reversible raincoat). “I bought my first coat from Richard’s father,” says Cook. “They’ve always been so great. I love coming here.”

Richard, Debbie, and David know they have a family legacy to live up to. “Richard’s great grandfather used to say, ‘It takes 100 years to grow a tree, and it takes one day to cut it down,'” says Debbie. “We never take our customers for granted. I think he would have been pleased to see that we are still living up to that standard.”

Mark Schmidt, who keeps a pair of binoculars on his file cabinet, jokes that he has “the best view of the harbor in the city.”

On a recent afternoon, his sunny water’s-edge office offers the perfect vantage point. But the 22-year Port of Baltimore veteran isn’t admiring tall ships or checking for pretty girls aboard the water taxis. As manager of the Seagirt Marine Terminal, he’s focused on seven 110-foot cranes—and the dozens of truck drivers and longshoremen swarming around them—that are simultaneously loading three massive container ships eventually headed for China, the Middle East, and South America.

“The best view, except for the noise,” says Schmidt, with a smile, as he glances over to an Evergreen Line ship scheduled for 1,355 “moves”—container loads and discharges—during its 13 hours in port. “And maybe the heat”—July and August temperatures reach toward 110 degrees off the concrete here.

“That’s the ‘spreader,'” says Schmidt, pointing to a crane’s monstrous steel claw as it plucks a 40-foot container from a flatbed.

Trucks line up three deep as crane operators, seated in sky-high cabs with joysticks in the armrests, lift and lower one giant metal box after another. Aboard the ships, the length of three football fields, longshoremen lash the outgoing cargo to the deck and make sure each corner “shoe” of the containers, stacked four high, is locked into place.

The energetic Schmidt seems the ultimate problem-solver as he fields constant calls from longshoremen and drivers. (“Is it okay to ‘boom down’ the crane for repairs?;” “Can I drive my truck in?;” “Is the new construction guy on the visitor’s list?”)

But the height of his career may be just unfolding: being a key player in the construction of the new 50-foot-deep berth—one of just two on the East Coast—designed to accommodate the super-sized ships expected to arrive via the expanded Panama Canal in 2014.

But that project is just one of the reasons that the trading world is starting to sit up and take notice of a massive facility that most Baltimoreans are barely aware of.

It wasn’t that long ago—your grandfather remembers—that Baltimoreans understood that their port was the region’s most important economic hub. They even made a local TV series about it in the ’50s, The Port that Built a City. (Okay, granted, with only three fuzzy, black-and-white channels, your choices were The Ed Sullivan Show and I Love Lucy.)

But somewhere along the way, the relevancy of the port seemed to wane in the public consciousness. Maybe smoke got in our eyes from heavy industries like cars and steel and spices, or maybe it was the smell of ether from a rising health-care scene.

But if you thought the port went the way of the rotary telephone, think again. Gradually, then suddenly, it’s regained its status as an economic juggernaut. And if six degrees of separation works (it’s probably closer to four in Smalltimore), then you’re likely connected to someone who works there: There are 40,000 people at work directly or indirectly because of the port.

Rebounding since its decline in the 1980s, when Baltimore began losing business to other ports, notably Norfolk and New York, the port saw a 15-percent increase last year in cargo handled, the largest increase of any major U.S. port.

Baltimore also now ranks as the top U.S. importer/exporter of automobiles. In 2011, Baltimore also ranked first—among all 360 U.S. ports—for handling farm and construction equipment, imported forest products, imported sugar, imported gypsum, and imported iron ore, according to the Maryland Port Administration (MPA). And the port ranked second nationally for exported coal, imported salt, and imported aluminum. But it’s not just about cargo: Even the cruise business is booming, setting sail with a quarter-million passengers last year, a Baltimore record.

If, however, there’s one symbol of the broad public and private efforts to ensure the 300-year-old Port of Baltimore thrives for a fourth century, it was the sight of four massive 1,700-ton cranes—manufactured in Shanghai and 40 stories when fully erected—ducking beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge in mid-June on their way to the new Seagirt berth.

“The Seagirt private-public partnership was the first of its kind; two major financial publications named it the logistics project of the year,” MPA executive director James White says. “We couldn’t have done it without a commitment to the long-term success of the port. We want to maintain the business we have, and, at the same time, grow the port.”

Seemingly, all of Baltimore’s oldest institutions trace their roots to the port. It was Jamestown’s Capt. John Smith who led the first European expedition into the upper Chesapeake Bay, mapping the harbor’s Patapsco River basin, among other local waterways, in 1608. Ninety-eight years later, the Maryland Colonial Assembly named Locust Point the official entry port for the tobacco trade with England—predating the incorporation of Baltimore City by two decades.

In 1730, English Quaker and carpenter William Fell purchased a marshy piece of land on the shores of the Patapsco. The deep water there soon provided anchorage for shipping vessels and, later, Fells Point became a shipbuilding hub, notable for its renowned Baltimore clippers.

“Shipping out tobacco, wheat flour, in the 1700s, that was the beginning,” says Helen Delich Bentley, a former Maryland congresswoman, former chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, and co-author of The Great Port of Baltimore: Its First 300 Years, 1706 to 2006.

If you took a time machine back 150 years, you’d recognize some of the names during roll call at the monthly Moose club meeting:

They’re the fat cats who got rich on the port, including Johns Hopkins and George Peabody, who were traders, as well as William Walters of The Walters Art Museum family, notes Bentley. The McDonogh School was established by John McDonogh, who was in the shipping business, Patterson Park bears the name of William Patterson, who’d started shipping wheat to England, and Enoch Pratt—who left his money to build the library system—was a trader, too. And our ethnic neighborhoods, like Little Italy, were built by immigrants arriving at the port, the second busiest U.S. entry point at one time after Ellis Island.

A number of port businesses from those early days remain ongoing enterprises, notes Bentley, who started as a port reporter for The Baltimore Sun during World War II and also hosted The Port That Built a City, beginning in 1950.

Domino Sugar, for example, opened its Baltimore harbor refinery in 1922. Proving business is still sweet, it received its largest shipment of raw sugar ever of 95 million pounds—taking two weeks to unload—earlier this spring.

Founded in 1889, McCormick & Company built its “House of McCormick” at the harbor in 1921. In 1927, W. G. N. Rukert, a tough, charismatic entrepreneur known as “Cap Rukert,” convinced McCormick to sell him Jackson’s Wharf.

A stevedoring and warehousing company, Rukert Terminals now handles metals, ores, alloys, and other dry bulk and cargo. In a good year, Rukert’s handles 1.5 million tons of cargo. And during winter storms, thank Rukert for making sure you don’t slide off the road and find yourself in a snow drift: More than 600 trucks per day pull tons of salt from Rukert’s warehouses for delivery to icy roads.

Percy Cox, a labor foreman with the International Longshoremen’s Association 333, started working in 1963 when there were two longshoreman locals—a black one and a white one.

“This is a hustling job, always has been,” says Cox, an African-American. He recalls standing in line in West Baltimore in those days, hoping to be picked for a day’s job. “Back then, if you didn’t work hard, when you’d go down to the union hall, they’d tell you not to come back.

“There’s always been ups and downs here,” he continues. “Some weeks, you’d check in with your badge and then turn right around and check out with your badge, not moving a thing.”

Kenneth Powell, another longtime ILA member, has ridden the same roller coaster. He says the early ’90s were the worst personally, when the port looked like it might never fully rebound. “I was starving to death,” Powell says. “I had to get a part-time job at the post office.”

Today, however, with “ro-ro” volume—roll-on, roll-off cargo like cars, trucks, tractors, and front loaders—at record levels, Cox and Powell are plenty busy. “Right now, you could work everyday if you have seniority,” Cox says.

But it was not that long ago that another series of factors threatened the port’s future as one of the city and state’s leading economic engines. Management-labor issues, as well as a poor labor reputation at the time, combined to take a further toll on the port’s business.

As the city struggled with the loss of its manufacturing base, particularly on the southeast side of town at places like Bethlehem Steel, General Motors, and Martin Aircraft, hopes dimmed for the port as a source of good-paying blue-collar jobs.

“Baltimore’s [port] reputation in those days was that it wouldn’t work in the rain,” Bentley says, alluding to the critical cost of delays—companies pay thousands of dollars per hour in fuel, docking fees, and wages to operate their ships.

“In 1988, Gov. [William Donald] Schaefer got so agitated [about labor difficulties] that he was ready to shut down the port and turn it over to developers.” Port, business, and labor officials finally agreed to sit down. “We began mediation on Nov. 22 of that year and we ran every day—except for Christmas—until Jan. 8, 1989. Since then, there’s been no labor strife.”

New labor agreements didn’t change the course of the port overnight, but set the stage for a business model in the mid-1990s that’s driving the port’s current success.

“We looked at our geographic advantage [8 million people in the Baltimore-Washington area and the nearest Atlantic port to the Midwest], and looked to a more diversified operation,” says port director White. “We’re closest to the automobile manufacturers, the farm-equipment manufacturers, like Caterpillar, Case, and John Deere, and started to develop that market. We had to make decisions about taking down dilapidated warehouses or rehabilitating them. But at the same time, we needed to keep an eye on the container business. We knew we had a great facility at Seagirt.”

At about 10 a.m. on a recent Friday at the Dundalk site, NYK line Port Capt. Scott Senko reports ILA workers have driven 350 cars aboard in the past three hours. If that sounds like a low-tech way to load ships, it is.

But low-tech is good news, in this case: Automobile, farm, and construction-equipment operations are especially significant because they translate into jobs. And the Dundalk Marine Terminal, a former airfield, includes acres needed for the storage of thousands of vehicles, another sector where we’ve gained a clear advantage over other ports.

Over 24 hours, more than 1,900 cars—many Toyota Avalons and Sequoias built at Midwestern plants heading for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait ports—squeeze onto the ship, a floating, 12-deck parking garage with ramps, orange cones, and a 12-mph speed limit, capable of stowing up to 3,500 vehicles. Ceiling heights beneath the deck adjust for farm and construction equipment. During loading, an enormous—and loud—ventilation system sucks carbon monoxide out while blowing fresh air in.

Bob Cooke, who came down to the port for a summer job after graduating from Mount Saint Joseph 33 years ago, plays a Noah-like role on Dundalk’s steamy, sun-baked lot, checking his “bible,” as he calls his manifest, for how many cars, make and model, to send onboard as he coordinates traffic.

“The number of cars we load on a ship in a single day would’ve taken three weeks in the past,” he says, referring to old “hoist” operations. He says his wife worries about melanoma, but he can’t imagine life at a cubicle desk. “I like being outside—I’d be like an animal stuck in an office,” he says. “When I’m off, I like to fish and hunt. It’s just who I am.”

Winter at the port can be a trip, too. “It’s been so cold with those things [ventilation fans] sucking the snow in,” port captain Senko says. “Inside the ship, it doesn’t melt—we’ve had drifts in here.”

It’s another world at the Port of Baltimore since the bad old days of a recalcitrant union and the ineffective management of the 1980s.

Senko and Doug Wolfe, general manager for Ceres Marine Terminals, a private stevedore company unloading Senko’s company’s vessel, highlight the port and union’s concentration on performance, and monthly meetings that bring together port, business, and labor leaders to address safety, quality, and efficiency concerns.

Wolfe says Baltimore’s moving times are among the nation’s best. But the port’s turnaround did not all pop at once, White acknowledges.

“Back in 1996, we said we wanted to be number one in automobiles, and that didn’t happen until last year. But that was the turning point, 1996.” Similarly, a concerted effort was eventually made to go after cruise business.

“In 1996, we probably had a dozen cruises leaving the port, that’s it,” White says. This year, it’s 100. “We knew we had a great market and we asked them [the cruise lines] what they needed. We didn’t have our cruise terminal then—we had an ad-hoc warehouse at Dundalk. We had to get people away from the cargo, and relocated our cruise terminal to South Locust Point and did more dredging. Now, we had a new asset to sell and we stayed after it. We went to the cruise lines and said, ‘We’re going to build a facility—help us build it.’ We thought they’d want the Taj Mahal, but no, they wanted something bare bones, very functional.”

The cruise lines, White learned, just want passengers to board quickly, without hassle, so they can get cracking spending their money on the ships.

It looks like clear sailing for now, but the port will always have to look over its shoulder to stay competitive with ports such as Philadelphia, Wilmington, and even Fort Lauderdale.

The New York Harbor and the Port of Miami are moving forward with their 50-foot berth plans (though the Big Apple has some low-bridge issues); Charleston and Savannah, among others, are studying the viability of similar efforts. Baltimore and Norfolk’s early advantage receiving Panamax ships won’t last forever.

But more vexing is a unique Baltimore disability that relates to getting the mega ships’ 14,000 TEUs (that’s Twenty-foot Equivalent Units to you landlubbers, the size of a single cargo container) onto local freight trains. The reason is a bottleneck dating to the 1895 construction of the Howard Street Tunnel: It’s not tall enough for today’s freight trains, which double-stack containers. For that reason, says Ports America Chesapeake president and CEO Mark Montgomery, 99 percent of containers moving at the port come and go by truck instead of rail—something that needs to change.

But, hey, this is America, so just fix it, right? Well, not so fast. If you remember the hour-long nightmare on the Jones Falls Expressway every day for a month last spring, when the city closed lanes to patch up the highway’s soft underbelly, then get out your abacus and calculate this: The cost of that highway repair was $2 million. To address the Howard Street Tunnel problem, a job that would mean tearing up light-rail wiring above the tunnel and city sewers below, multiply that times 500, not just in money, but in time, traffic jams, and general aggravation. That’s right, $1 billion, at a minimum.

CSX owns the Howard Street Tunnel and, with the MPA and state, is now proposing a transfer station, which would allow adding a second cargo container atop freight trains after they pass beneath Howard Street. Once completed, it would link to the $850 million National Gateway project, a public-private partnership that will create a double-stack rail corridor between Mid-Atlantic ports and the Midwest.

But construction of a transfer station in Elkridge, Jessup, or other suburban sites appears stalled. In April, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake pressed CSX to seek an appropriate Baltimore City site, saying the project’s delay was “threatening one of Baltimore’s strongest pillars of economic growth and job creation.”

Other issues on the horizon include upcoming union contract negotiations and finding money and land for ongoing maintenance dredging. And when it comes to harbor-floor mud laced with a century of heavy metals and other pollutants, there’s a NIMBY attitude toward having it dumped anywhere near a residential area. Environmentalists, in any case, fear that where ever it is dumped, it will leach into the bay.

Coke Point, near the former Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point, has been proposed as a site to replace the recently closed Hart-Miller Island dredging depository at the mouth of the Middle River. Potentially, 25-30 years down the road, a Coke Point dredging facility could convert to another marine terminal, but a Maryland Department of the Environment report calls the 2,300-acre Sparrows Point steelmaking area “perhaps the most complex environmental clean-up site in the Chesapeake Watershed.”

While people like Ports America Chesapeake’s Montgomery are convinced that the $105 million Seagirt construction project to accommodate the huge Panamax ships is coming at a perfect time, there are some who doubt the Panama connection will be an instant panacea.

Hofstra University shipping expert Jean-Paul Rodrigue says it remains to be seen if ports like Baltimore can gain a substantial bump in container business from the rush to build 50-foot-deep berths.

“The Panamax ships may come or they may not, it’s too early to tell,” Rodrigue says, adding that the mega-ships passing through the canal may decide to unload at Panama’s Port of Colon, or a number of other Caribbean ports, transferring their cargo to smaller ships for travel up the Atlantic. Rodrigue sees some, but limited, potential for Baltimore.

But Montgomery sees a huge upside at Seagirt, and growth in cargo that might include new distribution centers not only in the city, but also in Harford and Cecil Counties. Baltimore County sees potential, too: A Sparrows Point Partnership committee to study port-related opportunities was announced by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamentez in June.

Right now, Montgomery says, Baltimore is grabbing just 650,000 TEUs out of 3.1 million TEUs of cargo bound for Maryland on an annual basis—meaning after they’re unloaded elsewhere and sent by truck or rail. He agrees with the mayor that the key is CSX. “We could grab the bulk of the Maryland freight with big-ship economics,” Montgomery says. “We need to finalize a suitable site for the intermodal transfer facility and go get this business.

“We can grow organically, without doing too much, three percent a year,” Montgomery says of the port. “But as a citizen of Maryland, and also because it’s my job, I want us to do better. These are real jobs.”

Port Authority

Jobs: 40,040 jobs in Maryland are generated by port activity. 14,630 of those represent direct employment generated by cargo and vessel activities at the port, including railroads, trucking companies, terminal operators, cargo handling, manufacturing, towing, pilots, ocean carriers, and agents.

14,470 are what the MPA calls “induced jobs,” or those supported by the local purchases of goods and services by direct employees. These jobs—including sales clerks, mechanics, teachers, and government employees—would be lost in the short term if the direct jobs were lost.

10,940 are indirect jobs, or those supported by the business purchases of the employers who create the direct jobs. These include those who provide office supplies and equipment, utilities, communications, repairs, and legal and financial services.

In addition, 68,300 other jobs in Maryland are directly related to activities at the port, including those at manufacturing firms, distributers, coal mines, and automobile dealers who ship through Baltimore.

Broader Economic Impact:The most recent numbers, from 2010, show the Port of Baltimore was responsible for $3 billion in personal wage and salary income, generated $1.7 billion in business revenues, $1 billion in local purchases, and $304 million in state, county, and municipal tax revenues.

Koren Ray Brewer’s brain is deep in spring this February afternoon—spring 2009.

The senior vice president of merchandising and marketing for Hobo International handbags is in her office taking a call about the Annapolis-based company. She’s just left a meeting with her design team where they shared the bits of fabric, magazine pictures, and sketches they hope will forecast what kinds of handbags women will want to carry a year from now.

“It’s an exciting process, but kind of scary trying to crystal ball what colors and trends will be important and how we will fit ourselves into what will be up and coming,” says Koren, 41.

But it’s not as scary as it used to be.

Since Koren helped her mother, Toni Ray, start the company in 1991 with the idea that women want handbags full of little pockets and compartments, they’ve built a loyal following. “Whether we’ve followed the runway trends 100 percent or not, we have a trust factor from customers that this is a look that’s right,” says Koren.

Toni cashed in her IRA to start the company after losing her job of 20 years at Georgetown Leather Design in Washington, D.C. She says she decided to sell the company to Koren and her husband David Brewer two years ago because she knew it was time for it to grow. “People wanted to buy the business, but the kids said they really wanted it,” says Ray, 67, talking by phone from her home with a view of the ocean in Miami’s South Beach.

Since taking the helm, Koren and her husband David Brewer have aimed the company, long known for its fashionable function, toward becoming a lifestyle brand. “I think we’re definitely on track for big things, for growth,” says David, 44, the company’s president. The belts and eye wear products they’ve recently added have been well received. “I think we are going to grow this into a lifestyle brand that will include other categories like footwear and apparel.”

In Hobo’s first year of business, sales reached $400,000. This past year, annual sales exceeded $30 million. They have 42 employees, showrooms in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta and their bags are sold in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and specialty stores throughout the U.S., the U.K., Japan, and Canada.

Along the way, they ramped up the fashion, but they never lost the function. Hobo’s Director of Design Martha Radford, 55, first met Toni when she wandered into Georgetown Leather Design in the 70’s to buy a handbag and ended up taking a job there. Radford joined Hobo in the mid-90’s and brought innovations that beat some of the big names to market. “We started with wristlets before people were doing those around 2000. We were the first people to do frames,” says Radford of the hinged and structured bags that often close with a clasp. “It seemed like the natural thing two years ago. I got the idea of frames from old vintage handbags.”

Today, Hobo’s double frame clutches in hot orange and metallic python print share display space with familiar names like Coach, Kate Spade, and Botkier at the Towson Nordstrom. Hobo bags have been photographed adorning stars like Eva Longoria Parker and Sarah Jessica Parker.

But the brand doesn’t bank on flash. “They’re very functional. They’re understated,” says Toni. “We don’t hang Hobo tags off of them. We like to have the style, look, and quality that say Hobo.”

And while the price of some of Hobo’s competitors flirt with luxury levels, the average price of a Hobo bag is between $200 and $250. “They fill in well between my really high-end more expensive pieces where someone might not want to spend $500 on a handbag, but is willing to spend $200 or less,” says Form owner Aimee Bracken, who carries Hobo bags in her Hampden boutique. “I like that when mom comes in with her daughter, she can get her daughter a Hobo bag while mom gets a $600 Vera Wang dress.”

But she also likes their colors and function. She owns one of Hobo’s Sadie wallets, a long wallet with a tiny retro coin purse that tucks into an inside pocket. “Oh my gosh, I love that thing,” says Bracken. “My change stays in that coin purse perfectly.”

Fern Elliott of Lilac Bijoux carries the Hobo line in her Baltimore and Annapolis accessory stores and a Hobo clutch in her daily life. “Once you have one, you just want to keep it,” she says.

“Hobo has for many, many years been a well-kept secret,” says Koren of the company that has done almost no advertising. “When you find a customer who is passionate about Hobo, they really are passionate about it.”

Koren is wrapping things up this Friday afternoon, getting ready to take her husband and two boys Luca, 7, and Theo, 5, to join her mother on a vacation in Miami. “I miss having her here on a daily basis,” Koren says of Toni who recently married long-time friend Wallace Shaw and now divides her time between Florida and Annapolis. But she is still always available with advice. “I check in with her all the time,” says Koren. “She’s still involved in strategic decisions.”

Toni says she thinks her children are doing fine on their own. “Things are organized now, and that was never true with me,” she says.

Koren remembers when her mother was learning the business at Georgetown Leather Design. She would spend Saturday afternoons playing under the workbench where they made the belts and sandals. “I’d keep busy playing with the leather tools,” she says.

David has been with Hobo from the beginning. He met Koren when they were both working at the Middleton Tavern in downtown Annapolis. David had just returned to his family’s home in Annapolis after a 10-year sojourn in Greece where he earned a degree in marketing from The American University of Athens and ran a hotel and restaurant. Koren had just graduated from Northwestern University where she had studied theater design and acting and hoped to direct movies someday.

Initially, David’s job was keeping “an eye on the bottom line,” he says. “Toni was the creative and selling force.” He kept a close watch on their pricing structure and the deals they made. But his mechanical skills are the ones that might have been most useful early on.

Toni and Koren needed a way to get their early products to trade shows in New York. David found a 1970’s Chevy van listed for $150 in the local paper. He pulled Hobo International’s first corporate asset out of the woods behind someone’s house with four flat tires and a cracked engine compartment.

“It was 150 degrees in the summertime and freezing in the winter,” he says, “So much heat and exhaust would come through this thing, we had to drive with the windows down.” They called it “The Heater” and during those early years it hauled them and the display booths they’d painted with a Mexican hacienda-theme in Toni’s garage to the trade shows.

The couple loved the 15 years they spent working out of Toni’s renovated cottage home on the Chesapeake Bay. “There were as many as 10 of us working in the dining room with computers and bags stacked up to the ceiling,” says Koren. Her mother’s home was also the scene of their 1999 formal garden wedding—an event they were finally able to squeeze in between trade shows. Now they live in a house just two doors down from Toni in a Chesapeake Bay resort community. “Being in Annapolis gives us a real world perspective from a design standpoint,” says David. Hobo’s corporate offices now reside in an unsightly two-story building on Bay Ridge Avenue, a few miles from downtown.

Ideas for bag designs come from things they see going on in the market in the U.S. and from places like France, Italy, and Japan where trends germinate early. The spring line hitting stores now includes an edgy design with straps that criss-cross and antique silver hardware. But the line also has soft feminine bags with touches right out of ready-to-wear like ruching, ruffles, and pleats.

For the upcoming fall collection, Radford says she was inspired by a trip to Philadelphia last summer to see the King Tut exhibit. The turquoise, cobalt blue, and metallic hues resonated with her. “The Egyptians had a very forward color palette. You just get a sense of what’s happening in color just by looking all around you.”

The forecast for spring 2009 will bring her back a little closer to where she began, creating bags out of natural leathers for the hip denizens of 1970’s Georgetown. “Natural leathers are coming back in a big way,” says Radford. “There’s sort of a naked and whole sort of artisan look that will be important along with color.”

They might beat the big names to market with these trends. But that isn’t their aim.

“I really think that what we go for is the essence of fashion that is attainable, an everyday kind of fashion that works well with your existing wardrobe,” says Koren. “The lifestyle is about helping you to complete your look, but by your own rules.”

This is the story of a dad, his wife, their five sons (and five spouses), their seven grandchildren, and $50 million dollars. It has all the elements of a gripping modern day drama—money, family, and real estate. But this is no trust fund fiasco, no tale of ruined fortunes and misspent lives. Instead, it’s the tale of the Buscher family, and how Dave Buscher saw a business windfall as an opportunity to create a family of entrepreneurs—one start-up at a time.

Dave Buscher is a steak-and-potato man. But he’s also a millionaire—and right now he’s a millionaire who’s getting his butt kicked. That’s kind of the point at the Owings Mills Krav Maga studio (Krav Maga is a self-defense technique originally developed for Israeli defense forces). Slightly winded from being pummeled by a bunch of (much younger) students, Buscher, 61, more than holds his own. And no one holds back—even though Buscher owns the joint. Following the multi-million-dollar sale of his defense contracting company to a major military supplier, the white-haired, slightly cantankerous, but soft-spoken Buscher decided to invest the money back into his family—including himself. Buscher owns this studio, plus another one in Columbia. After reading about Krav Maga in an airplane magazine, Buscher came looking for training. When he didn’t find anything, “I did what I do in other cases—I started one of my own.”
He’s always been a hard worker. Buscher got his undergrad degree at Villanova University, outside of Philadelphia. That was followed by a master’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, and a master’s degree in systems engineering and technical management at Johns Hopkins. He worked at the Harry Diamond Laboratories (now the Army Research Lab), and then spent 17 years at JHU’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
In 1996, he co-founded Solipsys, a sensory integration company. Basically, says Buscher, they took different radars that had overlapping coverage and built a system that would let those radars create a single picture. Business was good—then came September 11, 2001. Demand for the company’s work took off; the sale to military contractor Raytheon was consummated in 2003. And suddenly, Buscher had tens of millions of dollars in his bank account. He also had a plan for what to do with the money.
His kids all remember it differently—how Dad first approached them with his plan—but eventually the message made its way around the family. “I challenged them all to come up with an idea,” says Buscher. If they put together a business plan, he’d hear it out. Word spread amongst the Buscher boys: David, 35; Mike, 33; Steve, 32; Christopher, 30; and Tim, 29. “I always wanted the kids to have the ability to be entrepreneurs,” says Dave. “To make their fortune and not necessarily have to work for someone else.”
The do-it-yourself spirit began early in the Buscher household. As the family outgrew their Silver Spring home in the early 1980’s, Dave started building a house in Clarksville with the help of a couple friends and some contractors; of course, the boys were put to work.
“I was 13 and hammering and plastering,” says David. “It was our family project for a couple years.” He remembers eating microwave hot dogs while they worked—”it was the only thing we ate for a year.” The house was completed in 1985.
“I have memories of being in sixth grade and hammering our plywood floors,” says Mike. “It was very much a family effort to build that house.”
His parents, says David, seem to thrive on chaos. They had five children in seven years. And once the boys started moving out, his mom, Lauretta, “would replace everyone with a dog,” says David. “For a while, she had this pack of dogs at the house.”
The brothers share a lot of similarities: smart, private, and focused. For many of them, their wives play a dominant role both at home and at work—spearheading the businesses that were born out of this proposal.

First out of the gate were Katie and Tim. They bought Crazy Lil’s, a bar in Federal Hill, in January 2003. “We had a couple of false starts trying to find the right place,” says Dave Buscher. Crazy Lil’s was the third or fourth opportunity. “That was the only business that was already operating. All the other businesses started from scratch.” Tim had no food service experience—he quit his job at Verizon to run the bar—but Katie had worked in restaurant management. “I think when we first told Dave we were going to buy a bar he thought we were crazy,” says Katie, 28, especially when, three months later, they found out she was pregnant. Tim quickly learned about food preparation and bartending since Katie couldn’t keep up with the late nights and smoky atmosphere.
They still own the bar, and it’s finally turning a profit, says Katie. Lil’s, she adds, prepared them for the next step: an upscale steakhouse in Fulton that sits at the intersection of routes 216 and 29. They spent a year planning oZ—pronounced “Oh-Zee”—Chophouse, and opened in September 2006. “This is ours from top to bottom,” says Katie, looking around the restaurant. They chose everything from the silverware to the soap dispensers in the bathroom. (Their second child was born two weeks before they opened. “We have really bad timing,” Katie says.)
Timing is just part of the learning process. And so are the mandatory monthly board meetings that Buscher instituted. Initially, everyone was skeptical. “I said, ‘I don’t want to sit around and tell everyone how much my store is making and how I pay my staff,'” remembers Lindsay Buscher, who along with husband Chris owns Urban Chic, a fashion boutique. But they had no choice. Now, she says, “it’s probably one of the smartest things we could have done.”
Everything is discussed, from finances to problem employees to merging suppliers. Buscher says there is no point in each business making the same mistake over and over again. And there are no secrets. “It makes everyone aware that what they do affects everyone else,” says Buscher, who attends some meetings, but not all of them. It’s now their show to run.

And so far, so good. Chris and Lindsay are at the helm of a boutique empire. They met their last semester at Salisbury University and fell in love, they joke, over their freak knowledge of Contra, a Nintendo game. When Dave’s offer was made, both Lindsay, 29, and Chris were working full-time, in addition to getting master’s degrees and planning a wedding. Chris had taken his degree in graphic design and gone to work for his dad at Solipsys—the only one of the brothers to do so. Lindsay was at Northrop Grumman and had just been accepted into the Women & Politics Institute at American University.
Instead, she opened her first Urban Chic in February 2004 in Georgetown.
With the money they borrowed, Lindsay and Chris were able to afford the real estate. “I think that Georgetown store was one of the most important decisions in our lives,” she says. They had discussed other locations, like Towson, “but I think if we had done that we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
Georgetown is a tricky place. As shopping destinations go, it’s one of the best. But for a small, independently operated boutique competing with established upscale shops like Barney’s Co-Op, Neiman Marcus’ Cusp, and Intermix—well, it’s a difficult thing. Especially for an inexperienced first-timer. The shop’s location, upper Wisconsin Avenue (known as Book Hill), is also a few miles off M Street’s main hub.
An omen of the store’s future came early: The night before they opened, a woman begged to come in and shop. She bought $5,000 worth of merchandise—in cash.
Chris called his father. “We just made our first sale,” he told him.
Today, the original Georgetown store continues to thrive (and “we are killing last year [sales],” says Lindsay). Chris and Lindsay opened their second Urban Chic at Maple Lawn outside Columbia in November 2005. They developed an online presence. They’ll open in Bethesda next spring. A developer in Annapolis is courting them. And Gaylord Hotels will be opening more incarnations of their boutique at two locations, including the highly touted National Resort & Convention Center (the “National Harbor” project) in Prince George’s County. “Lindsay has a passion for what she does,” says Michael Hudson, brand projects manager for Gaylord Hotels. “Her existing boutiques speak for themselves. She and her family have poured their heart and soul into them.”
Closer to home, the Harbor East location—nestled between Fells Point and the Inner Harbor—will open next month. Baltimore, they confess, was not on the radar screen. But it was Lindsay’s sister—living in Baltimore at the time—who saw the buildings going up around Whole Foods, and urged her to look into the new, upscale neighborhood. Lindsay called a leasing agent on a Sunday expecting to leave a message. “Oh my God,” the agent said to her. “I was going to call you tomorrow.”
When they open the doors in August (in the former Nouveau Contemporary Goods location), the store will house 2,900 square feet of home goods, clothes for women, men, and kids, and some maternity wear. One of the keys to Urban Chic’s success is the build-out—which is the process of finishing the raw space. This includes building walls, designing dressing rooms, selecting floors, and picking paint colors. “It could kill us because of the money we put into it.
But if we don’t do the build-out, we end up being like every other boutique,” says Lindsay. “And that’s what makes us stand out—and yeah, it’s going to take us a couple more years to pay that money back, but it’s worth it.”

If you ask any of the Buschers, this is the hardest they’ve ever worked. Owning a business—no matter where the funding comes from—takes countless hours. “You have to really love what you do,” says Nicholas Johnson, of owning a small business. His stores Su Casa, Calligaris by Pad, and Dudley & Max dominate Fells Point. “I can be at work seven days a week, 24 hours a day and not be bored.” But hard work doesn’t necessarily mean you’re raking in the money.
Buscher does not take a percentage of the profits. “It’s one of those things we pay back once we’re starting to make money,” says Lindsay. “His goal is to get us there so we are profitable.” And everyone claims there is no competition. No weighing of who got what. It’s just understood that a boutique would need more funding than, say, a photography business.
Buscher sets up shop almost daily in his satellite office—the bar at oZ—checking e-mails and making phone calls. The family now employs an accountant, Didi Cohen, whose sole job is managing Buscher Family Holdings, the entity that all the businesses fall under. “I can’t even put into words what we’ve learned these past three years,” says Lindsay. “We made so many mistakes that first year we would have had to close our store. There is no way we would have survived.” That seems to be the cushion that Buscher has created for his kids. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50 percent of small businesses fail within their first five years. And while none of the Buscher businesses have hit the five-year mark yet, they’ve been able to survive early mistakes because they’re not worried about foreclosing on their houses or owing money to the bank.
This seems especially important for some of the businesses that have struggled early on, like David Buscher’s bluehouse, a 7,000-square-foot shop on the cusp of Harbor East in the old Broom Corn building. The concept of bluehouse is “healthy and eco-friendly living”; everything in the store, from the drinks to the furniture, has to meet a certain criteria from sustainable to recyclable.
And it’s not easy being green. It’s harder to find vendors, especially ones that can deal in large quantities. The store—which sells home furnishings and gifts—can sometimes look mismatched because small vendors aren’t unified in terms of theme or even seasons. “We just hope to make up for that with the other aspects,” says David. After bluehouse announced plans to utilize wind power to compensate for energy use—and received some press—the National Aquarium contacted them about designing a lounge.
David attended Johns Hopkins, and lived in Chicago and New York before finally settling back in Baltimore three years ago. When the offer came to start his own business, he decided to move home. “I wanted to create something that wouldn’t be destructive or harmful,” he says. So he seized on the eco-friendly idea. Bluehouse opened its doors in December 2005. Like his brothers, it’s a family affair. David’s partner Rob Hartmann, 41, helped with bluehouse’s conceptualization, planning, and logistics in the early stages.
Businesses are funded all the time, he says, but most have to start at a more modest level. Because of his father, “we were able to start with a bigger bang than if we had to evolve.” And because the money was coming from a personal source—”I don’t think anyone else would have been crazy enough to give me the money”—David says he didn’t have to justify where every cent was going. It’s been a slow process with a big learning curve. “I wasn’t used to dealing with a lot of money,” he says. “I had never seen that much in my entire life.” He still sounds a bit dazed.
His plans for the future are still fuzzy—”assuming we get to be very profitable, of course”—but include expansion or green consulting. “I think it’ll be another year before I’m satisfied that all of our systems are right in terms of how we buy, what we buy, how we operate.” He seems the most worried about his prospects. “My family’s resources are very tied into what I’m doing here,” says David. “So, if for some reason we should go out of business or something—it not only affects me—it’s my entire family. It’ll affect personal things as well as business things.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Kassi and Steve Buscher are having a stellar year: For starters, the Ritz-Carlton recently came calling. The pair opened The Pearl Spa in January 2006; a happy client had mentioned the spa to someone at the luxe hotel group, and after phone calls and a bunch of visits from New York they offered Kassi the coveted spot at the new Ritz-Carlton Residences on Key Highway. If all goes as planned, the second Pearl Spa will open in November—the fourth Buscher business to open in Baltimore city.
Kassi, 35, spent seven years working as a consultant for salons and spas as a distributor. She and Steve got hitched in Vegas six years ago. While visiting a spa after the birth of their daughter, Kassi realized she could do a better job. She approached Dave with her plan. “It’s definitely not a free ticket,” says Kassi. “We’re working hard and we expect to pay everything back.” Now, the 11,000-square-foot spa is an anchor for Maple Lawn with its stunning Blue Grotto treatment, water walls, and blissful lounges. Maple Lawn is a mixed-use community that used to be a turkey farm. Initially it felt like a ghost town with Urban Chic, The Pearl, and lots of empty buildings, but slowly more businesses are moving in, including a Harris Teeter.
And now that oZ has taken up residence—Buscher Lawn Farms they joke—Dave has become the unofficial sheriff, mayor, and public relations flak. “It’s been slow growing,” says Kassi. “But this is our best month ever. Every month is better than the last month.”
The kids all joke about Dad’s accelerated MBA program. “I purposefully, in the beginning, let them make some errors because I think that’s a valuable way to learn things,” says Dave. His lessons also include the importance of marketing and lease negotiations. “He throws the responsibility on you—whether or not you’re ready for it,” says Lindsay. “He just wants you to learn really quickly.” And they have. Urban Chic currently has 25 employees, says Chris. If you add up all the Buscher family businesses that number grows to 250—double what Solipsys employed.
The smallest of the businesses are owned by Cate and Mike Buscher. They met in 2002 when both were living in New Jersey. She was an admissions counselor at Fairleigh Dickinson, he was a staff photographer at the Daily Record, and both hailed from Maryland. Before long, they were backpacking around Peru together (her first plane ride). After they got engaged, they quit their jobs and bought a one-way plane ticket to Bangkok. They traveled the world for six months—she’s been to 20 countries, Mike around 43—and in October 2004, were married in his parent’s backyard. “That was a really good glimpse into the wedding business,” says Cate, 27, who now owns Plan It Perfect, a wedding and event planning business. Mike owns the aptly named Mike Buscher Photography where he does a mix of documentary, wedding, corporate, and commercial photography, plus some work for a handful of newspapers. He’s working on a book project and a marketing, graphic design, and advertising agency is in the works. Mike and Cate work out of their apartment in Federal Hill—the former Holy Cross School with soaring ceilings and lingering evidence that they now live in the former gymnasium.
They’re operating on a much smaller scale than the other Buscher businesses—”the black sheep,” laughs Cate. And yet, it’s a perfect fit. There is obvious kinship between a wedding photographer husband and a party planner wife, but also rehearsal dinners are often held at oZ, bachelorette parties at Pearl Spa, honeymoon outfits purchased at Urban Chic.
Perhaps it’s Cate’s more intimate business size that gives her a good long-term look at the prospects for the myriad Buscher family enterprises.
“They will,” she says, “take over the world one day.”

To define power is a tricky thing. To us, power is that elusive combination of elements that allows an individual to get his or her way, no matter the obstacles. It’s an elixir of strength, leadership, vision, wherewithal, means, moxie, and desire. Power is not influence, but the two are related—while not everyone with influence has power, anyone with power certainly has influence. And power is definitely not a popularity contest; many of the people on our list will never be accused of being “all warm and fuzzy.”

This ranking of the 50 most powerful people in the Baltimore area is not a scientific list, but it is based on hard numbers and achievements and records. Power isn’t something you can measure, like an election; it’s rooted in perception and experience and gut reaction. Our 2007 Power 50 list is a snapshot of an extraordinary and unique time in Baltimore (we last tackled the list shortly after Bob Ehrlich took office, in 2003). Annapolis is once again controlled by a single party, and the state is governed by an ex-Baltimore mayor; our interim mayor heads a city (and a government) with both promise and problems; and the Baltimore Old Guard is being gradually replaced by a new power elite. But come September—and the city’s Democratic primary—this list could look considerably different. For now, though, this ranking is the way we see power being put into action in Baltimore.

But we know what you’re really asking: Who’s number one? Look below to find out.

1. William R. Brody

Age: 63 Title: President, Johns Hopkins University 2003 Rank: 15 Nickname: Big Boss Power Play: Hopkins’s East Baltimore urban redevelopment—including biotech labs being built in (and on) adjoining neighborhoods—rolls on without a hitch, thanks to Brody’s (and Hopkins’s) clout. Power Source: Oversees an economic (more than $7 billion of business generated statewide) and scientific juggernaut. Is the head of Hopkins’s power troika (along with Hopkins medical school CEO Ed Miller and Health System prez Ron Peterson) and serves as the living embodiment of Hopkins’s institutions and brand, both locally and across the globe. Hopkins has the nation’s highest-rated hospital and is the largest private employer (some 46,000 people) in the state. A recent endowment-building drive blew past the $2 billion goal a year early; the new mark is $3.2 billion. Bottom Line:Politicians and developers come and go; Hopkins is eternal.

2. John Paterakis

Age: 77 Title: President and CEO, H&S Bakery and H&S Properties Development Corporation 2003 Rank: 2 Nickname: Bread Man Power Play: With private investment in Harbor East now surpassing $1 billion, and state political contributions from Paterakis entities on the rise, Paterakis officially sheds his baker’s hat and becomes a mega developer and fixer. Power Source: Throughout four mayoral administrations, Paterakis has built up the Inner Harbor’s east end into a shiny cluster of high-rise hotels and posh condos, shops and offices. Close ties to other well-placed folks—an expanding partnership with fellow developer Bill Struever (#11), for one—make for some hefty collateral clout. Bottom Line: No other local developer has managed to pull off such downtown development density, or laid such undisputed claim to a coveted corner of the city.

3. Peter G. Angelos

Age: 77 Title: President and Managing Principal, Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos 2003 Rank: 1 Nickname:Greek Tycoon Power Play: His profile has dropped (as has the Orioles’), but he has by far the deepest political pockets in town. Power Source: Since making it rich off asbestos litigation in the 80’s and 90’s, Angelos has been a go-to guy for politicians, a downtown development force, chief target of O’s fan angst, and philanthropist. His political largesse—$2.9 million to national campaigns since 1999—puts him at number 18 (behind George Soros and John Kerry) among the country’s largest donors. Bottom Line: Angelos has the obvious power ingredients: money, ubiquity, pull. What makes him uniquely powerful is his sway across Baltimore’s diverse communities.

4. M.J. “Jay” Brodie

Age: 70 Title: President, Baltimore Development Corporation 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Land Baron Power Play: Got the mayor to bless Baltimore’s biggest ever municipally financed public-works project while O’Malley was in the throes of a gubernatorial bid. Power Source: Over the years Brodie has deftly—if not entirely deliberately—molded his role into that of primary driver behind the look and feel of downtown. He’s overhauled BDC, expanded its role as real estate buyer and developer, and won the confidence of four mayors. The culmination of those efforts: last year’s ground-breaking on a $305 million convention center hotel—built and paid for by the city. Bottom Line: When all is said and done, Brodie will have left a lasting mark on Baltimore, one way or another.

5. Robert C. Embry Jr.

Age: 69 Title: President, The Abell Foundation 2003 Rank: 36 Nickname: Wise Man Power Play: Embry has woven himself into the tapestry of Baltimore’s power elite by leveraging his brains, his connections, his wisdom, and his influence into a role as a kingmaker. Power Source: During his two-decade-plus tenure as head of the powerful Abell Foundation (with assets of more than $203 million), Embry has spoken plainly about the city’s ills—and used those millions to try to correct them. Bottom Line: If you want anything done in this town, you’d better have a sit-down with Bob Embry.

6. Eddie C. Brown

Age: 66 Title: President and CEO, Brown Capital Management Inc. 2003 Rank: 18 Nickname: Mr. Generosity Power Play: Being Eddie Brown. Power Source: Built a respected asset management firm, amassed a vast personal fortune, and scored a spot on some of Baltimore’s most prestigious boards. But it’s in his use of that personal fortune that Brown’s real power lays. He and his wife are stand-out philanthropists with a passion for education and the arts; their generosity ranks them among the nation’s top African-American charitable donors. But given their low profile—and that’s how they like it—most wouldn’t know it. Bottom Line: He’s sharp, rich, and every corporation or institution’s dream board member.

7. Barbara Mikulski

Age: 70 Title: U.S. Senator 2003 Rank: 7 Nickname: Pint-sized Powerhouse Power Play: Has a senior membership on the powerful Senate Appropriations committee. Teaming with Governor O’Malley to make Maryland a homeland security hub—plus, there’s the national BRAC (Base Realignment And Closure) which stands to bring tens of thousands of military jobs to Baltimore. (Babs also sits on the Homeland Security and Defense subcommittees.) Power Source: With a Democratic majority in Congress (including a certain hometown girl who is Speaker of the House) and a Democratic governor in office, the chair of Maryland’s Congressional delegation is uniquely poised to steer federal funds into the Old Line State. Bottom Line: The longtime senator couldn’t have picked a better time to become Maryland’s highest-ranking statesperson.

8. Raymond “Chip” Mason

Age: 70 Title: CEO, Legg Mason 2003 Rank: 4 Nickname: Mr. Baltimore Power Play: Successfully set up his company—one of Baltimore’s most venerable—for a future without him, while hanging on to fabulous wealth and the most prestigious chairmanship in town. Power Source: Mason built Legg Mason into one of the world’s largest money management firms over 40-plus years before ceding the president’s title last April, just weeks after Forbes ranked him number 88 among the country’s 500 highest-paid CEOs. Bottom Line: As Legg chairman, vice-chair of the Downtown Partnership, and chair of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins University, Mason remains one of the biggest wheels in town even as he begins to step back from the table.

9. George L. Russell Jr.

Age: 77 Title: Of Counsel, Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Judge Power Play: Got both his son and daughter-in-law on court benches in the same year. Power Source: In February 2006, Russell’s daughter-in-law, Devy Russell, was appointed to the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City. When George L. Russell III landed on the Baltimore City Circuit Court 11 months later, any doubts about the lingering power of Maryland’s first African-American Circuit Court judge and Baltimore’s first black city solicitor were dashed. Reginald F. Lewis Museum chair and member of two prominent commissions under Ehrlich, “Judge Russell” still commands deference and wields clout—see his behind-the-scenes counselor role this past election. Bottom Line:When it comes to say-so, there’s no substitute for experience and achievement.

10. Ed Hale Sr.

Age: 60 Title: Chairman and CEO, 1st Mariner Bancorp 2003 Rank: 31 Nickname: Blue-Collar Banker Power Play: Despite—or because of—his working-class Highlandtown roots, he’s challenged Maryland’s blue-blood financial circles with his success in banking and been a driving force in the remaking of Canton. Power Source: His small but fast-growing 1st Mariner Bank now has about $1.3 billion in assets, though it’s taken a beating in recent months from bad mortgage loans. Hale Properties has invested heavily in Canton redevelopment and land ventures across the U.S., he’s owner of the Baltimore Blast soccer team, and he’s the chairman of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. He also plays a Donald Trump-esque role in Towson University’s Associate program. Bottom Line: Hale got in on the ground floor of Baltimore’s resurgence with his vast Canton holdings.

11. C. William “Bill” Struever

Age: 55 Title: CEO and President, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse 2003 Rank: 12 Nickname: Re-Animator Power Play: From Brewer’s Hill to Tide Point to Harbor East, SBER has been one of the major movers in Baltimore’s recent Renaissance. Power Source: As Baltimore City began to show signs of life, Struever was ready to rehab and renovate old properties into hip, popular offices and residences. SBER is now a regional name in urban rehabs; the Struever brand-name is synonymous with community-conscious development. Bottom Line:Though some wonks feel SBER is a bit overextended, Struever’s name and rep are still money.

12. Martin O’Malley

Age: 44 Title: Governor 2003 Rank: 5 Nickname: Chosen One Power Play: Despite concerns that he would use thegovernor’s seat as a temporary resting spot (en route to a presidential bid), he still won tight race against a popular incumbent. Has already raised $1.7 million since becoming governor, this after the nearly $15 million he raised during the campaign. Forced PSC chair to resign, effectively gaining control of the utility regulation in Maryland. Brings praised cost-monitoring program StateStat with him to Annapolis. Homeland security mayor now able to put federal muscle and money behind that agenda. Power Source: A Democratic governor leads a Democratic General Assembly and works alongside a Democrat majority Congress—we don’t see much resistance to his agenda. Bottom Line:Former golden boy has regained his luster.

13. David Cordish

Age: 67 Title: Chairman, Cordish Company 2003 Rank:3 Nickname: Master of Ceremonies Power Play: Cordish (the man) makes deals happen; with cities (like Atlantic City, where the Walk project is that city’s hottest new destination) and with people (like Rev. Frank Reid, #28, with whose church Cordish partnered for the Pier Six rehab). Power Source: Cordish (the company) has made a name locally and nationally as a builder of entertainment centers (like downtown’s Power Plant Live). Bottom Line: Despite the risks of urban commercial redevelopment (and icky dueling lawsuits with the Florida Seminole tribe over a Hard Rock project), Cordish remains plugged in, canny, and successful.

14. James Shea

Age: 54 Title: Chair, Venable LLP 2003 Rank: 24 Nickname: PAC Man Power Play:The big hand in O’Malley’s gubernatorial fundraising, with some serious muscle in national politics too. Power Source: Since 1994, Shea has run Venable LLP; first as managing partner, then as firm-wide chair when he inherited the top post last spring. He now counts celebrity lawyers and former politicos among his employees, and the Venable political action committee (Ven-PAC), among his power tools. Shea was also O’Malley’s fundraising chief for the 2006 election and gets credit for his well-financed sprint to the finish line. Bottom Line: With his Washington ties and fundraising prowess, Shea is a key O’Malley ally. It isn’t difficult to imagine what the two might collaborate on next. . . .

15. Sheila Dixon

Age: 53 Title: Mayor, Baltimore City 2003 Rank: n/aNickname: The Understudy Power Play: Scored city’s most powerful political post without having to run for it. Power Source: O’Malley’s sights reached well beyond City Hall when he jumped into the mayor’s race in 1999, and nobody knew it better than City Council president candidate Dixon. She won her race, waited patiently as heir apparent for seven years and landed the top job when O’Malley became governor this year. But because she’s serving out his term, the true test of her clout comes September 11, when Democratic primary voters decide if she’s worthy of the mayoral nomination. Bottom Line: Dixon gets credit for being Baltimore’s first female mayor. We’ll see whether that translates into getting electedto the post this fall.

16. Ronald Lipscomb

Age: 60 Title: President, Doracon Contracting Inc. 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Independent Contractor Power Play: His profile as a developer and politico have catapulted Lipscomb into the big leagues. Power Source: Lipscomb’s been growing his company and getting a toe in, or bid on, some of downtown’s biggest projects. A minority equity position in Harbor East and his partnership with a New York investor to buy and develop the old News American site have solidified that his status. As a trustee and major fundraiser for the state Democratic Party, he was one of Maryland’s African-American business and political elite to endorse Michael Steele in 2006 for U.S. Senate—a nose-thumbing gesture to Dems for not taking the black vote more seriously. Bottom Line: Look for Lipscomb to have a hand in more broadly distributing Maryland’s traditionally white political and economic wealth.

17. Richard O. Berndt

Age: 64 Title: Managing partner, Gallagher Evelius & Jones 2003 Rank: 14 Nickname: Political Pope of Baltimore Power Play: Rallying support for O’Malley among business and community leaders from the very start of his political career. Power Source: Strong Baltimore Catholic roots mean Berndt has been a close legal advisor to Cardinal William Keeler (#39) and the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But he’s flexed his muscle publicly by being a longtime supporter and advisor to O’Malley, as well as other Democratic Party luminaries (Sarbanes, Mikulski, Cardin, et al). He’s been the legal mind behind major development in town, including the projects of John Paterakis. Bottom Line: If you want to know what makes Maryland’s political machine tick, this legal eagle is one place to start.

18. Elijah E. Cummings

Age: 56 Title: U.S. Representative, 7th District 2003 Rank: 11 Nickname: The Negotiator Power Play: Outspoken critic of President Bush and the Iraq war recently tapped to sit on the powerful House Armed Services Committee. Power Source: Seven term congressman has a lot of accumulated power, both at home and in the Capitol; the Maryland-connected Dems now running the House will help Cummings maintain stature and pull. Bottom Line: He takes care of his district and Maryland; the resurgence of Democratic power can only help his causes.

19. Patricia C. Jessamy

Age: 58 Title: Baltimore City State’s Attorney 2003 Rank: 43 Nickname: The Survivor Power Play: Her six-year tiff with former mayor O’Malley and recent re-election to a fourth term has a lot of folks eyeing a mayoral run for her. Power Source: While a recent 58 percent holiday pay hike from her political nemesis (O’Malley) made her Baltimore’s highest paid city official, it’s Jessamy’s proven ability to undercut the police department on crime reduction that gives her such political muscle. It has also engendered widespread disdain, as Baltimore’s crime figures—especially its homicide rate—remain stubbornly high. Bottom Line: With O’Malley now out of the picture, she could move past the crime rate flak—or become its primary target.

20. Cal Ripken Jr.

Age: 46 Title: President and CEO, Ripken Baseball Group 2003 Rank: 17 Nickname: Living Legend Power Play: Making headlines again, thanks to Hall of Fame election and Cooperstown induction in July. Recently made bid to buy a Double-A team (his group already owns and operates two Single-A squads). Name repeatedly comes up as potential buyer/savior of the Orioles. Power Source: Rock solid citizen, ubiquitous pitchman (Comcast, Esskay, Chevy, etc.), Sun youth sports advice columnist, and one of the most beloved, trusted, and recognizable figures in America. “You’d die to have him on your board!” confirms one insider. Bottom Line: Cal frenzy is at a fevered pitch. But will he step up to the plate and take full advantage of his clout?

21. Joseph Haskins Jr.

Age: 58 Title: President, Chairman, and CEO, Harbor Bank of Maryland 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Smart Money Power Play: While the bank has grown slowly but steadily, his political and development profile has risen more precipitously—most recently with a lead role on O’Malley’s transition team. Power Source: His bank—with its modest 1.3 percent share of the city’s market—and his role on the President’s Roundtable have made Haskins a household name. More recently, as chair of East Baltimore Development Inc., the engine behind the Hopkins biotech park; a member of the team developing the “Cityscape” block at Calvert and Lombard streets; and Business and Economic Development co-chair for the O’Malley-Brown transition team, Haskins has become a player. Bottom Line: Don’t look for a Harbor Bank Arena yet, but Haskins is broadening his reach.

22. Ben Cardin

Age: 63 Title: Senator 2003 Rank: 22 Nickname: The Mensch Power Play: Winning the 2006 election to succeed Paul S. Sarbanes in the U.S. Senate. Power Source: An effective legislator, willing to cross party and issue lines to make things happen. Grasp of critical but dense issues (healthcare, pension reform, taxes and trade policy) and his refusal to engage in partisan bickering set him apart from—and above—his colleagues. With a new but fragile Democratic majority in both chambers, growing disenchantment with the current administration, and a presidential race a year away, his focus on principle and policy could be more important than ever. Bottom Line: Cardin’s poised to lead like never before.

23. Michael S. Beatty

Age: 41 Title: President, H&S Properties Development Corp. 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Dough Boy Power Play: As John Paterakis’s longtime real estate and development guy, he’s the one responsible for executing—and pulling off thus far—H&S’s huge Harbor East explosion. Power Source: The money behind Harbor East may not be Beatty’s (though he’s doing fine, given his $1.7 million Ruxton address and his six-figure contributions—atop three tuitions—to Gilman School). But the development effort and public face of all things Harbor East is his, and that makes Beatty a very big deal. Bottom Line: He’s young and sitting high atop what is arguably Baltimore’s most successful development of the last decade.

24. James T. Smith Jr.

Age: 65 Title: Baltimore County Executive 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Late Bloomer Power Play: Publicly aligned himself with O’Malley in the 2006 governor’s race, despite Ehrlich’s popularity in Baltimore County (Ehrlich won the county by some 8,000 votes). Power Source: The one-time judge has begun to find his political footing; the new, more dynamic Jim Smith is being noticed by power players across the state. Leads one of Maryland’s most prosperous and populous counties. Bottom Line: Residents and developers love the county; the governor owes him a favor; he won his own re-election in a landslide.

25. Michael E. Busch

Age: 60 Title: Speaker of the House of Delegates 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Loud Speaker Power Play: Annapolis’s most powerful player during the Ehrlich years, as consensus builder (think BGE rate hikes and slots) and thorn in Ehrlich’s side. Power Source: As a Democrat he battled a Republican governor on the big issues. But as he enters his 21st year in the House of Delegates and fifth year as its speaker, he’ll likely remain a force. He’s a big-picture, issue-driven politician, and in a town that loves to hate Baltimore, he has consistently taken positions that have benefited our city and region. Bottom Line: As O’Malley settles into his new gig and works to solidify statewide support, Busch may be the surer bet to look out for Baltimore’s interests.

26. David J. Ramsay

Age: 67 Title: President, University of Maryland, Baltimore 2003 Rank: 26 Nickname: Dean of the West Side Power Play: As Hopkins rules East Baltimore, Ramsay’s UM graduate schools and medical center dominate the resurgent West Side. Power Source: With a medical school, law school, and dental school among seven grad programs, UMB consists of some 58 buildings (many brand-new, like the $142-million dental school) and gives its neighborhood a wealthy, city-committed cornerstone. The Oxford-educated Ramsay leaves a lot of decision-making to the school’s deans. Bottom Line: Ramsay oversees the city’s other major academic powerhouse—and has kept up nicely with the Joneses.

27. Mayo A. Shattuck III

Age: 52 Title: Chairman of the Board, President, CEO, Constellation Energy Group 2003 Rank: 6 Nickname:Power Broker Power Play: Trying to merge Constellation with FPL of Florida; both companies underestimated the negative public and political reaction. The merger was abandoned last fall. Power Source: In five years, the former Alex. Brown IPO wonder boy—who comes from a privileged New England family that included a number of Harvard-educated investment bankers (his idea of rebelling was going to Williams College)—turned the once-struggling energy firm into the country’s largest competitive supplier of electricity to large commercial and industrial customers and the nation’s largest wholesale power seller. Bottom Line: How will Shattuck react to one of the first setbacks in an otherwise glittering career?

28. Frank M. Reid III

Age: 55 Title: Senior Pastor, Bethel A.M.E. Church 2003 Rank: 23 Nickname: Power Preacher Power Play: A major force in the 1999 mayoral contest, he’ll again carry weight this year, with two leading mayoral contenders amid his congregation. Power Source: It’s shaping up to be a banner year at Bethel A.M.E.: the church’s membership continues to grow, it’s breaking ground on a building in Baltimore County and it has negotiated a cut of the Cordish Co.’s Pier Six profits. It will likely draw additional attention in the months ahead as the home parish of both Comptroller Joan Pratt and interim Mayor Sheila Dixon. Bottom Line: Given the weight his pick carried in 1999 when he endorsed O’Malley for mayor, political observers are watching Reid closely.

29. Freeman Hrabowski

Age: 56 Title: President, UMBC 2003 Rank: 16 Nickname: Mega Nerd Power Play: Oversees unusually powerful independent UM-system school, with particularly strong ties to Baltimore’s business and philanthropic community. Leader of task force on higher education in O’Malley’s transition team. Over $300 million in new construction in the last decade alone. In May ’06, UMBC was cited by The New York Times as one of America’s leading universities for science, particularly with respect to minority students. Power Source:Hrabowski sits on several corporate and civic boards, including the Constellation Energy Group, McCormick & Company Inc., and Mercantile Bankshares. Bottom Line: Nationally recognized educational innovator is feather in the cap of the University of Maryland system—and Baltimore.

30. Charles W. Newhall III

Age: 62 Title: Co-Founder and General Partner, New Enterprise Associates 2003 Rank: 45 Nickname: Adventure Capitalist Power Play:Harvard-educated financial power and decorated Vietnam vet co-founded New Enterprise Associates in 1978 with legendary Frank Bonsal. Power Source: NEA is one of the largest U.S. venture capital firms; over $8.5 billion is invested in tech and healthcare companies worldwide. Has served on numerous big boards. Bottom Line: Newhall’s’s NEA is a venture cap force with which to be reckoned.

31. Joan M. Pratt

Age: 55 Title: Baltimore City Comptroller 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Spoiler Power Play: Of the Board of Estimates’ five members, she’s the only one who isn’t decidedly in Mayor Dixon’s camp; her voice of opposition could resonate loudly this election year—whether she decides to challenge Dixon for her job or not. Power Source: Pratt’s lone vote is hardly enough to mess with the mayor’s lock on a majority, but she’s in a strong and public position to pick fights with the mayor, all the while claiming she’s acting in the best fiscal interests of the city. Bottom Line: Quiet till now, look for Pratt to turn spunky in the months ahead.

32. Otis Rolley III

Age: 32 Title: Chief of Staff, Mayor Sheila Dixon 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Rising Star Power Play: It’s pretty simple: he’s young, a leader, and on the rise. Power Source: He was a deputy housing commissioner before 30, city planning director soon thereafter, and now he’s chief of staff to the mayor. Nothing short of a meteoric rise for Rolley, whose name has been on people’s lips as the one to watch in this season of political transition. He’s someone whose opinion even Baltimore’s old-timers value. Bottom Line: Rolley didn’t follow fellow O’Malley wunderkinds to Annapolis. But don’t think it’s because he plans on staying in local government—he’s got much bigger plans.

33. Atwood “Woody” Collins III

Age: 60 Title: Executive Vice President, M&T Bank Corporation; President and COO of M&T Bank’s Mid-Atlantic Division 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Instant Insider Power Play: Used stadium naming rights and high profile board memberships to dramatically raise profile of the bank (and himself) since arriving in Baltimore in 2002—but the bank has increasingly lost market share to Bank of America. Power Source: Co-chair of Mayor Sheila Dixon’s transition team; serves as vice chair of the Greater Baltimore Committee; also serves on the boards of the BDC, UM Medical System, Kennedy Krieger Institute, et al. Bottom Line: With only five years in Baltimore, he’s already rubbing shoulders with this town’s power elite.

34. Jayne Miller

Age: 52 Title: WBAL-TV I-Team Chief Investigative Reporter 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Baltimore’s Mike Wallace Power Play: Last year, combed through hospital records to expose padded violent crime reduction statistics put out by the O’Malley administration—even going so far as to track down former police commissioner Kevin Clark in New York to get his take on the inflated stats. Power Source: Reputation as a tenacious, tireless reporter. “She’s one phone call you don’t want to receive,” notes one former political candidate. “She will go after you,” adds another source. Bottom Line: If you’ve got something to hide, don’t keep a high profile on Miller’s watch.

35. Thomas V. “Mike” Miller

Age: 64 Title: President, Maryland Senate 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Insider’s Insider Power Play: With retirement on the horizon, Miller’s pull in Annapolis is as strong as ever—especially as the jockeying to succeed him sets in. Power Source: He’s led the Senate for so long—20 years—the Senate building bears his name. But Miller’s passion and pragmatism can be at odds—Exhibit A: slot machines—and he hasn’t racked up such success without bullying and bluster. Now, he has no re-election worries, zero compunction about disparaging his colleagues, Republican or Democrat (he was on O’Malley’s case before he was even inaugurated), and a legacy to finish crafting. Bottom Line: Look to Miller to keep things lively in Annapolis, despite the Democratic love-in.

36. Edward St. John

Age: 68 Title: President and CEO, St. John Properties. 2003 Rank: 20 Nickname: Prince of Property Power Play: His industrial parks have transformed the landscape all over the metro area, especially in Baltimore County and around BWI. Power Source: St. John Properties owns, manages, or has developed nearly 12 million square feet of commercial real estate throughout the country. Sits on numerous boards, including Harbor Bank and the Maryland Science Center (he donated the Dinosaur Hall and the Imax theater). Bottom Line: Real estate heavy hitter gets name out there with philanthropy (more than $40 million).

37. Maggie L. McIntosh

Age: 59 Title: State Delegate, 43rd District, Baltimore City 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Operator Power Play: Worked to deliver lots of votes for O’Malley in 2006. Power Source: Fifteen years in Annapolis have earned her plenty of power; takes care of her constituents; produces good, solid, legislation. Her aid to O’Malley gained her a seat at his table in Annapolis, and she’s had a voice in his administration’s creation. Bottom Line: Dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who helped O’Malley get to Annapolis should have a bright 2007—and beyond.

38. Keiffer Mitchell Jr.

Age: 39 Title: Baltimore City Councilman 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Challenger Power Play: Took on the city-state partnership running Baltimore’s schools and the city-financed convention center hotel; now he’s taking on his former City Council boss to become Baltimore’s next mayor. Power Source: With a prominent civil-rights legacy as his foundation, Mitchell has built a reputation for being generally independent without being anti-establishment—somewhat tricky, since the downtown and business communities are his constituents. It has made him an effective member of a largely ineffective body. Bottom Line:Mitchell’s independence could quickly catapult him up this list—if he can convince voters he’s truly hungry for the mayor’s job.

39. William H. Cardinal Keeler

Age: 76 Title: Archbishop of Baltimore 2003 Rank: 32Nickname: The Peacemaker Power Play: Renovated Basilica draws praise; demolished Rochambeau apartments despite public outcry to build a prayer garden; remains untarnished by sexual abuse scandals. Power Source: The nation’s first Catholic diocese remains one of the most devoted and wealthy. Keeler is masterful at building relationships across ideological gaps and insulating himself from criticism—and always getting his way. Bottom Line: Having a Governor O’Malley won’t hurt the state’s chief Catholic.

40. Nathaniel McFadden

Age: 60 Title: President Pro Tem, Maryland State Senate 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: All Pro Power Play: The state’s highest ranking elected black legislator ever, he represents an important shift away from business-as-usual within the state’s majority-white political leadership. Power Source: Successfully led an emotionally charged blitz in the session’s final days to save 11 of the city’s failing schools from state takeover, and spotlighted the stateside politics that have long driven Baltimore City education reform in the process. His colleagues, in turn, unanimously elected him to the Senate’s number two slot, behind Senate President Mike Miller. Bottom Line: The state is nearly one-third black. McFadden’s appointment, and that of numerous other African Americans in the legislature and administration, underscores a true move toward more representative government.

41. Fred Lazarus IV

Age: 65 Title: President, Maryland Institute College of Art 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Old Master Power Play: Lazarus has doubled MICA’s student body, got Eddie Brown (#6) to help build one of Baltimore’s great new buildings, and is transforming North Avenue into a vibrant arts district. Power Source: He’s helmed one of the world’s great art schools for nearly three decades; The Gateway project (at the corner of Mount Royal and North avenues) is going to give the Brown Center a run for its money as the city’s most exciting new architecture. Bottom Line: Lazarus is fascinating, bright, diplomatic, and committed to making MICA and Baltimore better.

42. Nancy S. Grasmick

Age: 67 Title: State Superintendent of Schools 2003 Rank: 10 Nickname: Head Mistress Power Play: She may not have bent Baltimore’s last mayor to her will, but she made him, and other city officials, grimace and sweat. Power Source: It’s never been clear who’s officially in charge since the city-state partnership was formed to run Baltimore’s schools, but Grasmick, as enforcer of Maryland’s compliance with federal education requirements, has been wielding the stick. While O’Malley and city legislators stood up to her—averting the takeover of 11 city schools last spring—in Baltimore, she remains something of a feared elder. Bottom Line: Grasmick isn’t likely to go anywhere soon: She answers to the State Board of Education, and only four of its 12 Ehrlich appointees have terms expiring this year.

43. Robert L. Bogomolny

Age: 68 Title: President, University of Baltimore 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Head of the Class Power Play: As city ethics chair, he exonerated Sheila Dixon of ethical wrongdoing days before becoming mayor. Power Source: Since 2002, the former corporate litigator has toiled to raise the profile of UB, with bold new architecture and expanded academics, anchored by UB’s conversion to a four-year school this fall. While his predecessors amassed property, he’s all about developing it into an institutional cash cow. Hopes to create momentum for a broad revival of the Midtown area. Bottom Line: He’s transforming UB, he may help transform downtown’s northern end, and he may have already had a hand in determining Baltimore’s next mayor. Conventional wisdom says Dixon owes him big time.

44. Kweisi Mfume

Age: 58 Title: Baltimore’s Dream Mayor 2003 Rank: 9 Nickname: The X Factor Power Play: He may have lost his U.S. Senate bid, but as of mid-winter he still had Baltimore’s mayoral election on hold. Power Source: Mere mention of Mfume and Baltimore’s mayoralty in the same breath generates unparalleled buzz. Baltimore’s former congressman dominated the 2007 mayoral election into February—without so much as suggesting he wanted to run. Bottom Line: Mfume’s grip on this town is in many ways intangible—he hasn’t represented Baltimore politically in years—but the city’s affection for him is enduring across constituencies.

45. William C. Baker

Age: 53 Title: President, Chesapeake Bay Foundation 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Baywatcher Power Play: As the environment becomes more of a front-burner issue, he has built enormous public and private support for his cause. Power Source: While garnering “green” support can be tricky—it’s deemed a mite lefty by most—saving the Bay is a cause most can comfortably espouse (check out those “Bay” license plates). Baker sits alongside the region’s powerbrokers on prestigious boards: Johns Hopkins Medicine (he’s vice chair), Baltimore Community Foundation, Living Classrooms Foundation, Brown Advisory. Bottom Line: We can’t turn a blind eye to the abysmal state of our water and air—Baker’s organization gave Bay health a “D” last year—and nobody’s better poised to elevate environmental issues now than he.

46. Andrew Frank

Age: 40 Title: Deputy Mayor for Neighborhood and Economic Development 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Deputy Power Play: He traded in the #2 spot at BDC for a more prestigious #2 gig: helping Sheila Dixon run city government. Power Source: Frank has toiled in Baltimore’s housing and development public sector since the early 1980’s, and now he’s running the show. Fresh off 10 years as executive VP at the “quasi-public” BDC where he, among other tasks, oversaw Inner Harbor activity and development, he’s one of two Dixon deputies tasked with aligning all government agencies with the city’s neighborhood and economic-development priorities. Bottom Line: Frank’s broader authority as deputy mayor paves the way for his continued upward climb.

47. Stephen J. Bisciotti

Age: 46 Title: Founder, Allegis Group 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: The Stealthy Supermogul Power Play: Buying the Ravens—then letting the professionals run the day-to-day operations. Power Source: At age 23, Bisciotti co-founded a business in his basement, which became the nation’s third largest worldwide technical staffing firm. Despite being ranked among the Forbes 500 at about $1 billion in personal worth, the reclusive Bisciotti successfully stayed out of the local limelight—that is, until he bought a minority stake in the Ravens in 2000, then the rest of it four years later. Bottom Line: He’s a private and very rich man; and he’s now a public figure by virtue of owning a very public football franchise.

48. Stephen A. Geppi

Age: 57 Title: Founder and president, Diamond Comic Distributors; publisher, Baltimore magazine 2003 Rank: 42 Nickname: Captain Comic Power Play: Opened an eponymous downtown museum; waiting in the wings to form ownership group (possibly with Cal Ripken Jr.) to purchase Orioles, when Angelos is ready to sell. Power Source: $300-million-plus a year comic distribution business lets him do things like open a pop culture museum at Camden Station. Down to earth tycoon sits on several local boards. Bottom Line: Baltimore’s hometown hero has fun with his fortune.

49. Shale D. Stiller

Age: 72 Title: Chairman and CEO of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname:Block Captain Power Play: Determining the pace of the West Side redevelopment project. Power Source: Tax and real estate law expert Shiller remains counsel to the mega law firm DLA Piper USA and is a Johns Hopkins Hospital and University trustee. But his greatest influence comes via the Weinberg Foundation, which owns much of the property the city wants to develop on the West Side’s superblock. Fought city efforts for condemnation in order to leave Weinberg the option to develop its land itself, and is working with the Cordish Co. to do just that. Bottom Line: Unless the city can make peace with Stiller’s foundation, the much touted redevelopment of the West Side could languish for years. But an agreement between the two may be very close.

50. Ray Lewis

Age: 31 Title: Linebacker, The Baltimore Ravens 2003 Rank: n/a Nickname: Ray Ray Power Play: Dubbed “God’s Linebacker” by Sports Illustrated; preaches to packed pews when he freelances as guest preacher at the potent Empowerment Temple. Through star power and on behalf of events sponsored by the Ray Lewis Foundation, brings A-list sports and entertainment luminaries (Patti LaBelle, Tracy McGrady, Carmelo Anthony, et al) to town to raise money for disadvantaged youth. Power Source: Overwhelming popularity and name recognition in town helps trump any lingering taint of 2000 murder arrest—pitchman for K Bank, Eastern Motors, Madden Football, and more. Bottom Line: Lewis remains one of the most powerful and popular sports figures this town has ever seen—and his ambitions run well beyond the gridiron.