Honorary Degree Recipient
Eddie C. Brown
Eddie Carl Brown is an American investment manager, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Renowned for his stock-picking acumen, Brown is the founder and president of Brown Capital Management, a Baltimore-based firm that's amassed more than $10 billion under management since it opened for business in 1983. An avid traveler and jazz aficionado, Brown and his wife, Sylvia, have given millions to various charitable causes under the aegis of the Baltimore-based Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Family Foundation.
After graduating from Howard University, Brown worked for a few months with defense contractor Martin Marietta in Orlando, FL where he did quality control work on Titan Intercontinental ballistic missiles. That ended after Brown was called into Army service as a lieutenant at Ft. Monmouth County, New Jersey, to satisfy a military obligation Brown incurred when he joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps program at Howard. Following two years on active duty as a Signal Corps officer, Brown joined IBM's systems Development Division in Poughkeepsie, New York. Brown spent five years designing computer circuits for large mainframe computers while employed by IBM, and also earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from New York University.
During his time at IBM, Brown became increasingly fascinated with finance and investing, so he opted to take advantage of an IBM management development program that allowed him to earn an MBA degree from Indiana University in 1970. Brown joined Irwin Management Co., in Columbus, Indiana eventually becoming a member of the money management firm's marketable securities group. In 1973 Brown moved to Baltimore to take a position as a portfolio manager with investment firm T. Rowe Price. A decade later Brown left to start Brown Capital Management, which initially operated out of his suburban Baltimore home. A valuation conscious investor, Brown put his company's focus on stocks offering growth-at-a-reasonable price, or GARP. Brown Capital Management caters to high-net-worth individual, pension and profit-sharing plans, charitable organizations and corporations.
In the early years of Brown Capital Management, Brown's ability to attract investors received a welcome boost when he became a regular panelist on the PBS financial television program Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, which was popular during the 1980s and 1990s.
Brown Capital Management celebrated its 30th year in business in 2013, occupies a three-story building at 1201 North Calvert Street in downtown Baltimore and employs 37 workers. Brown continues to find money management a compelling and invigorating exercise, and remains an active and highly engaged participant in the day-to-day operations of the company he founded. "This is the kind of business that, if you really enjoy it, like I do, it's not like work, it's like fun," Brown says.