At last fall's groundbreaking for the Marriott Residence Inn in downtown Baltimore, Mayor Martin O'Malley spotted a bearish, gregarious man who has become a familiar face at such events.
"Are you in this one too?" the mayor recalls asking.
"Yep," replied Ronald H. Lipscomb.
At 48, Lipscomb is one of the city's most prominent black builders and, lately, developers. Thanks in part to a system meant to create opportunities for minorities, he holds stakes in projects from Harbor East to South Baltimore to midtown and beyond. The latest is a proposed Four Seasons "urban resort," where he is thinking of buying a seven-figure penthouse.
During his rise to multimillionaire status, Lipscomb has become close to some of Baltimore's most powerful people - and those ties have helped propel him still higher in business circles.
He has sipped wine with mega-developer C. William Struever on Tide Point's deck. He has been brought into an elite partnership by John Paterakis Sr., the bread mogul who is redefining Harbor East. He is a good friend of City Council President Sheila Dixon and went to the Bahamas with a group last year for her 50th birthday.
Until now Lipscomb has kept a low profile, shunning all but cursory news media attention. But he recently agreed to be interviewed, at a time when he has been thrust into the public eye by U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who has subpoenaed Lipscomb and others as part of an investigation of the City Council and the city's minority business development program.
Fans in high places
No one has suggested wrongdoing by Lipscomb, and he has fans in high places. O'Malley, who has received $8,670 in campaign donations since 1999 from Lipscomb, his wife and his contracting firm, said: "In the years I have known him, I have never heard anything but good things about his character, his professionalism and his integrity."
And while Lipscomb declined to discuss DiBiagio's probe, as did DiBiagio's office, he made it clear he feels he has nothing to hide from prosecutors.
"I have never done anything inappropriate from a business point of view, absolutely not," he said. "You may not believe me, but I've been a standup guy my whole career."
To his admirers, that 25-year career is a textbook case of the good that can come when hard work and ambition are given a spark by government programs aimed at ensuring a larger share of the construction pie for minorities.
