Executives

The chief executive of Baltimore money manager T. Rowe Price Group received about $4.7 million in compensation last year, a 17 percent drop from 2008. James A.C. Kennedy's $350,000 salary remained the same, but the value of his option awards and nonequity incentive plan compensation slumped. That comes on top of a decrease in 2008, a terrible year for financial companies. Kennedy's 2007 compensation was $7.9 million. Brian C. Rogers, chairman and chief investment officer, took a 29 percent cut last year, to $4.7 million.

M&T Bank Corp. executive Atwood "Woody" Collins III has succeeded Edwin F. Hale Sr. as chair of the Baltimore Convention and Tourism Board, city officials said Monday. The appointment of Collins, an executive vice president of M&T, became effective Friday, Visit Baltimore announced. Collins has served on the convention and tourism board since 2008 as treasurer and head of the finance committee, advising on budget management and fiscal matters for both Visit Baltimore, the city's tourism and convention bureau, and the Baltimore Convention Center.

I've been living in Baltimore for 63 years and remember a time when BGE used to take pride in providing the best service to consumers. But it seems the bigger they have grown, the smaller and less important their customers have become. Now, executives at BGE/Constellation want to merge with Chicago-based Exelon, which plainly doesn't have the best interests of our city in mind. Exelon CEO Chris Crane has admitted that the "most impactful job cuts" would happen in Baltimore if the merger is approved.

At great political peril, George Ryan did the right thing. Not to canonize the man. After all, the then-governor of Illinois was later imprisoned on corruption charges. But that doesn't change the fact that, in 2000, stung that 13 inmates had been exonerated and freed from death row in the previous 23 years, Mr. Ryan committed an act of profound moral courage, imposing a moratorium on capital punishment. In 2003, in the waning days of his term, he one-upped himself, commuting every death sentence in his state.

In Baltimore County, political candidates began lining up nearly a year ago to take a shot at unseating Republican County Executive Roger Hayden this fall.In Howard County, Republican incumbent Charles I. Ecker seems to be preparing not so much for a re-election campaign as a coronation. To date, no one from either the Republican or Democratic side is ready or willing to try to dethrone Mr. Ecker as he seeks to become the second executive in county history to win a second term. (J. Hugh Nichols was the first.

The confidence of area business executives slipped slightly in September, reflecting concerns about higher taxes and proposed health care reforms, according to an index compiled by the Washington/Baltimore Regional Association."

AS THE SUN glinted over the Miles River at 8:30 a.m. in St. Michaels, Tom Katana led 38 insurance executives in stretching, bending, making small circles with their outstretched arms and moving about. Then this group - accountants, portfolio managers, sales managers - split into teams and boarded six sailboats worth about $3 million. Few of them had ever sailed before. Failure, he had told them, "is an option" - if they don't work together. His philosophy, as he explained later: "Overwhelm them.

Financial World magazine moved yesterday to sever its relationship with Graef S. Crystal, who writes on executive pay issues for the magazine, because of complaints about hiscolumn.Geoffrey N. Smith, the magazine's editor, said Financial World had decided not to renew Mr. Crystal's contract when it expires in September.He said Mr. Crystal, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, would be allowed to submit one more column for publication, on a pre-approved topic, after the current issue, which just went to press.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Thirteen former executives of American Honda Motor Co. have been charged by federal prosecutors in a $10 million kickback scheme involving nearly every aspect of auto sales.In what prosecutors called the first step in a nationwide federal investigation of Honda sales practices, five men were charged yesterday with racketeering and fraud in federal grand jury indictments and eight more entered guilty pleas to conspiracy charges, U.S. Attorney Paul M. Gagnon said.Prosecutors said the eight who pleaded guilty are cooperating with the investigation.

WASHINGTON -- I tip my cap today to Peter I. Bijur, the chairman of Texaco Inc., for the straightforward way in which he is extricating that company from what could have become a social-legal disaster.Texaco has been the symbol of racial bigotry in corporate America ever since it was revealed that some of its executives sat in corporate offices denigrating blacks and other minorities and plotting how to destroy company documents that might enable black employees to win a lawsuit in which they accused Texaco of egregious discrimination.

Robert Keller, The Evening Sun's first metropolitan editor and later executive director of the Greater Baltimore Committee, died May 12 of complications from Crohn's disease at Harbor Hospital. He was 71. The son of a banker and a bookkeeper, Robert Keller was born in Trenton, N.J., and raised in Baltimore's Howard Park neighborhood. He earned his high school diploma and bachelor's degree in 1963 from St. Mary's Seminary & University in Roland Park. Mr. Keller was a reporter for The Catholic Review from 1963 until 1965, when he joined the staff of the Delmarva Dialog in Wilmington, Del. In 1967, he joined The Evening Sun as a reporter and in 1972 became city editor.

Edward H. "Ham" Welbourn Jr., a retired insurance executive and World War II veteran, died April 29 of complications from dementia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 98. The son of Edward H. Welbourn, who owned Rennous Kleinle Brush Manufacturers in Catonsville, and Emma Dawson Welbourn, a homemaker, Edward Hambleton Welbourn was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. After graduating in 1934 from the Gilman School, Mr. Welbourn enrolled at Haverford College, where he was a government major and earned a bachelor's degree in 1938.

Brian Rogers, manager of the T. Rowe Price Equity Income Fund in Baltimore, won't be voting the fund's shares in support of splitting the role of CEO and chairman at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jamie Dimon has been CEO at JP Morgan since 2005 and became chairman a year later. "I fully support the combined Chairman and CEO role at JPMorgan under the superb leadership of Jamie Dimon," Rogers said in a statement. "He and his management team have created superior shareholder value after the company weathered the financial crisis so capably.

Harford County Executive David R. Craig issued the following statement regarding the appointment by the Harford County Board of Education of Barbara P. Canavan as interim superintendent of Harford County Public Schools: "I was delighted to hear that the Board of Education of Harford County wisely chose a long-time teacher and administrator with Harford County Public Schools to serve as the interim superintendent of schools. I have the utmost respect for Barbara Canavan and had the honor and pleasure to work with her for 12 years during my career as an educator with Harford County Public Schools.

Driving past The Ale House in Columbia on a warm Thursday evening, the first thing we noticed was the crowded patio; it looked fun. The second thing we noticed was the valet. Valet parking isn't an unusual sight outside a busy restaurant, but this was the first time we'd seen valet in a moderately crowded shopping center parking lot. It's all about service, explained Greg Keating, managing partner of The Ale House. The restaurant wants to make their guests as comfortable as possible, right down to the parking experience.

Morton "Jerry" Baum, founder and executive director of the Fund for Educational Excellence and a retired clothing manufacturing executive who was a tireless champion of city public schools, died May 5 from complications of Parkinson's disease at his Roland Park home. He was 87. "I first met Jerry in the 1980s when he was executive director of the Fund for Educational Excellence," said Brian C. Rogers, chairman of T. Rowe Price, who had served as a member of the organization's board.

Ferris Baker Watts, the century-old investment brokerage with deep Baltimore roots, said yesterday that six executives and traders have resigned or taken temporary leave since federal officials and outside counsel began investigating the firm's trades for a former client accused of stealing millions of dollars. The list of temporary and permanent departures includes several top executives in Baltimore and Hunt Valley, indicating the investigations have disrupted management at the firm more broadly than company officials disclosed two weeks ago. The changes are fallout from a federal probe of an investment fund set up by a Cleveland man who, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit, took in $50 million from investors and spent much of the money on stock trades placed through Ferris and other firms.

NEW YORK -- Citicorp has granted its top executives stock options that could be worth as much as $200 million if the price of Citicorp stock doubles over the next five years.The program is unusual in that the options are worthless until the bank's stock, which now trades at about $32, reaches $50, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Most stock option plans simply require an executive to remain at a company for a set period of time before exercising them.

A truly ironic position by our County Executive Kevin Kamenetz who proclaims the environmental positives of trees (Towson Times, May 1, "Kamenetz plans to increase county forest county canopy") yet makes the decision to destroy 10 acres of hardwood trees in Mays Chapel Park in order to build an elementary school there. This man is a true snake oil salesman, who is willing to destroy the infrastructure of one community to benefit his political agenda in another. Obviously common decency is lacking.