Krongard

Rita K. Krongard, a homemaker and volunteer, died yesterday of pneumonia at Sinai Hospital. She was 96. Rita Keyser was born in Baltimore and raised in Washington, where she attended high school and graduated from Strayer Business College. Before her 1931 marriage to R. Harris Krongard, she worked as a legal secretary for a Washington maritime lawyer. Mrs. Krongard and her husband lived for many years in Ashburton and on upper Park Heights Avenue. Mr. Krongard, president of Value Tailoring Co., died in 1983.

Officers in the Baltimore Police Department's Southern District will have new computers, bikes and other equipment thanks to $300,000 in gifts from three benefactors, who hope to spur donations from city businesses in other districts. Police announced the gifts Thursday at the Locust Point headquarters of apparel company Under Armour, whose CEO, Kevin Plank, contributed one-third of the money and said city businesses need to "do more" to help police. A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the former executive director of the CIA and co-chairman of the Baltimore Police Foundation, also gave $100,000 and said he hopes the gift will spur businesses in the city's other eight districts to do the same.

Taking on an accounting project and defending against shareholder lawsuits probably weren't what A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard anticipated when he re-entered the public spotlight last year from the shadows of the CIA. But that's what he's gotten as chairman of PHH Corp., an ungainly chimera of a company that can't close the books on last year or the first quarter and doesn't know when it can. Combine that with an increasingly difficult mortgage market - PHH's biggest business - and you've got a challenge that belies the "retirement" that Krongard, 69, is supposed to be enjoying.

Rita K. Krongard, a homemaker and volunteer, died yesterday of pneumonia at Sinai Hospital. She was 96. Rita Keyser was born in Baltimore and raised in Washington, where she attended high school and graduated from Strayer Business College. Before her 1931 marriage to R. Harris Krongard, she worked as a legal secretary for a Washington maritime lawyer. Mrs. Krongard and her husband lived for many years in Ashburton and on upper Park Heights Avenue. Mr. Krongard, president of Value Tailoring Co., died in 1983.

WASHINGTON - A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the former Baltimore investment banker, was given the CIA's highest award for leadership yesterday for his 3 1/2 years of service as the agency's executive director. Krongard drew praise at the late-afternoon ceremony for such achievements as helping to create the Terrorist Threat Integration Center - which draws expertise from the entire intelligence community, including the FBI - and championing better information-sharing between agency operatives and analysts.

Patricia Amburg Lion Krongard, an avid photographer, traveler and children's advocate, died Thursday of lung disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 60. Born and raised in Baltimore, Mrs. Krongard lived in Lutherville with her husband, A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, counselor to the director of Central Intelligence and formerly the chairman and CEO of Alex. Brown Inc. Mrs. Krongard attended the Bryn Mawr School for Girls and graduated from the Park School. She married Mr. Krongard in 1961 and the couple had three sons in the 1960s.

A.B. "BUZZY" Krongard, the former investment banker and CIA spymaster, can break boards with his hands, trained with police SWAT teams and studied martial arts with a personal kung fu master. He's not somebody who finds pleasure being out of the action. So, three months after he was pushed aside as the No. 3 man at the spy agency in a corporate-style shake-up, Krongard, 68, has agreed to become nonexecutive chairman of the board of PHH Corp., a big fleet management and mortgage loan company about to be spun off from its parent, Cendant Corp.

A. B. Krongard, chairman and chief executive of Alex. Brown Inc., will be named chairman of the Securities Industry Association tomorrow at the trade group's annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla.The association represents more than 760 brokerage firms, mutual funds and investment bankers.Mr. Krongard said his agenda as chairman of the organization will include working to educate consumers about the importance of savings and investing; lobbying for legislation that gives investors incentives, such as tax breaks, to save money; and working to retain and build public trust in the securities industry.

One on One is a weekly feature offering excerpts of interviews conducted by The Evening Sunwith newsworthy business leaders. A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard is chief executive officer and vice chairman of Alex. Brown Inc., an investment banking company based in Baltimore.Q. As the chief operating officer of Alex. Brown, you were involved in the formulation of the business strategy that resulted in a 252 percent increase in earnings during the first six months of 1991. As the new CEO, do you see any changes in that strategy, and could you briefly describe the strategy?

Alvin B. "Buzzy" Krongard's first day as the new chief executive at Alex. Brown Inc. is going to be hard to beat.One day after Mr. Krongard was elected to his post by the company's board, Alex. Brown coupled the announcement of his promotion with a report that it had recorded the largest quarterly and half-year income in the company's 191-year history."The six months were a pretty good year," Mr. Krongard, 54, said.The Baltimore-based parent of the investment banking firm Alex. Brown & Sons Inc. said that it earned $14.2 million, or 87 cents a share fully diluted, compared with earnings of $4.5 million, or 28 cents a share, during the same period last year.

WASHINGTON -- Howard J. "Cookie" Krongard, the embattled State Department inspector general who is accused of hindering federal investigations of the Blackwater security firm in Iraq and who has engaged in a bitter public feud with his brother, Alvin B. "Buzzy" Krongard, resigned yesterday. Dubbed by some in Washington as the "bickering brothers from Baltimore," "Cookie" Krongard, 66, a former international lawyer, and "Buzzy" Krongard, a former investment banker and senior CIA official, traded accusations last month over whether the State Department inspector general knew that "Buzzy" was serving on an advisory board of Blackwater USA, currently under investigation by the State and Justice departments.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman said yesterday that he is moving forward with plans to call Baltimore's Krongard brothers before his committee next month - despite attempts by Howard "Cookie" Krongard during the weekend to cancel the hearing. "There is no legitimate legislative purpose to be gained by publicly pitting two brothers against each other," Cookie Krongard's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, wrote to Waxman, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Van Gelder wrote, "I would ask that this committee not hold any additional hearings into this matter."

PHH Corp. Chairman A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard has punched a great white shark in the face, learned kung fu and helped run the CIA, but last week he did something even more swashbuckling. He returned a journalist's phone call. And talked about his company. The feat, unthinkable for too many corporate bigwigs, left Krongard unscathed, as always. But it shouldn't take a daredevil chairman for a public corporation to fulfill one of its most basic duties: dispensing information to the public. Too many corporations have taken federal rules designed to improve financial disclosure and twisted them into an excuse to duck reporters and citizens.

Taking on an accounting project and defending against shareholder lawsuits probably weren't what A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard anticipated when he re-entered the public spotlight last year from the shadows of the CIA. But that's what he's gotten as chairman of PHH Corp., an ungainly chimera of a company that can't close the books on last year or the first quarter and doesn't know when it can. Combine that with an increasingly difficult mortgage market - PHH's biggest business - and you've got a challenge that belies the "retirement" that Krongard, 69, is supposed to be enjoying.

A.B. "BUZZY" Krongard, the former investment banker and CIA spymaster, can break boards with his hands, trained with police SWAT teams and studied martial arts with a personal kung fu master. He's not somebody who finds pleasure being out of the action. So, three months after he was pushed aside as the No. 3 man at the spy agency in a corporate-style shake-up, Krongard, 68, has agreed to become nonexecutive chairman of the board of PHH Corp., a big fleet management and mortgage loan company about to be spun off from its parent, Cendant Corp.

WASHINGTON - A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the former Baltimore investment banker, was given the CIA's highest award for leadership yesterday for his 3 1/2 years of service as the agency's executive director. Krongard drew praise at the late-afternoon ceremony for such achievements as helping to create the Terrorist Threat Integration Center - which draws expertise from the entire intelligence community, including the FBI - and championing better information-sharing between agency operatives and analysts.

A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, a prominent Baltimorean and executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency since March 2001, was honored yesterday by the National Flag Day Foundation at its fifth annual Patriotism Award luncheon at the 5th Regiment Armory. Krongard, 66, who works at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., but still has a home here, received the Louis V. Koerber Patriotism Award for his service to the country in a time of terrorism at home and war abroad, foundation officials said.

For the enigmatic, driven leader of Alex. Brown Inc., merging with Bankers Trust New York Corp. caps a more than 25-year push to catapult the nation's oldest investment banking firm to global status.Engineering a $1.7 billion deal with Bankers Trust also represents one of the final acts in the illustrious career of A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who climbed the ranks of Alex. Brown against considerable odds and through sheer determination, grit and intelligence."He's a forceful leader, and I have the highest regard for him," said Raymond A. "Chip" Mason Jr., chairman and chief executive of Legg Mason Inc., which, with Alex.

A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the former Baltimore investment banker who was replaced in a shake-up last week as the Central Intelligence Agency's No. 3 official, said yesterday that his professional future remains unclear. Krongard, who had been the agency's executive director since March 2001, will undergo back surgery this month and plans to make a decision on what he will do next after he recovers. "I have got to get through that first," said Krongard, 67, the former chairman and chief executive of Alex.

A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, a prominent Baltimorean and executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency since March 2001, was honored yesterday by the National Flag Day Foundation at its fifth annual Patriotism Award luncheon at the 5th Regiment Armory. Krongard, 66, who works at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., but still has a home here, received the Louis V. Koerber Patriotism Award for his service to the country in a time of terrorism at home and war abroad, foundation officials said.