06-05-2022 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 40
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Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 5, 2022
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2022
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
WILLIAM STROMBERG
I
t was on the football field, of all places, that William “Bill” Stromberg honed the skills that would earn him acclaim in the investment game. Years ago, before he began the climb from intern to
CEO of T. Rowe Price, Mr. Stromberg was a sure-handed receiver
for Johns Hopkins University. He was good enough in 1981 to set
an NCAA Division III mark of 258 receptions and to land a tryout
with the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL — all the while espousing
the precepts that jocks (and those in stocks) hold dear.
“It was very, very important for me to be part of a team-oriented
culture,” said Mr. Stromberg, 62. “It helped me to be a much better
recruiter [in the business world] and, hopefully, a decent leader. Where you earn
your keep, as a leader, is helping people through tough times. In sports, during
slumps, players begin to question all they do and how they do it; [coaches] help
them navigate those rough periods.”
Ego driven, he is not, having worked his way through college as “a garbage
man, driving around campus each morning and picking up trash.” From the job,
he said, he’d “go straight to class where nobody wants to sit next to you because,
many times, you don’t smell all that good. It was humbling, in many respects.”
Humility epitomizes Mr. Stromberg, those who know him said.
“Bill is deeply driven to achieve,
but at same time he’s very humble,”
said Ed Bernard, a longtime
colleague at T. Rowe Price and
now senior adviser at the firm.
“He doesn’t try to do it all himself.
[In meetings] he couldn’t care less
if the solution being agreed upon
belonged to him or to somebody
else; it wasn’t all about him, it was
about the solution.
“He related to everyone at T.
Rowe Price, from the security
guard who greets you when you
come in the door to the best portfolio manager. He’s just a regular guy who happens to be very
talented.”
As company honcho for six
years, Mr. Stromberg was “the
opposite of the ‘imperial CEO’ who
has all the trappings of power,” said
Brian Rogers, 66, former T. Rowe
chairman and CIO. “Bill is totally
apolitical in how he looks at data
and facts. Even if he makes an
unpopular decision, people know
it was well-conceived.
“He’s also a great judge of talent
and character. When someone
came in for a job interview, if Bill
liked the candidate, I didn’t even
have to see the person.”
Mr. Stromberg’s keen eye played
to a strength, allowing him to take
a more visionary tack.
“It was rare, at work, for me to be
the smartest person in the room,”
said Mr. Stromberg, who retired in
2021 after 35 years with the firm.
“What I had was the willingness
to be an independent thinker. At
times, you have to do things differently than the rest of the [stock]
market, to disagree with the mainstream and to think outside the
box.”
That tenet stemmed from football, as well. As a receiver with
so-so speed, Mr. Stromberg said,
“I learned how to study a defense,
find the seam, sneak into it and
get open. I used the same skill —
a ‘spatial awareness,’ I guess — in
business. You develop a sense of
where openings might evolve in
a hot market, find places where
stocks are cheap and forgotten, and
hunt them down.”
On the job, Mr. Stromberg rarely
spoke of his football prowess, Mr.
Bernard said:
“I’d worked closely with him for
nearly 20 years before I knew [of
his NCAA record], and only then
because someone else told me. This
is not a guy who wears his accomplishments on his sleeve. He’s just
a remarkable soul, a values-driven
person of unimpeachable integrity
— and he brings that to both leadership in business and his engagement in the community.”
Reaching out, so to speak, didn’t
end with football.
“Civic work has been central to
me,” said Mr. Stromberg, who was
head of the board of Catholic Charities during the 2012 dedication
of its $15 million Our Daily Bread
Employment Center and soup
kitchen at 725 Fallsway. “Leaders
who’ve benefited from the talent
around them should give back.
Baltimore needs civic engagement
to find its way back to greatness, and
I’d love to be a small help there.”
That benevolence is practically
ingrained in the man, colleagues
said.
“There’s a foundation of faith
about Bill that goes back to when
he was a student at Loyola Blakefield,” said Mr. Rogers, joking that
“now, when he calls me, I run the
other way because I know he’s
trying to raise money for Catholic
Charities.”
Added Mr. Bernard: “He’s not
doing this because he believes
people think he ought to be doing
it. ... It comes down to values.
There’s no superficiality about
this guy; scratch the surface and
he’s Bill Stromberg, through and
through.”
Most everything that Mr. Stromberg has done has paid dividends —
even collecting the college’s trash.
“One day, while picking up
garbage, I found a pair of black
Chuck Taylor tennis shoes. They
were better than what I was wearing [on Hopkins’ new AstroTurf
field], so I wore them the second
half of the season,” he said. “Those
shoes were comfortable; they
really filled the bill.”
“This is not a guy
who wears his
accomplishments on
his sleeve. He’s just
a remarkable soul, a
values-driven person
of unimpeachable
integrity — and he brings
that to both leadership
in business and his
engagement
in the community.”
AT A GLANCE
Age: 62
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Lutherville
Education: Loyola Blakefield; Johns
Hopkins University, B.A. in mathematical
sciences from the Whiting School of
Engineering; Dartmouth College, M.B.A.
in business administration, The Amos
Tuck School of Business; Chartered
Financial Analyst (CFA).
Career highlights: T. Rowe Price CEO
and president; also served as head of
global equity and director of U.S. equity
research during 35 years with the
firm. Recipient of Catholic Charities of
Maryland Distinguished Service Award
and Loyola Blakefield Rev. James F.
Salmon SJ Award. Member of Johns
Hopkins University Athletic Hall of
Fame, National College Football HOF,
Maryland State Athletic HOF, Loyola
Blakefield Athletic HOF. At Johns
Hopkins, earned first-team Little All
America football honors and set six
national records as a wide receiver.
Civic and charitable activities:
Trustee, Johns Hopkins University;
board chair, Johns Hopkins Whiting
School of Engineering; former president
and current Capital Campaign co-chair,
Catholic Charities of Maryland; former
trustee and Capital Campaign co-chair,
Loyola Blakefield.
Family: Married to Lisa Stromberg;
three children.