09-12-2021 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 24
24 Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, September 12, 2021
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2021
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
R. MICHAEL
GILL
A
t 64 years of age with a full and highly successful
professional life in the private sector, the last thing
R. Michael Gill says he was looking for was a government job when Republican Gov. Larry Hogan came
calling in 2015 with an offer to be Maryland’s secretary
of commerce.
“Never had a government job in my life,” the 70-yearold Mr. Gill says today. “Never thought of myself as a
government employee.”
He says he told Mr. Hogan that and emphasized the point by saying the only
brush he ever had with elected office came in high school in the 1960s.
“I said, ‘Hey, guv, I ran for student government at Calvert Hall, and I didn’t
even win that.’ ”
“Well, I did the same at DeMatha, and I didn’t win either,” he quotes Mr. Hogan
as replying.
“I said, ‘Let’s go; I’m all in,’ ” Mr. Gill recalls, with his typical enthusiasm.
Looking back on the experience
in Annapolis, he says, “I loved it. The
four years went like four hours. And
I think the reason it worked for me
is that there was never a day where
I thought of myself as a government
employee. I just thought of myself
as the chief sales officer for the state
of Maryland.”
What that meant in terms of
policy was the creation of a “culture
of yes,” according to Mr. Gill.
“I’ve got this great product called
Maryland, and we created something we called ‘the culture of yes.’
The 500,000-plus corporations
in Maryland — be it a big guy like
McCormick or Marriott or a little
guy like a couple of ladies with a
dress shop in Cumberland — what
they all had in common is they
are all customers. And if you’re a
customer, we say, “How can we help
you?’ ” Mr. Gill says. “We had a great
team at commerce, and I love to say
for those four years I was in the role,
we kicked Virginia’s butt and beat
them in job growth all four years.”
Mr. Gill’s respect for teamwork
and deep sense of competitiveness
suggested by that statement about
BACKGROUND
Age: 70
Hometown: Timonium
Current residence: Towson
Education: Calvert Hall
College High School; Clemson
University; bachelor’s in business
administration, Towson University
Career highlights: Director of
Data Systems, Ernst & Young;
founder and CEO, AMERICOM;
principal and chair, Evergreen
Advisors; Maryland secretary of
commerce (2015-2019)
Civic and charitable activities:
Chairman, University of Maryland
St. Joseph’s Medical Center;
Catholic Charities; Calvert Hall
College Family Scholarship
Fund; Maryland Family Network;
President’s Advisory Board Clemson University
Family: Wife, Mary; three children
outperforming Virginia goes back
half a century to those Calvert Hall
days when he played four years of
varsity baseball, made All-Metro
twice and threw four no-hitters.
He went to Clemson University on
a baseball scholarship. He played
“very little” there, he says. “Injuries and lack of talent [are the] only
things that held me back,” he adds
jokingly. After earning a bachelor’s
degree from Towson University
in 1974, his first job was in sales at
IBM, and he quickly rose through
the ranks until he was teaching sales
for the company.
Following management stints
at Ernst & Young and Data
Systems, Mr. Gill went into business for himself in 1984, founding
AMERICOM, a technical services
company in the wireless industry. By 2000, it had grown to 1,200
employees. Mr. Gill then founded
the wireless communications
company First Page USA Inc. In
2007, he joined Evergreen Advisors,
an investment bank and corporate
advisory firm, where he remains
chairman since returning from
leave to serve in the Hogan administration.
“Mike Gill has done amazing
things in his career including serving as secretary of commerce. He
just did that job because he loves
the state and he wanted to make
a difference. He didn’t need to do
it,” says Jim Clements, president of
Clemson University.
“I’ve known Mike for 30 years.
He’s like a big brother to me. And
he’s been a really good mentor. I
learned a lot about leadership and
working with people in organizations and creating a vision from
him,” adds Dr. Clements, who grew
up in Randallstown and served as
provost at Towson University. “At
Clemson, he’s on my president’s
advisory board. He just spoke at
one of my graduation ceremonies
for my leadership institute. I think
the world of Mike Gill. He’s got a
good heart.”
Tom Kelso, chairman of the
Maryland Stadium Authority and
president of Matrix Capital Markets
Group Inc., says, “Mike is extremely
generous with his time and money,
and his commitment to causes that
matter to him is strong. He is an
amazingly great leader with wide
vision and great energy that helps
“When I heard that the
governor had selected
him, and even more
surprisingly that he
had accepted, I almost
fell off my chair.
Not because he wouldn’t
be good at it, but because
he was so wedded to the
private sector and such
a booster of all things
business. It turned
out, of course, to be a
brilliant selection and
we are all better off
for his service.”
— David H. Nevins, president
of Nevins and Associates
motivate others to achieve meaningful change.”
Attitude is the secret to Mr. Gill’s
success, according to former State
Sen. Frank Kelly, who says, “Nothing great ever happens without a
positive attitude, and Mike has one
of best, most positive attitudes I
have ever known.”
David H. Nevins, president of
Nevins and Associates, a Towsonbased marketing and communications firm, calls Mr. Gill a “Maryland
phenom.”
“His energy and enthusiasm are
contagious. He’s an idea machine.
But what I admire most about him is
his ability to pivot, his willingness to
go in a different direction than the
herd. You want Mike on your team
for sure,” Mr. Nevins says.
“I always thought Mike would be
about the last guy to enter government service, so when I heard that
the governor had selected him, and
even more surprisingly that he had
accepted, I almost fell off my chair.
Not because he wouldn’t be good
at it, but because he was so wedded
to the private sector and such a
booster of all things business. It
turned out, of course, to be a brilliant selection and we are all better
off for his service.”