09-12-2021 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 40
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Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, September 12, 2021
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2021
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
DONALD P.
HUTCHINSON
P
reston Hutchinson died from cancer just three days after
Christmas 1968. He was a steelworker, a barroom owner,
the married father of two sons and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from blue-collar Essex in eastern Baltimore County. Democratic leaders appointed
the younger of his sons to finish out his term. Donald P.
Hutchinson had turned 23 on the day he buried his father,
but he was not a political novice.
Three years earlier, he had been elected to serve as a delegate to Maryland’s
constitutional convention from the county’s old 5th District. He was the youngest
delegate there, and the debates over revisions to the state constitution fascinated
him. “I decided I really wanted to build a career in government and politics,” he
says. Mr. Hutchinson grew up in east side politics; his father’s bar had been a gathering place for Democratic politicians, most of them more conservative than the
younger Mr. Hutchinson. “I saw politics from the inside at an early age,” he says,
50 years later. “I didn’t want to be part of the old-school.”
For years, local government in
Baltimore County had been marked
by backroom deals and corruption,
much of it exposed in the early
1970s with the federal indictments
of two consecutive county executives. One of them, Spiro T. Agnew,
had gone on to serve as Richard
Nixon’s vice president. By the time
Agnew resigned in disgrace and
the Watergate scandal rocked the
Nixon presidency, a reform movement swept the nation and reached
Baltimore County. Mr. Hutchinson
joined with other young reformers to challenge the Democratic
machine in the county in 1974. He
ran for state senate against a powerful incumbent, while newcomer
Ted Venetoulis ran for county executive, asking voters to “throw the
rascals out.” Both Mr. Hutchinson
and Mr. Venetoulis won.
“The county at the time was
perhaps the most powerful county
in the state, with powerful senators who kind of ran the legislature,” Mr. Venetoulis says. “But the
county was really kind of stuck in
the backwash of corruption and the
BACKGROUND
Age: 75
Hometown: Essex
Current residence: Timonium
Education: B.S. Frostburg State
University; graduate studies,
University of Maryland, College
Park
Career highlights: Maryland
delegate (1969-1974); Maryland
senator (1974-1978); Baltimore
County executive (1978-1986);
president, Greater Baltimore
Committee; president, SunTrust
Bank of Maryland; president,
Maryland Zoo in Baltimore,
2008-2020
Civic and charitable activities:
Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas
Commission; chair, Governor’s
Commission on School Funding;
campaign chair, United Way
of Central Maryland; founding
member, Beall Institute for Public
Affairs, Frostburg State University
Family: Wife, Peggy; combined
family of three children; three
grandchildren.
way it had operated for many years.
Don was a major part of our reform
movement.”
When Mr. Venetoulis chose to
run for governor four years later,
Mr. Hutchinson ran to succeed
him in Towson. As a self-described
“bricks and mortar county executive,” he brought a centrist and
competent approach to governance,
dealing with the issues of growth
and changing social conditions
— land use and the development
of town centers, the location and
management of landfills, the need to
bring more women into leadership
roles and racially integrate county
government.
After his second term ended
in 1986, Mr. Hutchinson became
president of Maryland Economic
Growth Associates, a private-sector development group that
later merged with the Maryland
Chamber of Commerce, becoming the Maryland Business Council. In 1993, the Greater Baltimore
Committee made Mr. Hutchinson
its president. “He’s a person who
can deal with CEOs as an equal,”
Robert C. Embry Jr., president of
the Abell Foundation, said at the
time. “He’s a suburban person, but
with a demonstrated concern for
the city, and for poor people. I think
he’s a terrific choice.”
At the GBC, Mr. Hutchinson
spent close to a decade trying to get
business leaders and government
officials from the city and counties to cooperate in promoting the
region as a place to do business. The
GBC pushed for more state funds
for the city schools, construction
of a football stadium for the new
Baltimore Ravens and, toward the
end of Mr. Hutchinson’s tenure, a
new venue for Broadway shows
to replace the bankrupt Mechanic
Theater. “The Hippodrome was
a GBC project,” Mr. Hutchinson
says. “It started out as a $26 million
project that ended up being a $63
million project.” Raising money to
save and restore the dilapidated
theater speaks to Mr. Hutchinson’s
exceptional skills at lobbying and
in leadership. The Hippodrome
Theatre at the France-Merrick
Performing Arts Center opened
for audiences in 2004. Three years
later, Mr. Hutchinson’s lobbying,
leadership and fix-it skills were
again put to the test.
“The man has done an
awful lot for the region
and the state. He’s one
of those elected officials
who always wanted to
do the right thing in the
right way for the right
purpose at the right
time, and I think he’s
carried that on in
every job he’s had.”
— Diane Hutchins, Maryland Zoo
in Baltimore’s vice president for
governmental affairs
In 2007, after serving five years
as president and CEO of SunTrust
Bank, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore called for help. The third
oldest zoo in the country, it faced
existential financial issues. Mr.
Hutchinson was hired as president
and CEO to conduct a rescue. “The
zoo was about to lose its accreditation and we were within five to
eight weeks of not making payroll,”
he says. “I had 1,500 animals and
needed people to come and take
care of them. I thought we could
sort it out with time.”
An important bridge loan
from the Abell Foundation, some
management changes, layoffs,
restructuring and exhibit improvements got the zoo to a better place.
“He really did save the zoo,” says
Diane Hutchins, the institution’s
vice president for governmental affairs who has known Mr.
Hutchinson since the 1970s. “It’s a
very different place from the place
he took over, in every aspect. Financially it’s in much, much better
shape. Physically it does not look
like the same place. Don is very
good at looking at issues and figuring out how to address them. That’s
what he does.
“The man has done an awful lot
for the region and the state,” says
Ms. Hutchins. “He’s one of those
elected officials who always wanted
to do the right thing in the right way
for the right purpose at the right
time, and I think he’s carried that
on in every job he’s had.”