Earlier this month, I had lunch at City Cafe with Dan Dent, the founder and CEO of D.F. Dent and Company which he started in 1976.
The impetus was "Beating the Odds: Eddie Brown's Investing And Life Strategies" which I had recently read. Dan is mentioned throughout the book. He had worked at T. Rowe Price in the 70s and played an important role in recruiting Eddie Brown.
Dan is not only the founder of $4.5 billion Assets Under Management D.F. Dent and Company. He has equal fame as a "musher" with his involvement in the famed and demanding sled-dog race Iditarod.
Prior to lunch, I emailed the co-author Blair Walker who provided the following commentary.
"Please thank Dan Dent on my behalf for having the vision and courage to make Eddie Brown a T. Rowe Price pioneer. It would appear Dan isn't bad at handicapping financial talent!"
Dan was at T Rowe Price in 1973 when Eddie Brown was recruited from Irwin Management Company in Columbus, Indiana. Dan was Princeton and Wharton School of Finance; Eddie was Howard and Indiana University for his MBA.
This was long before Chief Diversity Officers, alternative investments and in this case alternative hires.
From the book is the following description of Eddie's first encounter with Dan ".... my next meeting is with Bill's colleague Dan Dent, who's easily 6-foot-4, full-bodied and balding. Dan comes across as very thoughtful, a tad professorial, and like Bill he asks questions whose purpose seem to be to help him get a handle on whether he would feel comfortable with me."
By 1976, Dan Dent left T. Rowe Price to launch his fund; Eddie decided to follow Dan's lead and left in 1983.
Eddie Brown's incredible life is told in "Beating the Odds; Eddie Brown's Investing and Life Strategies". From his impoverished birth to a 13-year-old mother to his entrepreneurial roots as a teenage moonshine runner, his journey proceeds to IBM and then T. Rowe Price before founding Brown Capital.
His brand if not fame was catapulted to the next level when he was a host of Louis Rukesyer's Wall Street Week; he became the first Afro-American financial industry celebrity. Another fortuitous happenstance was that Wall Street Week was filmed in Owings Mills.
It is a well chronicled albeit incredible story. I just wanted to highlight the role of T. Rowe Price and Dan Dent.
Additional comments and photos are welcome; please email to edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co
