Recently, I had lunch with David Wise at City Café to discuss the subject of investment capital for early stage companies. Until the end of July, David had been the venture advisor to the Abell Foundation. He is presently Director of the USM Maryland Momentum Fund. Excuse the non sequitur, my interest in meeting David also was prompted by a book that I recently read by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas "The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made."

I have always considered Bob Embry, the president of the Abell Foundation, to be one of Baltimore's Wise Men. I wanted that to be the jumping off point for the lunch discussion.

In the recent Johns Hopkins 21st Century Initiative "Financing Baltimore's Growth: Measuring Small Companies Access to Capital", the Abell Foundation stands out as an important example of how foundations can play a role "enabling momentum."

The fourth recommendation of that report is to "expand the range of financial institutions". There is a model for foundations - it is the Abell Foundation.

In our discussion David agreed with the proposition that Bob Embry as being one of the city’s “Wise Men,” but backed away from my suggestion that he might be one of Baltimore’s Wise Men” too.

Read the full article from City Bizlist.