BALTIMORE — Ben Griswold, a partner at investment firm Brown Advisory, will join CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs as a co-chair of the B&O Railroad Museum’s $38 million capital campaign, the museum has announced.
Griswold is the great-great-great-grant grandson of Alex Brown, who in 1800 founded the first investment bank in the United States. It was at Brown’s house that Baltimore merchants met to charter the Baltimore & Ohio, the first U.S. common-carrier railroad.
I am proud to lend my support to co-lead the Museum’s 200th Anniversary Campus Transformation Campaign, given both Baltimore’s and my family’s history with the formation of the railroad in this country,” Griswold said in a press release. “As proud as I am of our heritage, I am equally excited about the future of Baltimore and the investment being made in Southwest Baltimore as we move toward the city’s renaissance and the celebration of the 200th anniversary of American railroading in 2027.”
Hinrichs had been named in 2023 as chair of the campaign that seeks to prepare the museum for the anniversary [see “CSX’s Hinrichs to chair …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 14, 2023]. The project includes creation of an amphitheater and multi-use public space and restoration of the South Car Works building, which dates to 1869, to serve as the new museum entrance. CSX has donated $5 million to the amphitheater project [see “CSX makes $5 million gift …,” News Wire, June 8, 2023].
“We could not be more honored to have Ben Griswold serve as our 200th Anniversary Campus Transformation Campaign Co-Chair,” said Kris Hoellen, the museum’s executive director. “Ben and Joe as co-chairs is symbolic — from the first to the present of American railroading, literally. Plus, they are both extraordinary people who understand the value of preserving the past while preparing for the future.”
