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Mr. Blum founded Blum & Co. and leads its advisory and financing services.
Previously, Mr. Blum was founder, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Managing Director of Maryland National Investment Banking Company, a subsidiary of MNC Financial, then a $23 billion bank holding company. Under his leadership, in the Company's first full year of operation American Banker ranked Maryland National #8 among all banks in mergers and acquisitions.
Earlier, he directed a worldwide specialty energy and technology financing group in the Investment Banking Division of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and served on the Board of Directors of Merrill Lynch's R&D/Venture Fund. He and his colleagues developed a number of innovative financing techniques that have since become widely accepted.
While with Merrill Lynch, Mr. Blum managed or was a senior participant in more than 40 transactions. These included financings totaling several billion dollars and major mergers and leveraged buyouts. Notably, he was a senior member of the team that represented Gulf Oil in its defense and ultimate $13 billion sale to Chevron, and managed the $125 million leveraged buyout of a Shell Oil division - one of the first LBOs to be largely financed with high-yield bonds. He also negotiated a range of strategic partnerships between established and emerging companies involving marketing and other alliances in addition to financing.
Mr. Blum served as a senior U.S. Government official, for several years as Director of the Office of Advanced Technology for the U.S. Department of Energy. There he held budgetary and policy oversight responsibility for the Department's more than $5 billion annual turnover in technology programs. He also was active in the Department's technology commercialization activities and in the development and enactment of major energy legislation.
Earlier, he was Vice President for a subsidiary of the Rand Corporation, where he formulated, marketed, negotiated, and managed projects and programs for Federal, state, and local governments and public/private consortia. His work there received major national and international recognition, including awards in management science and technological innovation - the latter for an advance in fire-fighting technology now known as "Rapid Water."
Previously, he served on the engineering and public affairs faculties of Princeton University. He also served nine years as a Trustee of the University of Detroit and has served on numerous Federal advisory boards, including seven years as a member of what is now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Advisory Board and three years as a founding member of its Technology Commercialization Board.
He served on the Board of Directors and Chaired the Board Audit Committee of Periphonics Corporation, a $175 million sales manufacturer of interactive voice response and other advanced communications systems, from its IPO through its sale to Nortel Networks. He currently serves as Chairman of Fairfax County, VA's Information Technology Policy Advisory Committee. He has served on the Board of Directors of Thames Water Holdings Incorporated, the U.S. subsidiary of Thames Water PLC, a substantial UK utility. His biography has appeared in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Finance and Industry, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, Who's Who in Science & Engineering and Who's Who in the World. He holds degrees in chemical engineering with minors in economics: a B.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.
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