Republican gubernatorial candidate's fundraising chairman has

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 3, 2002 by Christopher Sherman

Some use birthdays to mark the passage of time, but the last three decades of Richard E. Hug's life can be charted with fund-raising campaigns.

After a while, the campaigns, like birthdays, start to run together for Hug, fund-raising chairman of the Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. gubernatorial campaign, but he remembers how it started.

Hug chaired his first fund-raising campaign in 1979 for the United Way of Central Maryland. The effort brought in $20 million -- Hug had found his calling.

Recollections of campaigns that followed bubble from Hug's memory.

There was $40 million for the National Aquarium, $120 million for the University of Maryland Medical System, $6.4 million for Ellen Sauerbrey's failed 1998 gubernatorial bid, more than $100,000 for President George W. Bush's campaign, earning him the campaign's "pioneer" distinction, and additional hundreds of thousands for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, colleges, art galleries and sundry other causes.

Hug, 67, places the blame for his obsession squarely on the shoulders of the man who signed him up for that first United Way campaign.

Frank Gunther said that is blame he is happy to take.

"My first recollection of Dick is 1975," said 70-year-old Gunther, who was chairing the United Way's 1976 capital campaign at the time. Gunther was making call after call to area CEOs reminding them of what they gave the previous year and explaining what sort of increase they were expected to contribute.

Gunther was getting a lot of excuses as businesses tried to cut their contributions. Then he got to Hug, who at that time was running the environmental division of Koppers Industries in Baltimore.

Gunther told Hug what the company had given the previous year, and he will never forget Hug's response.

"'Oh, we can do a lot better than that,' he said, and I thought, 'Who is this guy?'" Gunther said.

They have been friends ever since.

His life begins

Born in Paterson, N.J., Hug grew up with a love for the outdoors, passing the time hunting and fishing at his parents' summer home in the Poconos. He could not figure out how to parlay that taste for nature into a career, but he knew he did not want to be a ranger so he entered Duke University pre-med. He exited years later with a bachelor's degree in forestry and a master's in wood technology.

At the time, Koppers was a large multinational corporation and forest products was one of its largest divisions, so Hug joined the company that would take him all over the country.

Koppers sent Hug to Baltimore in 1973 to open its environmental division. In 10 years, Hug grew the division's sales to $120 million.

In 1983, Hug purchased the division in a leveraged buyout, changed the name to Environmental Elements Corp. and ran it privately until taking it public in 1990. The company produces industrial air pollution control devices. In 1995, he stepped away from the day-to- day operations to become chairman emeritus, a position he still holds.

Hardly the retirement type, Hug has purchased and built several businesses since dropping the reins at Environmental Elements. There is a car-wash operation in Severna Park, a new restaurant in Columbia and a decorated sign company.

Of course, there is also his hobby.

"Some people wake up early to go hunting," Ehrlich said. "Some people wake up early to go tee off. Hug gets up early to ask people for money.

"He loves it. It's his hobby."

Hug seems reluctant to label fund-raising his hobby. The amount of work involved is too familiar to him, but he admits that it suits him.

"I like the work though," Hug said. "I like to work."

But it is not just any work. Hug loves a challenge. He sets high goals and usually meets them.

One of those goals won him the name "$4 million man" when he made that his goal for the 1998 Sauerbrey bid. There was a lot of snickering. At that time, a Republican candidate had never raised more than $1.5 million in Maryland, he said.

Hug raised $6.4 million and silenced the cynics, who knew better than to roll their eyes when he made $8 million Ehrlich's goal.

Raining dollars

It did not take long for Hug's reputation as a rainmaker to spread.

He had cut his teeth in the charitable arena and proven himself battle-hardened in politics. If someone thought they had a good cause that needed money, they went in search of Hug.

In fall 1994, Gov. William Donald Schaefer came knocking.

Schaefer told him he was having a dozen or so guys over to the Government House for dinner and asked him to come without hinting as to the occasion.

Once everyone was seated at the table, Schaefer stood up and made one of his legendary pitches.

The state had a great opportunity to host the Special Olympics in 1999, Schaefer said, obviously already with a clear plan in his mind.

Schaefer started going around the table explaining everyone's contribution, and when he got to Hug, he said: "Dick Hug over here is going to raise $6 million for us."

"I hadn't heard anything about it before that moment," Hug said. "I said, 'I'm out of the business.'"

Schaefer shot back: "The hell you say. Are you saying you can't raise $6 million in five years?"