Council of Past Presidents

Robert Brennan
Executive Director
Maryland Economic Development Corporation

Robert C. Brennan was appointed the Executive Director of the Maryland Economic Development Corporation (MEDCO), in May of 2004. Prior that time Bob was the Assistant Secretary for the Rural Regions in Maryland and had also been responsible for the Financing Programs for the Department of Business and Economic Development.

Mr. Brennan is responsible for the management of MEDCO which was created in 1984 to hold real and personal property for the benefit of private business and local and other state government economic development projects. MEDCO has over $2 Billion in outstanding projects which include the issuance of taxable and tax-exempt bonds used to support private activity financings. Additionally, MEDCO assist in the financing and ownership of numerous student housing projects for the State of Maryland institutions of higher education. MEDCO has also assisted in the creation of industrial parks and facilities in the rural regions of the state to provide attractive location solutions to business considering locating in these depressed areas of the State.

As the Assistant Secretary for the State’s Financing Programs, which provide a wide variety of financing services to businesses in Maryland, Mr. Brennan participated in the dealings with numerous high profile projects. These projects included the negotiations of several large transactions for the State such Northrop Grumman, Marriott Corporation, Allison Transmission, Aegon, Human Genome Science, DAP, Random House, National Association of Security Dealers, Giant Foods and Bechtel Power Corporation.

Mr. Brennan has over 20 years of experience in banking and financing. He was previously the Senior Vice President of the Commercial Lending Business Banking Group of First Fidelity Bank (formerly Bank of Baltimore); the Vice President/Unit Head of Signet Bank and started his career with Maryland National Industrial Finance, the asset based banking business group for Maryland National Bank.

Mr. Brennan is a life long resident of the State of Maryland and was raised in Baltimore County. He attended Loyola High School and graduated from St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. Mr. Brennan is a member of the board of trustees at Stevenson University and is a 2004 graduate of the Leadership Maryland program. He is a past President of the Maryland Economic Development Association and remains on the executive board. Mr. Brennan maintains his residence in Woodbrook, Maryland with his wife and has two grown children.