G Profile: Craig Brown

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Craig Brown

▶Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan
▶Family: Wife, Vicki; three children: Christina, Jennifer, Jeffe
▶Career: Arthur Andersen & Co.; D’Arcy MacManus & Masius; The MacManus Group; Bcom3; Publicis Groupe; Keelers Ridge Associates; The Greenville Drive
▶Board Positions: Michigan State University Foundation (Chairman); Partnership for a Drug-Free America (Treasurer); Hydrocephalous Association (Executive Committee); Furman University Advisory Board; Michigan State University Athletic Director’s Council; The Baseball Factory; Baseball Internet Rights Company; Guideposts; Salem (Virginia) Red Sox
▶Secret of Success: Focus, consistency of effort

Craig Brown has himself a Grand Slam. First, a successful early career in accounting. Second, twenty-three years of advertising in Chicago and New York, strategizing the first, largest, and last mega-mergers that reshaped the business on a global scale. Third, founding his own successful private-equity and consulting firm. Now, in Greenville, he’s crossed home plate with the Greenville Drive.

As principal owner and president of the Class-A Boston Red Sox affiliate, along with Yahoo! board chairman and long-time friend Roy Bostock, and Paul Raether, partner at Kolberg Kravis Roberts, the affable, understated Brown is the personification of the Drive in Greenville. His definition of the club’s ultimate measure of success (“What kind of experience people have each time they come to the park”) and his philosophy about the role the Drive should play in Greenville (“To not just be located here, but become part of the fabric of the community”) imbues the entire five-year-old organization.

It’s a philosophy that reflects his personal values: durable values that spring from a Midwestern upbringing in a loving Michigan family. Whether talking with his wife of thirty-five years, Vicki, best friend, attorney Bob Beardslee, or business colleagues, one hears the same attributes cited: “integrity,” “family man,” “strong work ethic,” “unpretentious.” The last is evident when you pay those compliments back to Brown, who colors upon hearing them. He’s a modest man for someone Bostock describes as “incredibly bright and possessed of all-American values.”

The two go back to their advertising days in Chicago. It was Bostock who approached Brown a few years ago to help realize the latter’s dream of owning a minor-league ball team. They took a look at friend Dan Burke’s Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs, liked what they saw, and when the Greenville franchise opened up with the Braves departure to Mississippi, the three ingeniously offered the city an attractive package: They would provide the private funds to build a new baseball stadium if the city would contribute the site and lease it to them, as well as upgrade the area infrastructure and bring its downtown hardscaping to the West End site. Deal. In ten months, the ballpark, begun in May of 2005 and now called “Fluor Field,” which comfortably seats 5,700, was complete. It’s been winning fans—and awards—ever since opening day.

While Brown is a brilliant numbers man, what the Drive’s numbers represent holds equal value for him. “I’m most proud of the way we’ve been accepted by our fans, by the families in the area, and of the partnerships we’ve developed with the business community and our various sponsors,” he observes. Looking ahead, he hopes to build on the team’s momentum and eventually end up with “the best minor league franchise in the country.”

Friends like Beardslee, his fraternity roommate of forty years back, and Drive senior vice-president Nate Lipscomb, wouldn’t bet against him. He’s a “competitive capitalist,” says Lipscomb. Brown’s work ethic is legendary. Even in college at his beloved Michigan State University, Beardslee recalls, “Craig would party as hard as the rest of us on Thursday nights. The only difference was he’d study for three hours before going out and still make his 8 a.m. class!” Known to enjoy a good time, Brown likes country music and, while reputedly not a candidate for Dancing with the Stars, takes to the dance floor with enthusiasm.

He and his alma mater have a long-standing love affair. Brown has held many significant alumni posts, most notably current chair of the MSU Foundation and member of its Athletic Director’s Council, while being honored with its prestigious Distinguished Alumnus Award. His MSU involvement takes him back to his native state on a monthly basis.

But MSU is only one of Brown’s volunteer commitments. He has seven others. Those involvements, plus his business interests, keep him airborne a great deal. But they’ve seldom kept him from his family. His wife shared how he’d been to Buenos Aires, Argentina, ten times, but only spent one night there—so as to minimize time away from her and their three children. The family remains very close, though scattered geographically now that the children are grown. But they often gather to take in MSU athletic events, as well as to run, hike, or golf.

For Craig and Vicki, who lived in Connecticut before moving here in early 2005, Greenville is increasingly home. He doesn’t have enough good things to say about the community. Brown relishes promoting it, confirming the greatest challenge is just getting people here. He favors an understated approach, e.g., “Come and check it out.” Brown explains, “It’s really transformational. Once we get people here and they walk up and down Main Street, interact with some of the businesses, see the ball park, Greenville sells itself.”

When not involved at the park or with one of his other business or board obligations, Craig and Vicki may be found on occasion with the Beardslees, in hot pursuit of their goal to play the world’s top 100 golf courses. “We’ve played forty,” Brown notes wryly, “so we’re either going to have to pick up the pace or live to be 110!”

Clearly, Craig Brown is a man who’s living his dream. The talented kid who always loved playing baseball, the man whose best gift was a trip to the Detroit Tigers’ “Fantasy Baseball Camp,” now owns a record-breaking, award-winning, minor-league team in a town he loves. Small wonder his enthusiasm shows.