Hall of Fame 6.7.26 - Flipbook - Page 9
Hall of Fame | Sunday, June 7, 2026 9
JAMES
BRINKLEY
Jim Brinkley was working on a highway survey crew after high school when a college-bound co-worker kept nudging him to go to college, too.
Brinkley, who’d grown up on his family’s farm in Virginia, made a decision that would shape a nearly six-decade career in finance leadership. He landed at
the College of William & Mary, where a friendship with Raymond A. “Chip” Mason ultimately grew into a longtime business partnership at Baltimore investment firm Legg Mason Inc.
On the Williamsburg campus, Brinkley and Mason belonged to the same fraternity, shared an interest in economics, and fought over the library’s copy of
The Wall Street Journal.
By 1962, Mason asked for help starting Mason &
Co., and Brinkley jumped at the chance — he and
his wife, Dana, were already putting “every dime”
from her bank job salary into stocks.
It was “a chance to do what I love doing,”
Brinkley, 89, said during an interview at Blakehurst senior community in Towson, his home of
eight years.
“I always wanted to be a successful investor,”
he said. “I wanted to be financially independent.
This would give me an opportunity to help other
people build financial independence, and that was
my passion. So it was a natural.”
Over nearly 40 years with Legg Mason, Brinkley
led efforts to recruit, train and guide the firm’s
brokers and helped steer the company through
expansion, market hiccups and more than a dozen
mergers and acquisitions. The company went public in 1983. By 2005, the firm had grown into a
global finance leader managing more than $800
billion in assets for its clients.
“Jim played a pivotal role in shaping the growth,
the culture, the prominence of Legg Mason, particularly as a result of his leadership,” said Richard Himelfarb, a former colleague and current
chairman of investment banking at Stifel, the successor to Legg Mason’s investment arm.
“His focus when he addressed the brokers was
a message he never wavered from, the way to build
a successful practice was to look at things through
the eyes of your client, know your client, understand your client and do the right thing for the client,” Himelfarb said.
In 2005, Brinkley, then-vice chairman of Legg
Mason Wood Walker Inc., the brokerage arm,
joined Smith Barney in Baltimore in a $3.7 billion
James Brinkley
Age: 89
Hometown: Suffolk, Virginia
Current residence: Blakehurst, Towson
Education: College of William and Mary, 1959
Career highlights: Retired as special
adviser and vice chairman of Morgan Stanley
Wealth Management. Helped found
global finance leader Legg Mason with
founder Raymond A. “Chip” Mason.
Served as president and CEO and
vice chairman of Legg Mason Wood Walker.
Civic and charitable activities:
Served as chair of the Greater
Baltimore Committee.
In 2001, led a record-breaking charity
campaign for the United Way of
Central Maryland as chair.
Family: Was married to
Dana Brinkley (deceased). Three children
and five grandchildren.
deal in which Legg Mason swapped its brokerage
unit for the asset management business of Citigroup, Smith Barney’s parent.
Brinkley retired in 2021 as a special adviser for
Morgan Stanley, which had acquired an interest in
Smith Barney.
Brinkley credits Legg Mason’s growth to its client-first culture and a focus on “hiring the best.”
One of them, Tom Hill, is now a managing director and financial adviser for Morgan Stanley in
Easton. Hill said mutual fund wholesalers often
remark that former Legg Mason financial advisers
are among the strongest they encounter in their
sales rounds.
Brinkley has built a reputation as a philanthropist through work with United Way and continues
to be a donor today.
As United Way of Central Maryland campaign
chair, he led a record-breaking annual campaign
in 2002, which raised $45 million, said Holly Hoey,
senior vice president and chief principal gifts officer at United Way.
“Fundraising is asking people to give money, but
he looks at it a different way — you’re giving people an opportunity to invest in a community,” Hoey
said.
Brinkley has been contributing to United Way
since his earliest days as a broker with the fledgling Mason & Co. at the urging of a local businessman who financially backed the venture.
At age 25, Brinkley left his first post-college job,
in cement sales, and joined Mason to start Mason
& Co. in Newport News, Virginia.
Mason had been working for his family’s investment business and already had experience and a
recognizable name. As just the second employee,
Brinkley recruited and trained brokers, while Mason courted investors.
In 1970, the firm merged with Baltimore’s Legg
& Co.
When asked what he was most proud of during
his career, Brinkley didn’t hesitate.
“There was never a day when I was working
that I wanted to be anywhere other than where I
was and doing what I was doing with the people
I was doing it with,” he said. “I never once wanted
to be anywhere else.”
— Lorraine Mirabella
