This column appears in the November issue of The Business Monthly serving Howard and Anne Arundel counties.

Randy Marriner is a serial entrepreneur. After he made his initial nest egg in marketing with his Columbia firm 20 years ago, he took up real estate development, then restaurants and then the Manor Hill Farm brewery. Now in what might be the final and largest enterprise of his career, he’s helping grow a national live events production agency with big corporate clients that grossed $17 million last year.

While he was building those Howard County businesses, he had a demanding sideline as a serial gubernatorial appointee overseeing what has become the second largest source of state revenue: gaming.

On Oct. 29, Marriner, 75, is set to be honored by Leadership Howard County, the group that prepares and sustains leaders from the community, as “a steadfast champion of community stewardship and involvement.”

“In the business community, Randy earned respect not only through success but through perseverance,” says Tim Payne, president and CEO of Leadership Howard County. “He weathered challenges with grit and grace, always finding ways to help others along the way. He is proof that true success comes from resilience, generosity and service.

“From decades of commitments in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to his broad civic engagement in Howard County and beyond, Randy showed us what it means to lead with heart. He built community one relationship at a time, telling stories, lifting spirits, and inspiring us to invest in one another.”

Story telling

Randy Marriner. Photo from Manor Hill Productions

Randy can talk your ear off, as he did for two-and-a-half hours in early October at his elegant home at the top of Manor Hill Farm on Manor Lane off Route 108 across from Columbia. He was still recovering from a 17-day hospital stay after quadruple bypass surgery. There had also been complications from medicine he had been taking after a Jan. 23 accident at Penn Station in New York.

An abrupt escalator stop threw him backward, which led to 14 staples in his head in a pattern that “looks like the floor of the escalator,” he says.

Randy does not let setbacks deter him. That evening, he and his wife Mary, his longtime business partner, made it to the second act of the Broadway show they had tickets for. It was later discovered that the escalator fall also led to a fractured left femur, which necessitated a total hip replacement, and a crushed lung.

Randy forebearers include some of the oldest families in Howard County and Maryland – Warfields, Gaithers, Dorseys, Ridgelys. But his entrepreneurial spirit and his political activity comes from his family’s highway construction business once based in Jessup, founded by his grandfather where Randy had his first job.

“That sort of led to my political engagement because we worked in public construction which required state contracting and state funding,” says Randy. His father was “a Blue Dog Democrat,” a conservative Democrat back in the day when there was such a thing. “People in that sort of business tended to be heavily involved in politics. They would go to the fundraisers and all that. And that’s the environment I grew up with … What it provided was access. And I learned early on that if you had a problem, and if you could get access to the people [who made decisions], by and large they want to help you.”

Randy is a registered Republican and describes himself as a “centrist.”

“We believe in markets and capitalism, and we believe in making money, but we believe in doing it honestly.” The need for access to the people in power has made Randy a bipartisan, equal opportunity donor, according to state campaign finance records. Over the past 20 years, Randy, his wife Mary and his businesses have given over $120,000 to the campaigns of dozens of elected officials.

Bipartisan donor

Records show many tickets to political fundraising events but also sizable donations to both Democrats and Republicans. Randy has been contributing to the campaigns of Democrat Guy Guzzone, now the powerful chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, since he was on the County Council 25 years ago. He’s given to both Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, a Democrat, and former Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman, a Republican. When Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, a Democrat whom Randy describes as “a personal friend,” was running for lieutenant governor in 2014, Randy gave a large donation, which led some Republicans to consider Randy “a traitor” to the GOP. But in 2017 he gave the maximum to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who had defeated the Anthony Brown-Ken Ulman ticket and whom Randy had known from his work in real estate development. In 2023, he and Mary each gave the maximum allowed donation of $6,000 to Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat.

Republicans, Democrats, lawmakers and executives, Randy has given to all.

Before and after these campaign contributions, lawmakers and executives had helped him with tweaks of legislation and zoning that have helped him build and operate businesses like Victoria’s Gastro Pub and Manor Hill Farm brewery.

“If you want to be at the table, you need to buy a table,” says Randy. “If I give to you, that gives me the opportunity to say ‘Hi, you got a minute?’ And you better be able to make your case in a minute because there are lots of other people who want to make their case.”

Family and dyslexia

Most all of these ventures – marketing, three restaurants, the brewery, the events producer – have involved his wife Mary, who also designed and managed the construction of the two homes they built, and their two daughters, Victoria and Rachael.

Rachael (Marriner) Mull and her husband Corey Mull now run Manor Hill Productions, which puts on major live events for corporations to “amplify their brands” to target audiences. Their major clients include 7-Eleven, the $80-billion global convenience store chain, and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), a $25-billion Silicon Valley computer hardware company. Randy’s now devoting “100% focus” on growing that business, he says. He and Mary still have financial stakes in the other businesses they’ve founded.

What has been the driver of Randy’s serial entrepreneurship? “I think being dyslexic has been the driver because I look at things differently. I can remember even in the highway business looking at things and thinking, ‘Well, how do we monetize that? If we did this how can we grow?’ ”

“There’s probably some ADHD too, so I like building,” says Randy, who was not diagnosed till later in life. In first grade, they put him “with the dumb kids. So school was not really my friend, but I had to figure it out, and I just took a different path.

“There’s a high degree of highly successful dyslexics. You look at things differently and your disability gives you an ability unlike the standard.”

He has also followed his dad’s advice who taught him: “If you want to be successful, hang around with people that are smarter than you and bring them in as part of your thing and reward their performance.”

The post E. Randolph Marriner: Serial Entrepreneur And Long-Time Gaming Commissioner To Be Honored Wednesday appeared first on citybiz.

This contant was orignally distributed by citybiz. Blockchain Registration, Verification & Enhancement provided by NewsRamp™. The source URL for this press release is E. Randolph Marriner: Serial Entrepreneur And Long-Time Gaming Commissioner To Be Honored Wednesday.