Edward Jordan ‘Ed’ Brody, trucking business owner who sat on boards of numerous Baltimore institutions, dies

Edward Jordan “Ed” Brody, who owned a truck leasing business and sat on the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners and other civic boards, died of renal failure Wednesday at his North Baltimore home. He was 89.

He was also a past chair of the board of Enoch Pratt Free Library, The Lyric Foundation, The Lyric Opera Baltimore and MedStar Union Memorial Hospital.

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, he was the son of Bernard Brody, owner of the glassmaker Boston Mirror Co., and Selma Copins, a teacher. A 1951 graduate of Brookline High School, he earned a degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He joined the Army and served in the 1st Infantry Division before attending Boston University’s School of Law.

Mr. Brody joined the Hertz Corp. and worked in the rental car and truck leasing division.

He met his future wife, Barbara Cottler, on a double date. They ate at the Milton Inn in Sparks Glencoe the next nightand were married four weeks later. They remained married for nearly 63 years.

In 1976, he left Hertz to form Brody Transportation in Southwest Baltimore and led the expansion of the business throughout the city and the state.

Mr. Brody joined numerous civic and nonprofit organizations, including the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners and the boards of The Lyric Opera Baltimore and The Lyric Foundation, the entity that maintains the Mount Royal Avenue performance venue.

“Ed was a terrific leader. On the school board, he was dynamic. Ed went to the schools, he met the principals, met the teachers and talked to the students. He was a hands-on guy. At The Lyric he knew every usher and every stagehand. He treated everyone as an equal,” Ernest Kovacs, a longtime friend, said.

“Ed approached everything in life in a very detailed way,” Mr. Kovacs said. “At the school board, he was negotiating labor contracts and into the financing of the whole operation. He set an example on how people should behave.”

He also served on the Maryland Board of Physicians.

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“I met Ed when he had an opportunity to buy a failing truck leasing company,” Cleaveland Miller, a friend and attorney, said. “He built that company up. He adopted Baltimore as part of his own legacy. He had a lot of energy and he did great things for the city. Ed was also a man of incredible integrity and if he said something, it was true.”

Mr. Brody, in a 1998 Sun article, said he learned the truck leasing business from the bottom up. “I never ask anybody to do anything I can’t and don’t do,” he said. “I can and will do anything here, from cleaning trucks right on up. I pay scrupulous attention to detail, down to ordering staples and paper clips.”

“I met Ed in 1997 in Gov. [Parris] Glendening’s office when we were both appointed to the school board,” former City Council member Carl Stokes said. “He would see an issue and Ed would come up with a plan. He was good at planning and executing. He would use his network to problem solve.”

Mr. Miller said Mr. Brody helped complete a long overdue refurbishment of the backstage of The Lyric.

“He was the man who got the hemp ropes and sandbags taken out for a modern backstage system,” Mr. Miller said.

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In 2011, The Baltimore Sun reported that Mr. Brody, as chair of The Lyric Foundation’s board, announced from the stage, “Welcome to the return of grand opera to Baltimore.” The city’s previous opera venue, the Baltimore Opera Company, went into liquidation in 2009.

“Ed was a strong, generous man,” Dr. Allan Jensen, former board chair the Baltimore Opera Company, said. “He was capable of gathering people together for a common goal.”

James Harp, artistic director of Maryland Opera, said: “He had an epic vision for Baltimore and especially for the arts and opera. It was clear to me that at his heart he had a tremendous love and concern for others. He had a generous, visionary and magnificent spirit.”

Mr. Brody was a past trustee of the SEED School of Maryland in Southwest Baltimore and the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation.

An opera buff, he played tennis, squash and cards.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara Brody, a Baltimore City Schools social worker; three sons, Ned Brody of Washington D.C., Sam Brody and Steve Brody, both of Baltimore; a sister, Sue Greenberg of Brookline; and seven grandchildren.

Services are private.