Almost by accident – or perhaps the reward of a divine providence for a lot of hard work and an enormous amount of patience – the firm became involved in two large growth markets in the early 1950s: mutual funds and pension plans. They were to become the major driving forces of its business in the future.

The timing was perfect. The Growth Stock Fund's stellar performance was the best advertising the company could have. Certainly Mr. Price had known about the mutual fund business, and had suggested it fifteen years before at Mackubin, Legg. But even he could not have imagined the powerful political and economic forces that would propel these two industries over the next fifty years, with his firm on the crest of the wave.

To be properly executed at that time, a business like T. Rowe Price and Associates was a high‐overhead operation. A research department had to be in place, with at least five or six analysts to actively cover some two hundred corporations. A strong administrative staff was required to run the back office, keep up with government paperwork, perform the accounting, and keep track of client and fund portfolios. A well‐trained and experienced assistant counselor staff was needed to provide strong support to the counselor teams in dealing with clients. Several senior counselors had to be in place to make investment decisions and directly interact with important clients.

The research department provided the basic product of dynamic, well‐managed growth companies, and then tracked them closely, making appropriate buy and sell suggestions. The counselors adjusted these suggested investments to appropriately match the portfolio needs and requirements of individual clients, adding or subtracting positions from their portfolios as needed. With the costs of building this necessary overhead, profits had been minimal. This was about to change.

There were no individual “stars,” such as those who still exist at many other similar financial institutions. Everyone worked together as part of the team. Similarly, there were no major differences in compensation among different categories of employees, although exemplary performance did bring a somewhat higher bonus and an increased opportunity to buy shares of company stock over time. Seniority was rewarded with an increased salary, as analysts and counselors became more valuable through experience and as the size of the portfolios they oversaw increased. Different job categories, of course, carried different remuneration. All members of the staff were encouraged and were given the opportunity to move upward, depending on interest and ability. Counselors were generally paid better than research analysts or administrators because, as Walter always pointed out to the prospective new analyst, “salesmen are generally the highest‐compensated employees in any company.”

Prior to 1950, remembering the destruction of retirement funds in the Depression, many corporations bought annuities from insurance companies for their workers' pensions. This was conservative and safe because the ultimate payout to employees was guaranteed by the insurance company. A smaller number of pension plans turned their money over to banks or trusts to invest in government and high‐quality corporate bonds for safety and large high‐dividend‐paying corporations. The big banks and trusts had a virtual monopoly on this market.

In 1950, these pension plans managed by the banks and trusts totaled $6.5 billion in assets at book value, or an estimated $8.1 billion at market. In those days, it was considered unwise to count on unrealized capital gains, as these could vanish quickly. Accountants preferred to use book value, or cost, instead of market value.

Very few companies invested their pension plans in common stock in 1950. That year, however, General Motors' president, Charles E. Wilson, spearheaded an abrupt change in these practices. He proposed that pension plans invest a significant percentage of their assets in common stocks. Based on the excellent long‐term return of common stocks in the ebullient postwar economy, he felt that companies could adequately fund these plans with less money, and employees could be granted better retirement benefits. Wilson's idea was that the General Motors fund would invest in the broader American economy. This concept was revolutionary at the time, and was only slowly adopted, first by corporate pension plans and, much later, by public employee plans.

According to Peter Drucker, a prominent management consultant and author of The Pension Fund Revolution, this new policy turned out very well for the workers overall, but it initially created a gap between the older and the younger workers. The former, who would receive their payoff in the near future, wanted their funds left in more secure investments, such as bonds or annuities, which would not fluctuate very much. Younger workers were willing to bet on the appreciation of stocks to create a greater retirement benefit in the more distant future. Fortunately, both the economy and the stock market grew for more than twenty years without a serious downturn, so both groups did well in stocks in the end.

To the dismay of labor union executives, this program did make workers less militant, according to Drucker, “by making visible the worker's stake in the company profits and the fact that the company's success in the stock market enhanced their retirement benefits.” As the stock market rose in the long bull market, more corporations began to follow the example of General Motors, cutting back on insured plans and establishing pension plans with a higher percentage invested in stocks. The pension business quickly became a fertile field for financial advisors such as T. Rowe Price Associates. Over the next ten years pension assets rose more than five times to $33 billion.

By 1980, three years before Mr. Price's death, the reserve value of pension assets was more than half a trillion dollars and equities were more than one‐half the assets. Total pension assets had grown an amazing 15 percent compounded since he led the company into the market with its first corporate pension plan.

Thomas L. Perkins, a well‐connected corporate attorney in New York and chairman of the trustees of the Duke Endowment, board chairman of the Duke Power Company, and a director and member of the executive committee of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company and J. P. Morgan & Co., Inc., heard about Mr. Price and became impressed by his investment record. As a director and a member of its finance committee, Perkins introduced Mr. Price to American Cyanamid, a large producer of chemicals, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Cyanamid had begun to look for new investment management for their pension fund, which was totally insured at that time. Following General Motors' lead, the board had made the decision to move substantially into equities. The company hired T. Rowe Price and Associates in October 1951 as its sole manager, and became the firm's first major corporate pension fund account.

By year‐end, the Cyanamid fund totaled $22.6 million, with 1.5 percent already invested in equities. Mr. Price took full advantage of what he believed to be a reasonably priced equity market to continue to significantly build up stocks. The portfolio totaled $40 million by the end of December 1954, with the growth based on both appreciation and cash contributions. It had taken the firm fifteen years to build assets under management to $40 million, managing only individual accounts, and only five years later they had quadrupled that amount.

Perkins's father, Judge William R. Perkins, had been James Buchanan Duke's attorney and the executor of his will. Duke had accumulated one of the largest fortunes in the United States, largely from tobacco and hydroelectric power. Upon Duke's death, Judge Perkins became the trustee for the estate. His son, the attorney Thomas Perkins, inherited this position, which included being chairman of the board of trustees of the Duke Endowment and the Duke University Endowment, as well as chairman of the board of Duke Power. Both of these latter accounts would come to the firm in the early 1960s, following the excellent performance of the Cyanamid pension fund. Soon thereafter, Doris Duke, Duke's only child and, at that time, reportedly the richest woman in the world, would also become a client. The timely arrival of these major accounts, when both the stock market was rising and growth stocks were outperforming the market, provided a major springboard for the firm to expand outside of Baltimore.

The idea to create the Growth Stock Fund, which propelled T. Rowe Price and Associates into the business of managing mutual funds, might have occurred something like the following fictional account. The author and Bob Hall visited both Peerce's Restaurant and Mr. Price's farm and sat by his creek on a fall day similar to the one described below:

On a beautiful late October day in 1949 Charlie walked over to Marie Walper, sitting guard outside of Mr. Price's office.

“Is he in?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “He got in around six this morning. He's trying to write a new investment bulletin for clients.”

Charlie tapped lightly on the large oak door. “Come on in,” a voice replied from inside. Charlie opened the door and peeked into the dimly lit office. “Hey, Rowe [as an old friend and senior associate, Charlie was able to use the familiar term]. It's Wednesday,” he said. “How about attacking a few fence posts up at the farm?”

“Sounds good,” Mr. Price said. “Probably just what I need, to get some of the old brain cells circulating” They were soon in Mr. Price's new light blue Buick (his old one had fallen apart at the end of the war), driving north on Charles Street toward Baltimore County. “Should we stop at Peerce's for some supplies?” Price asked.

An hour or so later, after leaving the city's crowded streets and traveling through the late fall vistas of Baltimore County, they pulled into the gravel driveway of Peerce's restaurant. Mr. Price settled into one of the outdoor chairs at a table overlooking the Loch Raven Reservoir. The leaves had already begun to turn red and yellow, filtering the view across the water, and there was a pleasant freshness to the air as the sun warmed the dew still on the grass. Charlie bustled back from Peerce's interior with two large, rare roast beef sandwiches, with mustard, freshly picked tomatoes, and lettuce on rye.

Charlie suggested, “We have to remember to pay our bill to Mr. Lake [the owner], Rowe. It's awfully nice of him to give us the run of the kitchen. I got a twenty‐dollar check cashed in our lobby, so we're loaded.”

“It is nice to have the money to pay him,” said Mr. Price. “Remember that time that Walter didn't have the money for his lunch? We had to pool all of our cash to pay for it, and we just barely made the $3.00 bill?”

“Charlie,” Rowe continued, more seriously, “I can't tell you how pleased I was to make money last year, while paying everybody full compensation. Now I know that we are okay and that we can make it all the way.”

After Peerce's, they headed further into the county, where the roads got narrower and the potholes more numerous. Road crews had not filled in all of the holes created during the long war. Mr. Price groaned as his new car bounced through some of the worst of the holes. They turned off Carroll Manor Road into a little clearing and walked down the path into the woods. They could smell the old leaves and the wet earth. They soon came upon a weather‐beaten old shed where Charlie extracted a well‐oiled two‐man saw

Somewhat reluctantly, Mr. Price picked up a handle of the saw. “Rowe,” said Charlie, “I know you are the genius in the financial world, but don't forget that I'm an old farm boy. I know it might be tough for you, but please try to follow my lead this time on the saw.”

“All right,” said Mr. Price with a grin. “I will give you a little time in the driver's seat.”

Soon, they had seven new locust fence posts sawed and stacked near the shed. They settled on two stumps that had been cut expressly to fit their respective backsides. Mr. Price asked, “What do you think of Walter's idea about starting an investment unit trust fund to handle our clients' kids?”

Charlie replied, “I know that before Walter brings up a project, he has well researched it from top to bottom, but it sounds a little complicated with the government looking over our shoulder, and it's a little out of our skill set.”

“You're right, Charlie,” said Mr. Price. “It would be a bit of a different business, with all of the new rules and regulations from the SEC, but we really have to do something. Since the Uniform Gifts to Minors Act, I am getting pressure from the clients to handle their kid's money. Jeff Miller just called me this morning about managing the $500 he gave his son last Christmas for his college fund. We would lose money on each one of those small accounts if we handled them the normal way. We really have to put something in place. Besides, I don't know if you remember, but I suggested setting up a fund at Legg years ago. Of course, old man Legg and the other partners shot me down.”

“I do remember, Rowe,” said Charlie. “Maybe we should give Walter the go‐ahead. We can always change our mind if he turns up something negative.”

“Done,” said Mr. Price.

And so, the new T. Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund was born. Walter quickly began to work on the complicated forms. He filled out all of the paperwork and dealt directly with the SEC himself. Mr. Price would quickly grow irritated at the bureaucratic tangles, but Walter steamrolled through all the issues in his methodical manner, making sure every detail was in place before he went to the next one, determined to save the firm the exorbitant legal fees normally charged in setting up a mutual fund that they couldn't afford. He personally studied all of the legal rules and regulations. The total startup cost to launch the Growth Stock Fund was only $6,000.

The fund was launched and its first board meeting was held on April 13, 1950, according to the “lost” journal. All members of the board had to own shares for the public prospectus. By the end of the next day – after soliciting all the clients for which such an investment would have been appropriate – the fund had 21 subscribers. With his small legal budget, Walter had, unfortunately, missed the rule that only 25 people can be solicited at the inception of a fund. The firm had solicited more than the limit. Fortunately, Walter and Mr. Price had paid the normal courtesy call on the chairman of the SEC when they were first registering the fund. The meeting had seemed to go well, and they were able to arrange another. After he had heard all the circumstances, the chairman allowed the fund to be registered on schedule.

From its inception, the Growth Stock Fund was managed by an investment committee: Mr. Price was the first chairman; Charlie, Walter, and John Ramsay were the other three original members. Typically, the committee met Friday afternoons, often over lunch in a private room at the downtown Merchants Club. At this meeting, companies were discussed and decisions made to buy or sell. These orders were collected, usually on a yellow tablet, by a committee member or, later, by Austin George, the firm's head trader. The orders were placed with several local brokerage firms that afternoon. It was rare for the committee to vary this pattern or to meet more than once a week.

The Growth Stock Theory of Investing is long term by nature. Well‐selected growth companies have a long growth cycle. They have resided in Mr. Price's model portfolios for more than thirty years, as Merck, 3M, IBM, and Abbott Laboratories did in the Growth Stock Fund. There was no need to continually monitor the stocks in the portfolio, trying to outguess the stock market by trading them. When a particular stock weakened below what the committee felt to be its fair value, buy orders were placed at specific prices. Similarly, when a stock rose substantially above its value (see Chapter 9 for a discussion of how this is determined), sales were made at preset levels. The Growth Stock Fund then consistently maintained a low turnover rate (the dollar value of the stocks in a portfolio that are either bought or sold within a calendar year, divided by the average portfolio value during the year). Many mutual funds have turnover rates exceeding 100 percent. This means that within a one‐year period or less, the entire portfolio of the fund is either bought or sold and replaced by new companies! To be successful, the manager of such a fund has to be right in his timing of both buying and selling of individual stocks, as well as guessing the direction of the stock market. This kind of market timing is extremely difficult to consistently do well in a competitive world.

Mr. Price claimed to have given up any attempt at guessing the direction of the stock market when, as a young man, he lost a great deal of money on his investments early in the Depression. He said that he had never known anyone who could successfully trade stocks over an extended time, although many schemes have been tried over the years. Rapid trading also tends to generate high transaction costs, as well as short‐ and long‐term taxable gains, which do not show up when measuring fund performance, but can significantly impact a client's financial assets. Although he always counseled against guessing short‐term swings in the market, Mr. Price would very occasionally violate his own rule in managing his own account. As he wrote in his journal, the results of such short‐term trading only proved the wisdom of his own advice.

The mutual fund industry, like corporate pension funds, also represented a fertile field and, long‐term, a very large business opportunity. According to the annual Investment Company Fact books, over the twenty years between the introduction of the Growth Stock Fund in 1950 and 1970, the year before Mr. Price would officially retire from the firm, the total mutual fund industry would grow nearly twenty times from just $2.5 billion to $47.5 billion. In 1983, the year he died, equity mutual funds would total $293 billion for a compound growth rate of 16 percent between 1950 and 1983, a slightly higher rate than the pension business.

Fixed income funds would grow to an amazing $216 billion, far outpacing the growth of equity funds and the overall mutual fund market from 1970 to 1983 and confirming Mr. Price's suggestion to Charlie to establish a fixed income department. By then, as indicated in the 1986 prospectus, the firm would be well represented in fixed income mutual funds, as well as equity.

At the outset, T. Rowe Price charged no sales fees because the Growth Stock Fund was conceived as a service for existing clients. The firm employed no mutual fund salesmen. For this reason, the T. Rowe Price funds were called no‐load funds. Sales charges for so‐called load mutual funds, which do employ salesmen, could be more than 5 percent. This amount was usually taken out upfront, significantly reducing the amount of the actual investment by the client in the fund.

Both pension and mutual funds grow from appreciation of the portfolio and cash flow. Cash flow occurs in a mutual fund because of new sales from new and existing clients and the dividends and capital gains paid to the shareholder, which are usually automatically reinvested. Today, mutual funds are also an important part of the myriad of individual retirement plans for individuals. Individual retirement accounts are replacing large pension funds as the primary retirement vehicle for corporate employees

Pension funds are either defined benefit or defined contribution. In a defined benefit plan, the benefits to be received at retirement are defined at the outset. The company or government entity invests an amount of capital that it calculates will be adequate to meet these obligations, assuming that the assets in the pension plan appreciate at a predetermined rate. Unfortunately, in many cases today this rate is considerably higher than what has actually been realized by the fund over the past decade. Many plans, particularly at the state and local level, are underwater and are unlikely to have the assets to meet their obligations. If the pension does not achieve its projected return and can't pay its obligation, the plan becomes insolvent, and so can the entity guaranteeing it, as the city of Detroit discovered in July of 2013. If a private pension plan and the corporation guaranteeing it go into bankruptcy, it becomes the responsibility of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, a federal agency providing specific employee benefits, which are usually lower than those written into most pension plans.

Because of the risk of not hitting investment goals, and the large resulting financial obligations, most corporations have moved to defined contribution plans, in which the corporation or government body contributes a “defined” dollar sum each year and employees usually also contribute. There is no obligation to pay out any specific sum at retirement. This is called the “democratization” of pension plans, wherein the employees take on the actual responsibility of providing for their own retirement, with some help from their employer. In such pension plans, the employee is usually offered the option of investing in several mutual funds. Accounting for thousands of individual employee accounts, each with different objectives and investments, became a major issue. Only the larger fund management companies, with expensive, sophisticated technology, are able to supply all these services in‐house. Some local governments are beginning to follow the trend to democratization, but lag far behind private funds. The traditional IRA was established in 1974 and the 401(k) was established by the Revenue Act of 1978. The resulting shift to individual employee retirement accounts (IRAs) has been a major driving force behind mutual fund sales in recent years. The firm's sudden bonanza after 1950 from the growth of mutual funds and pension funds was not part of Mr. Price's initial plans for the firm, and in some ways he did not welcome the accelerated growth. It is very difficult to maintain quality of service and stock market performance when new accounts begin to grow exponentially and the money floods in.

Again, Mr. Price took the longer‐term view. He wrote the following on September 2, 1951, in a bulletin to everyone in the firm:

“Our objective is a medium‐sized investment counsel firm with a reputation for the highest character and the soundest investment philosophy. Quality not quantity is our goal in the selection of both the associates and clients. Profitable operations are essential if the firm is to survive and grow, but profits must follow a job well‐done, the results of the goodwill of the investing public.”

It is hard not to admire such goals, and all those who knew Mr. Price understood that these words were from his heart.

Walter Kidd said that Mr. Price thought like a college professor: “To be successful, he believed he must publish or perish.” Such a belief goes back to the beginning of the firm, when Mr. Price began to communicate regularly with his clients through carefully written investment bulletins, a practice he would maintain until right before his death. It was common knowledge in the firm that Mr. Price wanted to be recognized beyond Baltimore. He wanted to be on the national stage. The series of articles that Barron's invited him to do as a follow up to his 1930s articles on growth stocks fit right into these plans. The first article, “Picking Growth Stocks for the 1950s,” appeared February 6, 1950. He again outlined his definition of a growth company – with no changes, despite the tumultuous intervening eleven years. He reviewed the lists of the growth companies that he had published in 1939. Of the forty‐three “premier” growth companies, only one had failed to attain a new high in earnings in the postwar recovery and, among a second list of twenty‐four less‐proven growth stocks, three had failed to achieve this goal. Only 6 percent of the 1939 companies in his model “growth” portfolio had failed to measure up as growth companies over the intervening time period. Earnings for this list had grown 365 percent, versus only 129 percent for the companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This was considerably better than his promise to clients in 1939 that he expected to be right 75 percent of the time. In this postwar article, he stated that he anticipated that his batting average would come closer to his prior 75‐percent goal in the next decade. As usual, Mr. Price believed in under‐ rather than overpromising performance.

His emphasis going forward would not change greatly from 1939, he said, although there would be some subtle shifts. He would emphasize international business more in his selection of U.S. stocks, as American business became much more global. As socialism and the welfare state, put in place in the 1930s, continued to grow, he anticipated that the dollar would continue to decrease in its buying power and inflation would be a force to be reckoned with. He therefore chose growth companies that would have the power to increase prices. Research and development had made tremendous strides during the war, and would also be more emphasized in his stock selection in the postwar period.

In his next Barron's article, February 20, 1950, with the same title, he made the first revision of his original definition of a growth stock. Due to his increasing concern about inflation, he changed the rate of growth of earnings of a growth stock, saying that it must not only “reach a new high in earnings from one business cycle to the next,” but it must also demonstrate a growth in earnings “faster than the rise in the cost of living.”

At the end of 1951 Mr. Price was in a good mood. He wrote in his journal on December 31:

This has been the most successful year in my business career from every angle. Including dividends, it looks like my pretax income exceeded $23,000, nearly double what I made in 1949. I am taking a bold step in expanding our office facilities by moving Charlie and his team to the 27^th floor, increasing the number of associates, and I hope to give salary increases next year in excess of what has been done in the past, so that our older associates' compensation will not be so close to what we have to pay for a new person.

The early 1950s, however, would prove more difficult for the firm than he expected. The excess profits tax was passed again during the Korean War and, once more, had an impact on growth stock reported earnings, as it had in World War I and II. Moreover, stocks generally did not rise with the good business conditions and increasing earnings, but tended to lag, due to the Korean War. As their annual reports revealed, and would prove to be true when Mr. Price introduced each of his first three new equity funds, the new funds he launched during his career all initially lagged behind the market, as outlined in their annual reports. In frustration, he reportedly wrote in his journal, and told some of the members of the advisory committee, “If the fund ever reached $10 million [in assets], I would close it.” By this, Mr. Price meant that he would turn the Growth Stock Fund into a closed end fund – closed to new shareholders. As such, it would be organized as a publicly traded investment company under SEC jurisdiction. It would continue to be managed by the firm, and it would be listed and traded on a stock exchange. Mr. Price, however, would give up his dream of building a major mutual fund featuring Growth Stocks. Fortunately, the market turned upward and his threat was never acted upon.

The acquisition of the pension account of American Cyanamid as a client created the need to hire a senior counselor. Kirk Miller joined in 1952 to fill this role. Kirk was the last so‐called “senior” to be hired, although he was only thirty‐four. Born in Baltimore, he graduated from MIT in 1941. He was an officer in the Navy during World War II, supervising shipbuilding. In 1950, he was awarded a degree from the Harvard Business School.

Each of the senior members of the firm was identified with a company that became a premier growth stock for many years and an important profit contributor for the firm's clients. For Mr. Price, DuPont and Merck were such companies. Charlie became a proponent of IBM in the late 1940s, after a one‐hour appointment with the president and CEO, Thomas Watson, turned into a full‐day visit and a long‐term personal relationship. Walter Kidd fell in love with 3M in the late 1930s, after a chance visit with William L. McKnight, the president. Walter said it was the only company that he recommended before returning to Baltimore.

For Kirk, it was Avon Products, which he learned about from a client who had been an officer of the Baltimore Press, which had just merged with International Paper. The client mentioned to Kirk that Avon was rapidly increasing their use of paper cartons and “he should take a look.” After doing a bit of an analysis, with Walter looking over his shoulder, Kirk bought it for client accounts in 1955, not long after he was hired. In the December 31, 1960, report of the Growth Stock Fund, Avon was carried at a value of $1.2 million and a cost of only $118,000. It continued strongly upward, rising ten times over the next twelve years.

Kirk's primary job was working with Mr. Price on American Cyanamid, the Duke accounts, and as a counselor on a few smaller accounts. He was a good counterpoint for Mr. Price. In addition to being bright, unassuming, and a very good tennis player (still Mr. Price's favorite game) he, most importantly, brought an intense interest in the newer, exciting areas of investment. Like Charlie Shaeffer, he never competed with Mr. Price, but supplemented him.

The History of T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., indicates that by the end of 1954, assets under management at the firm were $152 million, of which $4 million was in the Growth Stock Fund. It was in 1955 that the firm delivered Mr. Price's original goals. According to “The T. Rowe Price Story,” written in December 1974, the professional staff numbered 28, there were 399 accounts, and the firm was generating $310,000 in annual fees. The market was moving up strongly, and growth stocks, including the Growth Stock Fund, were once again leading the way. The firm was beginning to get a national reputation for performance, with Mr. Price's articles in Barron's and the quotes of the Growth Stock Fund's net asset value per share printed daily in papers around the country, broadcasting its strong performance.

In 1956, the firm began to hire the next generation of management, bringing in Donald E. Bowman as a counselor. An economist and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Don had also served a term of active duty with the Navy and had continued to serve as a naval reserve officer on weekends. He took his service as a naval officer seriously, tended to be more formal in his relations within the firm, and did not socialize easily. He worked very well with Charlie, however, and would eventually become the firm's third president, following Mr. Price and Charlie, and serving for four years.

The most significant new hire at that time was John Hannon in 1958. John came from Cedartown, a small community in Georgia, had graduated magna cum laude from Washington and Lee University, but did not go to business school. More of an artist than an analyst, he operated on an intuitive basis, rather than analyzing numbers. He was fascinated by smaller, rapidly growing companies that were changing the way things were done with new products and new technology. In the process, such companies were growing very quickly. He fell in love with two of them – the Haloid Photographic Company (which became Haloid Xerox in 1958, then Xerox Corporation in 1961) and Polaroid Corporation, whose film technology was just coming of age. By December 31, 1960, the Growth Stock Fund had more than $3 million invested in Haloid Xerox, which had quadrupled over cost. Happy clients made millions more. Polaroid quickly came thereafter, with much the same results. John was also a good writer. As the firm began to get larger, the written reports of analysts became more important than oral communications.

According to “The History of T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.,” in 1965 T. Rowe Price and Associates' total assets under management crossed the $1 billion mark. That year, the Growth Stock Fund stood at $197 million in assets, and total revenues were $1.9 million, according to the “Report to the Advisory Committee of the Growth Stock Fund,” August 5, 1966. In 1966 the total staff numbered eighty‐nine employees, based on the Employee Directory.

People around the country and the world now listened to – and followed – the “sage of Baltimore,” as Mr. Price was described by Forbes in 1977.