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Warren Van Dyke "Pete" Musser (December 15, 1926 – November 25, 2019) was the chairman of the Musser Group. He was the founder of Safeguard Scientifics, a
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...
firm that invested in technology companies. At the peak of the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, Musser was a billionaire on paper; however, when the bubble burst, he lost almost his entire fortune. Musser was a philanthropist and The Musser Foundation has donated over $50 million to organizations including the
Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded ...
. Musser has served on the board of directors of the
Cradle of Liberty Council The Cradle of Liberty Council (#525) is a Boy Scouts of America council created in 1996 with the merger of the former Philadelphia Council (covering the city and county of Philadelphia) and the former Valley Forge Council (covering Delaware and ...
. The Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership from Fox School of Business and Management at
Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...
and the
Musser Scout Reservation Musser Scout Reservation is a Boy Scouts of America camp located along the Unami Creek on over of Marlborough Township, Pennsylvania. The Reservation is made up of three distinct camps: Camp Delmont, Camp Hart, and Camp Garrison. The reservatio ...
in
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Montgomery County is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the List of counties in Pennsylvania, third-most populous county in Pennsylvania and the List of the most populous cou ...
, are named after Musser.


Early life and education

Musser was born in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area on December 15, 1926 and earned a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
in Industrial Engineering at
Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...
in 1949.


Career

In 1952, at the age of 25, Musser went to work as a stockbroker trainee for Hornblower & Weeks. The next year, he left the company with others to form their own company. In 1955, his company acquired Safe-Guard Corporation and in 1966, Musser's firm changed its name to Safeguard Industries. Musser invested in technology companies in
Philicon Valley Philicon Valley is a neologism for Philadelphia's version of Silicon Valley. '' Forbes'' coined the term on November 17, 1999 to refer specifically to the suburbs of Valley Forge and Wayne, Pennsylvania, which was also referred to as "Silicon ...
such as
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, Comcast, and Novell, which resulted in a $200 million profit. In March 1996, when
Ken Fox Kenneth Allen Fox is an American entrepreneur and investor. Early life and education Fox grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he started his first business at the age of 15, later graduating from Pennsylvania State Univers ...
and Walter Buckley left Safeguard Scientifics to form Internet Capital Group (later
Actua Corporation Actua Corporation was a venture capital firm. During the dot com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of over $50 billion. The company was originally known as Internet Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Actua Corporation in Se ...
), they asked Musser for $5 million in funding, but he insisted on investing $15 million. At the height of the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, the company had a market capitalization of almost $60 billion, making Musser a paper billionaire. Musser was a director of TyCom, a subsidiary of
Tyco International Tyco International plc was a security systems company incorporated in the Republic of Ireland, with operational headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, United States (Tyco International (US) Inc.). Tyco International was composed of two major b ...
, and in December 2000, he borrowed $14.1 million from Tyco executives
Dennis Kozlowski Leo Dennis Kozlowski (born November 16, 1946) is a former CEO of Tyco International, convicted in 2005 of crimes related to his receipt of $81 million in unauthorized bonuses, the purchase of art for $14.725 million and the payment by Tyco of a $ ...
and Mark H. Swartz On November 29, 2000, after the burst of the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, to repay a loan, Musser was forced to sell 6.5 million of his shares in Safeguard Scientifics for $8.25 per share, or $53.7 million. The stock price was down over 90% from the peak of $99 per share 9 months earlier. This left him with 560,000 shares in the company. In 2003, Musser defaulted on a $26.5 million loan from Safeguard Scientifics. Musser was a member of the board of directors of
Brandywine Realty Trust Brandywine Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust that invests in office buildings in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Austin. As of December 31, 2019, the company owned interests in 173 properties containing 24.3 million net rentab ...
from 1996, when the company acquired properties from a joint venture of Safeguard Scientifics, until 2002.


Personal life

Musser married and divorced Betty K. Musser (née Umstad) and then Hilary Grinker Musser, who was 39 years younger than him. Musser's son, Craig, a renowned kaleidoscope artist under the name Van Dyke, was partnered with Bruce Darda, a New York based tech executive, at the time of his death from AIDS in 1986. Musser spent lavishly on his residences, building his-and-hers tennis courts on his Nantucket residence and spending $100,000 on special garage doors. Musser also was a contributor to
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
causes. He died on November 25, 2019.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Musser, Pete 1926 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American chief executives American financial businesspeople Businesspeople from Philadelphia Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Lehigh University alumni Pennsylvania Republicans People from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 20th-century American philanthropists