Brown grew up on Long Island where he worked on his grammar and high school papers. "I never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman," he says, "until I found out what they paid them. "

After graduating from Washington & Lee University and serving as a Navy PT-boat commander, Brown landed a job on the Richmond News-Leader. From Richmond, he came to Washington to handle public relations for a trade association and then to New York to work for Time, Inc. Within six months he returned to Washington to set up his own public relations business.

Washington after World War II was a good town for an ambitious young man, Brown recalls: "Unlike Richmond or Louisville or other towns where you had to have been there for generations, you could come into Washington and get to know people and do things in a short period of time." A Navy friend bought the Alexandria Waterworks Reservoir, turned it into Lake Barcroft Estates, and hired Brown to create ads for the properties. Garfinckel's, the Gray Line, Thompson's Dairy, and the Washington Post soon became EPB clients.

Brown turned the ad agency over to his son Jeb when he took on the presidency of Rosecroft Raceway and got involved in Maryland political campaigns. He is chairman of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts and remains active in other community groups. The EPB agency reflects his community spirit - it closes one day a year to allow employees to work for charities.

Although Earle Brown downplays his legacy to the advertising industry, his son says it can be seen all over town. There are at least a dozen agencies in Washington now, Jeb notes, started by people who used to work for Earle Palmer Brown.