154 SIDELINES APRIL 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
TDRs as an offset to the downset,” Mike said. “That program is
still in place today. I don’t know of another place in this country
that does it. The dedicated staff at the Montgomery County De-
partment of Economic Development has been visited by people
from as far away as Korea to discuss the Rural Density Transfer
zone and help them figure out a way to save their own farmland.”
For nearly 15 years Mike has continued to work with the coun-
ty, the state and various committees and organizations. He has
served on the Montgomery County Agricultural Advisory Board.
In 2010, he was honored for his work in land preservation as one
of “40 Environmentalists Who Made A Difference in 40 Years” by
the Montgomery County Council.
Mike is very active with local historic preservation boards, re-
pairing and maintaining historic structures on his properties in
Montgomery County. He also owns several properties in Aiken,
South Carolina, including the Stable On The Woods, situated
within the renowned Hitchcock Woods. He received an award for
the renovation of this treasured property.
Land conservation is simply the first step. “I listened some
years ago to an interview with Ted Turner, one of the largest
landowners in the country,” Mike said. “Ted put it simply: ‘If you
want to save the environment, you have to buy it.’ Montgomery
County’s leaders created ways to use cash money and private
public partnerships to help them buy the environment, but we are
constantly under pressure to protect the land from development
interests.”
The need to protect rural land prompted Mike to help start
two 501(c)(3)s in Maryland which he has chaired in the past:
the Montgomery Countryside Alliance for land preservation and
Equestrian Partners in Conservation (EPIC) for equestrian pres-
ervation. Both organizations have enthusiastic members from all
walks of life, because having a voice does not depend on income
or background.
“We constantly check proposed legislation at the county and
state levels to see what’s coming down the pike,” said Mike. “The
development interests are like termites – constantly gnawing at
the floorboards and the supports, looking for ways to move sewer
closer, to move water closer, to change the Reserve’s protec-
tions around the edges. They lobby the county council members,
the state people. We are allied with numerous other groups and
clubs and we have forged a very powerful lobbying entity that
fights these guys at every turn. It goes so far beyond buying the
farms. You have to protect the land, the air and the water. It’s a
constant fight.”
An astute businessman with diverse interests, Mike is the
founder, president and CEO of Capitol Investment Corporation
with properties across the United States and France. “I’m first
generation American. My parents came from Russia and Po-
land,” Mike said. “I was raised in the heart of D.C. We lived over
top of our store, typical of immigrants in those days. I ended up
in suburbia before I went into the army and after that I went back
to college under the GI Bill, graduated, and then worked in Ger-
many for a construction company. I returned to the U.S. in 1972
and was offered a job with the U.S. government as a disabled
vet, but ended up working for a developer who had hired me as a
construction worker when I was a teenager. We became partners
Spectacular view of two farms that straddle a rural road near Boyds, Maryland in Montgomery County.
Photo by Traci Donatelli
Photos of vistas like this, taken last fall during an EPIC trail ride, would be impossible in Montgomery County, Maryland without land
and equestrian preservation.
Photo by Traci Donatelli
