Calman J Zamoiski

Calman J. “Buddy” Zamoiski Jr., former CEO of Independent Distributors Inc., a family-owned business, whose far-ranging philanthropic interests included medicine, education and the arts, died Wednesday February 10 2021 in his sleep at his home in Easton. The former longtime Harbor Court resident was 93. Calman Jacob Zamoiski Jr., son of Calman J. Zamoiski Sr., and his wife, Gertrude Goldstrom “Gigi” Zamoiski, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and was raised first in Reservoir Hill and later moved with his family to Northwest Baltimore’s Fordleigh neighborhood. After graduating in 1946 from McDonogh School, he attended the University of Maryland, College Park for a year, before joining the family business, Independent Distributors Inc., established as an electrical supply business by his immigrant grandfather, Joseph M. Zamoiski, and known as the Joseph M. Zamoiski Co. After World War I, Mr. Zamoiski’s father returned to Baltimore, established a radio station, WKC, in 1921 that eventually became WCBM and took over his father’s company. In the 1930s, the company began selling appliances, gas ranges, kitchen cabinets and housewares, which eventually came to include television sets and air conditioners. After his father died in 1972, Mr. Zamoiski took over operation of the Zamoiski Co., which he operated until turning it over in 1994 to his son, James L. Zamoiski, who oversaw the business until his early death in 1997 from a heart attack. Mr. Zamoiski was chair of the business until retiring in 2008. He chaired the BSO board from 1986 to 1990 and again from 1997 to 2003. He was head of the BSO search committee in 1999 that brought Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov to Baltimore in 2000 as the symphony’s music director. He was deeply involved in the process that made the orchestra’s 2000-seat Strathmore Music Center in North Bethesda a reality. His board memberships also included the Baltimore Museum of Art, Sinai Hospital, Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore, Friends School and the Baltimore Community Foundation. He was a director of Mercantile Bankshares and Mercantile Safe Deposit & Trust Co. and a trustee of the Central Scholarship Bureau. Governor O’Malley appointed him to the Maryland Airport Commission. Mr. Zamoiski was also active in Democratic politics.