Pete Musser

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Warren V. "Pete" Musser, born in 1928, is the past Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., which he founded in 1953.

He earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering at Lehigh University.

He is currently Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, of Epitome Systems; and the Managing Director of the Musser Group, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, a financial consulting company. He helped the formation and success of many Fortune 500 companies, including QVC, Comcast, Novell, Inc. among others.

He faced financial ruin in 2001 as he resigned as CEO from Safeguard Scientifics, after "Safeguard disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that a business run by Musser's wife was in default on a $2.1 million loan that Safeguard made to it in 1998" and "that Musser had been forced to sell 7.5 million shares of his stock in the company to satisfy "personal obligations under several margin loan arrangements." "Finally, battered by deep personal losses, the problems he had caused his company and the embarrassment over the disclosure of Safeguard's dealings with his wife, Musser stepped down under pressure."

County court records show that his wife, Hilary Grinker Musser, subsequently filed for divorce in May, 2005. They have one child, born in 2003. The couple were married in November 2000, four years after he divorced his wife of 43 years.

Pete Musser's stake in Safeguard made him a billionaire for a short time.

The Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership from The Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University is named for him, as is the Musser Scout Reservation, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.