Laurance Rockefeller

Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 – July 11, 2004) was an American businessman, financier, philanthropist, and conservationist.

Rockefeller was the third son and fourth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.

As a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, he provided venture capital for Intel, Apple Computer and many other successful start-ups.

Rockefeller was known for his involvement in wilderness preservation, ecology and the protection of wildlife.

His crusade was the establishing of a conservation ethic, and he was declared America's leading conservationist by Lady Bird Johnson.

Rockefeller was born in New York City, as the fourth child of John Davison Rockefeller Jr. and Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich.

His siblings were Abby, John III, Nelson, Winthrop, and David.

Rockefeller was a longtime friend and associate of DeWitt Wallace, who with his wife in 1922 co-founded Reader's Digest.

Wallace, who was a major funder of the family's Colonial Williamsburg, appointed Laurance as an outside director in the company.

He wanted to ensure that it preserved its patriotic mission of informing and educating the public, along with support for national parks, one of Rockefeller's primary interests.

He graduated from Princeton University in 1932 and attended Harvard Law School for two years, until he decided he did not want to be a lawyer.

On August 22, 1934, in Woodstock, Vermont, Laurance married childhood friend Mary French, whose mother, Mary Montague Billings French, was a friend of Laurance's mother.

When brother Nelson attended Dartmouth College, he shared a room with Mary's brother.

Mary was granddaughter of Frederick H. Billings, a president of Northern Pacific Railway.

Laurance and Mary had three daughters and a son.

They are Laura Rockefeller Chasin, Marion Rockefeller Weber, Dr. Lucy R. Waletzky, and Laurance S. "Larry" Rockefeller Jr. He had eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

In 1937, he inherited his grandfather's seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

He served as founding trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for forty-two years, from its inception in 1940 to 1982; during this time he also served as president (1958–1968) and later its chairman (1968–1980) for twenty-two years, longer than any other leader in the Fund's history.

He was a leading figure in the pioneering field of venture capital, founding a joint partnership with all five brothers and their only sister, Babs, in 1946.

Through his resort management company, Rockresorts, Inc., Rockefeller opened environmentally focused hotels at Caneel Bay on Saint John, United States Virgin Islands (1956; a favorite resort today for celebrities), some property of which was later turned over to the Virgin Islands National Park; in Puerto Rico, on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, and Hawaii, contributing to the movement now known as eco-tourism.

In 1958 planning and land acquisition began for what would become Little Dix Bay.

The last of these, the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, was established in 1965 on the Kohala Coast of the island of Hawaii.

Its most noted general manager was Adi Kohler, who later wrote the story of the construction of the famous hotel in his book "Mr. Mauna Kea" published by McKenna Publishing Group.

While sailing past Virgin Gorda, Rockefeller spotted an idyllic half-mile crescent bay with what he dubbed "wilderness beach".

In 1966, Rockefeller was considered by President Lyndon B. Johnson for the position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, then a newly-formed agency.

The position instead went to Robert C. Weaver, the first African American Cabinet member in American history.

He was also a founding trustee of the Rockefeller Family Fund from 1967 to 1977.

In 1969 this became the successful Venrock Associates, which provided important early funding for Intel and Apple Computer, amongst many other start-up technology companies, including many other firms involved in healthcare.

Over the years his investment interests spread into the fields of aerospace, electronics, high temperature physics, composite materials, optics, lasers, data processing, thermionics, instrumentation and nuclear power.

The family also had longstanding philanthropic ties, among them the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Rockefeller's major interest was in aviation; after the War, he became friendly with Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who had triumphed in many dogfights over Europe.

Rockefeller had learned to fly, and found Rickenbacker's vivid accounts of an approaching boom in commercial air travel to be persuasive.

Within a decade after Rockefeller's considerable investment, Eastern Airlines had become the most profitable airline to emerge after World War II.

He became its largest shareholder.

He also funded the pivotal post-WWII military contractor McDonnell Aircraft Corp.

In 1993, the resort became part of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts but remains true to Rockefeller's vision of natural harmony and balance while offering an escape from the ordinary.

Elsewhere in the US Virgin Islands Rockresorts developed the Carambola Resort on St. Croix on an incredible stretch of beach that was also famous for being the setting for the closing scene of the movie Trading Places.

Rockefeller funded the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at a critical juncture of its early development.

He also funded William Irwin Thompson's Lindisfarne Association, a think tank and retreat.

The resort opened in 1964 and on January 18, 2014, Little Dix Bay celebrated its 50th anniversary.