Laurance Rockefeller: Laurance S. Rockefeller, an early leader in venture capitalism, who used his family's oil fortune to fund conservation efforts and aviation enterprises, died on July 11th at his home in New York City aged 94. He had pulmonary fibrosis.
Rockefeller was a central member of one of the first families of American civic, social, economic and philanthropic life. His grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, founded Standard Oil and established the family tradition of giving away millions of dollars.
Laurance Rockefeller, a tall, urbane, business-minded billionaire who operated private planes and PT boats for sport, became known largely for conservation efforts. He amplified the legacy of his father - who had created major national parks - by expanding and preserving many of his own, from California to the US Virgin Islands.
Robin W. Winks wrote in a biography of Laurance Rockefeller that his service in the late 1950s and early 1960s as chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission provided the path for decades of conservation laws. Rockefeller found great favour during Lady Bird Johnson's beautification crusade in the 1960s. In 1967, the first lady called him "America's leading conservationist."
Rockefeller was also a chief advocate for investing family money in new, often bold enterprises. Particularly fascinated by aviation, he poured money into new projects so they "would not be snuffed out by a merger because of a lack of financing."
With commercial air travel still a gamble in the late 1930s, Rockefeller gave key financial backing to Eddie Rickenbacker, the first World War ace who became chief of Eastern Airlines. Rockefeller became one of the airline's largest stockholders.
A meeting with J.S. McDonnell jnr, the St Louis aircraft engineer and designer, led to an infusion of cash that created McDonnell Aircraft Corp, one of the most important military contractors in the aftermath of the second World War.
Rockefeller was a director at McDonnell Aircraft but gradually reduced his role there to help smaller concerns, such as Reaction Motors in New Jersey, which built the Viking Rocket.
He invested heavily in firms researching supersonic engineering. One of his investment partnerships in the late 1960s, Venrock Associates, provided early funding for computer companies Intel and Apple.
"People who try to play it safe in the long run have very dull lives," Rockefeller told Forbes magazine, which listed his net worth last year at $1.5 billion.
Laurance Spelman Rockefeller, a New York native, was the fourth of John D. Rockefeller jnr and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's six children; he was the third son. His siblings were Abby, John D. III, Nelson, Winthrop and David.
In the summer of 1929, he and Nelson were cooks and dishwashers on a shipboard expedition to Labrador led by Wilfred Grenfell.
After graduating in 1932 with a philosophy degree from Princeton University, Laurance Rockefeller attended Harvard University law school.
During the second World War, he served in the Navy's bureau of aeronautics as a liaison officer to aircraft production facilities on the West Coast. He served as president of Rockefeller Brothers Inc and board chairman of Rockefeller Centre Inc.
He donated his family's property in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to the federal government. In 1956, he turned over property to create Virgin Islands National Park.
In 1969, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the US.
In 1934, he married Mary French, the granddaughter of conservationist and railroad president Frederick Billings. She died in 1997.
Four of his siblings have died: Winthrop Rockefeller, who served two terms as governor of Arkansas, in 1973; Abby Rockefeller Mauze, in 1976; John D. Rockefeller III, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation and a founder of Lincoln Centre, in 1978; and Nelson A. Rockefeller, who served as governor of New York and vice-president under President Gerald R. Ford, in 1979.
His nephew John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV is a Democratic senator from West Virginia.
Survivors include four children; a brother, the financier David Rockefeller, the former chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank; eight grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
Laurence Rockefeller: born 1910; died July 11th, 2004.