Ping Ping King

Time Warner’s Steve Ross

Time Warner is closely associated with Hollywood and has produced myriad movies and television shows. Throughout its existence, many people, be they employees or clients, have acknowledged its stature as the second largest of the leading media and entertainment companies in the world, just behind News Corporation. Time Warner though, would have not come into reality if not for the man who was behind its helm: Steven J. Ross.

Steven Jay Rechnitz, later known as Steve Ross, was born on September 17, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish immigrants. Steve’s father replaced the name Rechnitz with Ross in 1932. In 1945, Steve was enlisted in the U.S Navy but only spent seven days at sea and never served in combat. Despite his military record, Ross claimed that his hearing loss was due to his participation in battles. After the war, he went to study at Paul Smith’s College.

Ross married Carol Rosenthal in 1954. Rosenthal’s father owned the Kinney Parking Company, which four years later, expanded under Ross’ leadership. The former funeral parlor enterprise boomed into a media venture. After a series of buyouts and mergers, the Warner Communications was born in 1972 with Ross as its CEO. Three years before his death, Ross oversaw the merger that would make his company one of the biggest in the media and entertainment industry: Time Warner.

Ross is remembered by his peers and employees as an emotional boss rather than an intellectual one. Most of his corporate decisions were based on gut feeling and instincts rather than market trends and surveys. Ross was also a generous employer. He gave lavish salaries to all his employees, from the utility personnel to the stars. He justified that his generosity was just his way of providing incentives to his employees.

To learn more about Steven Ross, read his biography on the Business Biographies site.

Courtney Sale Ross, the wife of Steven Ross, was interviewed by Charlie Rose.

Courtney Sale Ross and Steve Ross founded the Ross School, an innovative educational institution that uses progressive models of learning.

Climate change can be defined as a phenomenon where significant and long term changes can be observed in the environment of a particular place or region. During the recent times, there has been increased scientific evidence that suggests that the temperature of the earth is increasing as a result of human activities. There are different ways in which human activities are influencing changes in the environment. Some of these include fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, obnoxious gases released by the industries, land use, agriculture,

Among all these, fossil fuel combustion holds the biggest share in influencing climate change. Ever since industrial revolution has taken place, human consumption of fossil fuels has increased significantly. As a result, concentration of certain gases in the atmosphere has increased to enormous levels resulting in increased temperatures on the earth, a phenomenon known as greenhouse effect. Some of these gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulfur that have caused huge depletions in the ozone layer. Next important factor that has significantly changed environment is deforestation. Trees have an important role to play in safeguarding earth’s environment since they absorb harmful greenhouse gases from the environment and convert them into useful materials. Apart from these, other factors such as excessive usage of land, rise in agricultural activities and rearing of livestock have been known to contribute enormously towards release of greenhouse gases, thereby influencing changes in the local climate.