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Fue una figura de liderazgo en el campo pionero de los capitales de riesgo, que inició como una asociación con sus cinco hermanos y única hermana, Babs, en 1946. En 1969 la firma se convirtió en ''Venrock'' (contracción de ''venture'' y ''Rockefeller''), que proveyó importantes inversiones iniciales para [[Intel]] y [[Apple Computer]], entre otras empresas de naciente tecnología en aquel momento, incluyendo otras involucradas en el campo de la salud. Con los años sus inversiones abarcaron también el campo del aerospacio, electrónica, física de alta temperatura, materiales compuestos, óptica, láser, procesamiento de datos, y energía atómica.
Venrock es una compañía limitada de patrocinio de inversiones financiada por miembros de la familia Rockefeller y un grupo de instituciones con quien la familia ha mantenido una larga relación filantrópica, entre ellas el [[Museo de Arte Moderno]] , la [[Universidad Rockefeller]] y el [[Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]].
El mayor interés de Laurance fue sin duda la aviación: luego de la guerra se hizo amigo del capitán [[Eddie Rickenbacker]], triunfador de varias batallas aéreas sobre [[Europa]].Rockefeller era autodidacta en la aviación y encontró que la experiencia de Rickenbacker daría la posibilidad de acercarse a un éxito comercial en aviación. Luego de una década de considerable inversión, [[Eastern Airlines]] se convirtió en una de las aerolíneas mas rentables surgidas luego de la [[Segunda Guerra Mundial]]. También fundó la compañía contratista de pos guerra mas importante en relación a la aviación y la defensa, [[McDonnell Aircraft]].
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Laurance fue durante largo tiempo amigo y asociado de [[DeWitt Wallace]], el co-fundador de [[Reader's Digest]] en 1922, quien designó a Rockefeller como uno de los directores externos de la empresa, con el objetivo de preservar «la patriótica misión de educar e informar al público», sumado a su feriente apoyo de los parques nacionales, otro de los intereses de Rockefeller.<ref>Cargos en el directorio de Reader's Digest - véease Robin Winks, ''Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation'', Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997, (p.181)</ref>
Venrock was a limited partnership investment company financed by members of the Rockefeller family and a number of the institutions with which the family 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 [[Rickenbacker]], who had triumphed in many dogfights over Europe. Rockefeller had himself learned to fly, and he found Captain Rickenbacker's vivid accounts of an approaching boom in commercial air travel to be persuasive. Within a decade after his considerable investment, [[Eastern Airlines]] had become the most profitable airline to emerge after World War II and he became its largest shareholder. He also funded the pivotal post-WWII military contractor [[McDonnell Aircraft]] Corp.
Rockefeller was a longtime friend and associate of [[DeWitt Wallace]], the co-founder along with his wife of [[Reader's Digest]], in 1922. Wallace, who was a major funder of the family's [[Colonial Williamsburg]], appointed Laurance as an outside director in the company, in order to ensure that it preserved its patriotic mission of informing and educating the public, along with its fervent support for national parks, one of Rockefeller's primary interests.<small><ref>Appointed to the board of Reader's Digest - see Robin Winks, ''Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation'', Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997, (p.181)</ref></small>
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]], the [[British Virgin Islands]], and [[Hawaii]], contributing to the movement now known as eco-tourism. The last of these, the ''Mauna Kea Beach Hotel'', was established in 1965 on the Kohala Coast of the island of Hawaii.
He 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. He had a major involvement in the [[New York Zoological Society]], along with support from other family members and philanthropies; he was a long-time trustee (1935- 1986), president (1969-1971) and chairman (1971-1985).
Rockefeller had a strong interest in the later stages of his life in [[UFO]]s. In 1993, along with his niece, Anne Bartley, the stepdaughter of [[Winthrop Rockefeller]] and the then president of the ''Rockefeller Family Fund'', he established the ''UFO Disclosure Initiative to the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] White House'', whose main request was that all UFO information held by the government, including from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and the [[US Air Force]], be declassified and released to the public. The first and most important test case where declassification had to apply, according to Laurance, was the [[Roswell UFO incident]]; this resulted in the Air Force Report in September 1994, which categorically denied the incident was UFO-related. Laurance subsequently briefed Clinton on the results of his initiative in 1995. Clinton did produce an Executive Order in late 1994 to force mass declassification of documents in the National Archives, but this did not specifically refer to UFO-related files.<small><ref>[http://www.x-ppac.org/OSTP.html UFO Disclosure Initiative]</ref></small>
He also had an interest, gained via his mother [[Abby Aldrich Rockefeller]], in [[Buddhism]] and Asian cultural affairs. He also became interested in [[spirituality|spiritual]] research and [[crop circles]]. He funded the research of [[Harvard Medical School]] Professor Dr. [[John Edward Mack]], author of ''Passport to the Cosmos''. He also funded a scientific study about crop circles in the late 1990s, in which scientists concluded that they were possibly dealing with an unknown energy source, as their research into a small number of them left them baffled.<small><ref>[http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc219.htm] Scientific research into crop circles</ref></small>
==Conservation==
He was noted for his involvement in [[Conservation movement|conservation]] ([[Lady Bird Johnson]] in 1967 was to label him "America's leading conservationist") and the protection of wildlife and was chairman of the ''Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission''. He served on dozens of federal, state and local commissions and advised every president since [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] on issues involving recreation, wilderness preservation and ecology. He founded the American Conservation Association and supported many other environmental groups.
He funded the expansion of [[Grand Teton National Park]] and was instrumental in establishing and enlarging [[national park]]s in Wyoming, California, the Virgin Islands, Vermont, Maine and Hawaii. In his home state, New York, he expended further cash and influence to help establish parklands and urban open spaces. There, as an active member of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, he helped create a chain of parks that blocked the advance of urban sprawl.
In September, 1991, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for contributions to conservation and historic preservation. Awarded by President [[George H. W. Bush]], it was the first time in the Medal's history (since 1777) that it had been awarded for outdoor issues, effectively naming Laurance as "Mr Conservation", who more than any other American had put this issue on the public agenda. Rockefeller said at the award presentation that nothing was more important to him than "the creation of a conservation ethic in America".<small><ref>Received first Congressional Gold Medal for conservation in 1991 - Robin Winks, op. cit., (pp.1-2)</ref></small>
In 1992 Laurance and his wife Mary donated their [[Woodstock, Vermont]] summer home and farm to the [[National Park Service]], eventually creating a national park dedicated to the history of conservation, now called the ''Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park''. Again, in 2001, Laurance transferred ownership of his landmark 1106 acre (4.5 km²) ''[[Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve|JY Ranch]]'' to the [[Grand Teton National Park]] in [[Wyoming]], which was accepted by Vice-President [[Dick Cheney]] on behalf of the Federal Government (see External Links below).
He died in his sleep of [[pulmonary fibrosis]] on July 11, 2004.
==Conservation affiliations==
Partial list of his more notable memberships:
*American Conservation Association, Inc. - Founder, President and Trustee.
*[[American Museum of Natural History]] - Life Member.
*[[The Conservation Foundation]] - Founding Member and Trustee, Board of Directors.
*[[Environmental Defense Fund]] - Member.
*[[Greenacre Foundation]] - Trustee.
*Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc. - President.
*[[National Audubon Society]] - Life Member (Recipient, Audubon Medal, 1964).
*[[National Geographic Society]] - Board of Trustees.
*[[National Park Foundation]] - Vice Chairman, Board Member Emeritus.
*[[National Trust for Historic Preservation]] - Life Member.
*[[National Wildlife Federation]] - Member.
*The Nature Conservancy - Member.
*[[New York Zoological Society]] - Trustee, Chairman.
*Palisades Interstate Park Commission - President.
*[[Save-the-Redwoods League]] - Life Member.
*[[The Wildlife Conservation Society]] - Chairman.
*[[World Wildlife Fund]] - Member.
(Source: Robin Winks, ''Laurance S. Rockefeller'', Appendix, pp.207-211)
==Further reading==
*''Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation'', by Robin W. Winks, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
*''Memoirs'', David Rockefeller, New York: Random House, 2002.
*''From the Captain to the Colonel: An Informal History of Eastern Airlines'', Robert J. Serling, New York: Dial Press, 1980.
==See also==
*[[Rockefeller family]]
*[[David Rockefeller]]
*[[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]]
*[[Venture capital]]
*[[Private equity]]
*[[Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]]
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==Referencias==
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