Steve Ross (businessman)
American businessman (1927–1992)
Steven Jay Ross (né Rechnitz; April 5, 1927 – December 20, 1992) was an American businessman and CEO of Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery), Warner Communications, and Kinney National Services, Inc. He is also known for helping to popularize soccer in the United States.
Early life and education
Ross was born Steven Jay Rechnitz on April 5, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants. His father—who lost all his money during the Great Depression—changed the family name to Ross in hope of finding work with fewer struggles. Ross attended Paul Smith's College for two years and then joined the U.S. Navy. After his military service, he went to work at his uncle's store in the Garment District in Manhattan.
Career
In 1953, he married Carol Rosenthal, the daughter of a Manhattan funeral home owner, Edward Rosenthal, who operated the largest funeral company in the United States, Riverside Memorial Chapel, where he accepted employment as a funeral director. After noticing that the limousines used in funeral processions were not being used at night, he convinced his father-in-law to let him establish a separate company that would lease out the vehicles in the evenings. The company was solidly profitable and enabled Ross to obtain bank financing to start a rental company, Abbey Rent a Car.
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This entry incorporates text from “Steve Ross (businessman)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.