Tycoon James Rockefeller dies at 102

11/08/2004 - 01:25:49
James Rockefeller, the oldest-known US Olympic medal winner and former head of the bank that became Citigroup, has died at 102.

Records of the US Olympic Committee show Rockefeller was the oldest American medal winner, a USOC spokeswoman said.

He was the captain of Yale University’s eight-man rowing team with coxswain that won gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics – beating the Canadian team by less than 16 seconds.

Another member of the crew was Dr Benjamin Spock, who became a renowned paediatrician with his best-selling book about child rearing.

James Stillman Rockefeller, born on June 8, 1902, was a grandson of William Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil with his brother, John D Rockefeller.

He graduated from Yale in 1924 and served in the Airborne Command during the Second World War.

Rockefeller started at the bank, then called the National City Bank, in 1930 and retired in 1967. He became president in 1952 and chairman in 1959. In 1955, under Rockefeller’s leadership, the bank merged with the First National Bank of New York to form Citigroup.

He also was a director of numerous companies, including Pan American Airways, Northern Pacific Railroad, NCR and Monsanto.