Peter Guber: The Man Behind It All

Peter Guber is the Chairman and CEO of the Mandalay Entertainment Group. He became the head honcho of this multimedia giant because he's got incredible credentials, including being the Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Co-founder of Casablanca Record & Filmworks, Chairman and CEO of Polygram Entertainment, and President of Columbia Pictures. And throughout his colorful career, Guber has executive produced or produced films that have received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture (Rain Man won) and/or went on to become box office hits like Batman, The Color Purple, Flashdance, The Kids Are All Right, and Midnight Express.

As if that's that not impressive enough, Guber is also the owner and Co-executive Chairman of the Golden State Warriors, an NBA franchise. He also co-owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, a Major League Baseball franchise, while serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors for a subsidiary of Mandalay Sports Entertainment, Mandalay Baseball Properties. Some of the other sports franchises owned and/or operated by Mandalay Baseball Properties include the Oklahoma City RedHawks, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the Frisco RoughRiders, and the Dayton Dragons.

Mr. Guber also keeps his days busy as a full professor at the UCLA and a weekly entertainment and media analyst for Fox Business News. He's also part of the Demand Media Board of Directors and co-founder of Geek Chic Daily. Surprisingly, he's also found time to write books and articles, including Inside The Dee, Shootout: Surviving Fame and (Mis)Fortune in Hollywood, Tell To Win – Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, as well as the Harvard Business Review cover article The Four Truths of the Story Teller.

Born in 1942, Guber has spent more than 30 years in entertainment and sports. He went to the Syracuse University and the New York University, married Tara Lynda Guber, and has four children.

Henry Morganthau: American Icon to the Ottoman Empire

Henry Morganthau was an American businessman, lawyer and diplomat. He served the US government during the World War I as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He became a prominent figure during the War because of his candid opposition against the Armenian Genocide.

The American Civil War brought a huge financial setback to the Morganthau family because Germany stopped exporting tobacco to the US. The Morganthau’s were forced to migrate to the US in 1866. His father earned a living by raising funds for the Jewish houses of worship in New York.

Morganthau earned his BA at the City College of New York while he finished his Bachelor of Laws at the Columbia Law School. While practicing his law profession, Morganthau also earned a huge fortune by investing in real estate.

As an avid supporter of the Democrats, Morganthau’s political career was ushered in by his handsome contribution to the presidential campaign of Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson became the US President, Morganthau was appointed as US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913, although Morganthau would have wished a cabinet position. Morganthau’s tenure ended in 1916.

The Center for Counseling and Health Resources: A Whole Person Focus

The Seattle-based Center for Counseling and Health Resources, Inc., founded by Dr. Gregory Jantz, concentrates its efforts on treating clients coping with addictions, dysfunctional relationships, and the effects of trauma and abuse. In all its work, the Center keeps its focus on working with the whole person, seeing each client as an individual with a unique history and a distinct combination of physical, medical, and emotional needs. Through its comprehensive diagnostic assessments, The Center for Counseling and Health Resources aims to provide its clients with information that will serve as a starting point for making positive changes in their lives.

Following recent wider trends toward patient-centered care in its holistic approach, The Center for Counseling and Health Resources devotes the time necessary to creating a treatment program tailored to each individual. Whole-person care follows the best practice of looking at every aspect of a client’s environment, including often-neglected social, nutritional, and spiritual factors.

Whole-person medicine, often known as integrative care, supports simultaneous and mutually enhancing approaches and treatment modalities that most effectively assist each patient. In addition, whole-person care attempts to identify underlying causes and stresses that lead to unhealthy situations and behaviors, and then to encourage each individual’s capacity to heal him or herself. Because no two people are alike, the causes of similar health situations can be very different, and no two treatment paths will be the same.

The type of respectful, integrative care provided at The Center for Counseling and Health Resources recognizes the uniqueness of each patient. The organization aims not simply to manage the presenting condition, but to create healthy new underlying patterns that will enable every client to break free of past traumas and addictions to become the person he or she was meant to be. With a focus on building trust in a warm and accepting atmosphere, the organization promotes its core value: Recognizing the worth of every person, regardless of the issues he or she has faced in the past, and with an emphasis on finding the way to a secure and confident future.

Andrew Mellon: The US Treasury’s Think Tank

Andrew Mellon was an American businessman, industrialist, banker, art collector and philanthropist. He also served in the US government as Ambassador to the UK and Secretary of the Treasury.

Mellon was born on March 24, 1855 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an alumnus of Western University of Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1873. Early on, Mellon demonstrated his financial abilities. Before his graduation in 1872, Mellon was placed by his father in a lumber and coal business which he managed to become a profitable enterprise. He worked with his father’s bank, the T. Mellon & Sons in 1880 which he eventually owned in 1882. Mellon was instrumental in organizing the Union Trust Company and the Union Savings Bank of Pittsburgh in 1889.

Aside from banking, Mellon also ventured into construction, shipbuilding, steel and oil businesses. However, Mellon was said to have built huge enterprises in his coke, carborundum, and aluminum businesses. He financed the ventures of Charles M. Hall which helped him grow his refinery into what was later known as Aluminum Company of America. He also partnered with Edward G. Acheson in founding the Carborundum Company. Mellon was also one of the first who invested in the New York Shipbuilding Corporation.

In 1921, Mellon was appointed by President Warren G. Harding as Secretary of the Treasury. For his service in the US Treasury of ten years and eleven months, Mellon has the third longest tenure in the Treasury. He also served in the same office through the presidencies of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert C. Hoover.

However, in 1932, a petition was filed by some jobless men from Pennsylvania to force President Hoover and the Congress to create jobs. When investigated, President Hoover found out that it was Mellon who financed the march, undermining the president’s faith in his Secretary of the Treasury. An impeachment complaint was filed which led to Mellon’s resignation.

Useful Entrepreneurial Lessons from the Life of Halsey Minor

Halsey Minor is a tech entrepreneur known to be the founder of CNET. He studied in the University of Virginia where he earned his degree in anthropology. His first job was with Merrill Lynch until he began conceptualizing CNET in 1992.

CNET became one of the first internet-based companies that became profitable. CBS purchased CNET in 2008 for $1.7 billion and is now known as CBS Interactive. While with CNET, Minor established two spin-offs: the Snap/NBCi and Vignette Software. Both are public companies.

Minor was a co-founder and was one of the largest investors in salesforce.com, the pioneer in cloud computing and one of the most successful tech companies today.

Minor has been involved in a number of legal battles involving Chrsitie’s and Sotherby’s. The lawsuits arose from a painting which Minor bought in an auction. The outcome of the cases was both favorable and unfavorable to Minor. Minor is also involved in another lawsuit with Merrill. It was reported that Minor owed the state California taxes amounting to $10.4 million. In May 2013, Minot applied for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Los Angeles.

Robert McNamara: Longest Serving US Defense Secretary

Robert S. McNamara was an American executive. Aside from being associated with Ford Motor Company and the World Bank, McNamara was the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, serving under the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and the longest serving Secretary of Defense. He played a major role for the US during the Vietnam War, after which he served as World Bank president from 1968 until 1981.

McNamara was born on June 9, 1916 in San Francisco, California. His father was an Irishman who migrated to the US 1850 after the Great Irish Famine. McNamara earned his Bachelor of Arts major in Economics at the University of California Berkeley. His MBA was from Harvard Business School.

Briefly, McNamara worked with Price Waterhouse but returned to Harvard after one year to teach accounting. At Harvard, McNamara became involved in teaching some officers of the US Army Air Forces in a program involving analytical approach in business. In 1943, McNamara joined the USAAF and was given the rank of captain. After being involved for the most part in World War II, McNamara left the military service with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

After the War, McNamara became involved in a group of 10 war veterans headed by Charles Thornton. They went to business together and insinuated that Henry Ford was in need of reform. Ford hired the group which was later known was the “Whiz Kids.”

The “Whiz Kids” lived up to their name and turned the tables at Ford Motor Company. McNamara served as planning and financial analysis manager. The “Whiz Kids’” performance was backed by excellent results. McNamara became the first non-Ford president of Ford Motor Company.

Five weeks into his assumption of the top position at Ford, President Kennedy offered McNamara a post at either the Treasury or the Defense. McNamara preferred the position of Secretary of Defense. President Kennedy had high regard for McNamara, asking him for advice not only on matters concerning security but also business and economics. One of his major roles was providing an intelligent statistical analysis of the efficiency of involving in the protracted Vietnam War.

McNamara implemented many reforms in the Defense Department during his entire service. Being an expert in statistical analysis, McNamara streamlined the department and implemented a number of cost-reduction measure to increase the US defense efficiency.

Eugene Meyer: Influence That Spans Three Presidencies

Eugene I. Meyer was financier, newspaper publisher and public official. He was the first president of the World Bank Group. He served as publisher of the Washington Post. From 1930 to 1933, Meyer was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Meyer was born on October 31, 1875 in Los Angeles, California. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University in 1895. He worked for Lazard Freres where his father Marc Eugene was a partner for four years. He quit his job to be his own boss. He became successful as an investor and speculator and even earned a seat at the New York Stock Exchange. In 1915, when Meyer was 40 years old, his fortune was estimated at $40 million.

In 1920, Meyer and William H. Nichols formed a partnership known Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation. Later on, the company became known as AlliedSignal, the forerunner of the specialty materials business of Honeywell.

During the World War I, Meyer served the head of the War Finance Corporation under President Woodrow Wilson. He was the chairman of the Federal Farm Loan Board under President Calvin Coolidge. It was President Herbert Hoover who appointed Meyer as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.