and dropped the course. His faculty adviser at Yale helped him get his first summer job on Wall Street. In 1961, he received a Master of Business Administration degree at Harvard Business School. Business career Early career In 1963, he joined what became Wood, Struthers & Winthrop. There, he liquidated the portfolio of its venture capital affiliate. He then worked for Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan, an institutional securities research company, where he rose to become president of its investment banking operation. The firm was sold to what became Shearson Lehman. Rothschild Investments In 1976, Ross began his 24-year employment with the New York City office of Rothschild & Co, where he ran the bankruptcy restructuring advisory practice. By 1998, Ross was involved in eight of the 25 biggest bankruptcies to date, including Drexel Burnham Lambert, Texaco, Public Service of New Hampshire (now Eversource Energy), and Eastern Air Lines. In the 1980s, Donald Trump's three casinos in Atlantic City were under threat of foreclosure from lenders. Ross, who was then the senior managing director of Rothschild & Co, represented investors in the casino. Along with Carl Icahn, Ross convinced bondholders to strike a deal that allowed Trump to keep control of the casinos. WL Ross & Co. In November 1997, under Rothschild & Co, Ross started a $200 million fund to invest in distressed securities. In its first year, it earned a 15.2% return. In April 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst, Ross founded WL Ross & Co and raised $450 million to buy the fund from Rothschild and make additional investments. By 2003, the fund had averaged a 30% return. In 2006, Ross sold WL Ross & Co to Amvescap (now Invesco). International Steel Group (ISG) In February 2002, WL Ross & Co founded International Steel Group. He first agreed to buy the assets of bankrupt Ling-Temco-Vought for $325 million, paying $11 per ton of capacity when other firms were trading for $200 per ton of capacity. A few weeks later, George W. Bush slapped a 30% tariff on many types of imported steel. A year later, WL Ross & Co acquired the assets of bankrupt Bethlehem Steel. As part of the bankruptcy reorganizations, these companies shifted their huge pension liabilities to the government-backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Ross had support from the United Steelworkers, negotiating a deal to save some jobs. In April 2005, WL Ross & Co