Atlanta Business Chronicle
How Ted Turner, David Ratcliffe became biz partners and pals.
“Hi partner.”
That’s the way environmentalist Ted Turner greeted David Ratcliffe, the recently retired CEO of Southern Co., at a meeting in Turner’s Atlanta office building on Dec. 6.
The two men — legends in their respective fields — had agreed to sit down for an interview to discuss how their relationship has evolved from being adversaries to being business partners in a groundbreaking solar joint venture in New Mexico.
Turner, who made his fortune creating CNN, had become one of the world’s leading environmentalists and philanthropists.
Ratcliffe was a top leader in the energy industry and running a utility that environmentalists considered to be one of the greatest contributors of air pollution. Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) has relied heavily on coal, considered one of the dirtiest fuels for generating energy.
To say that the two men came from opposite ends of the spectrum would be an understatement.
Ratcliffe remembered running into Turner at a global climate change conference in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s when both were staking out their positions.
Ratcliffe introduced himself to Turner by saying: “We ought to talk sometime so you can understand my viewpoint on this and I can understand yours.”
About 10 years later, the two finally began meeting privately to discuss the future of energy policy in the United States — sometimes debating with each other and other times agreeing.
Those meetings initially were brokered by Taylor Glover, CEO of Turner Enterprises, which includes all of Turner’s business interests.
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