Warren Cowan

In 1988, Rogers & Cowan company was sold to Shandwick Plc., an English conglomorate. "It was the right move to make in some respects, but I found that I was doing too much that was administrative and too little that was creative," Cowan said. In 1994, after a two-year non-competitive period, he launched a new company, Warren Cowan & Associates, where he remained the creative center of his business.

During a special ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., President Gerald Ford presented Cowan with the United Way's prestigious Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his 17 years of outstanding volunteer efforts and called him "the most important United Way volunteer in the entertainment industry."

The ceremony focused new light on the spectrum of Cowan's contribution outside the public relations industry. For years, he has contributed his unique talent to support the activities of such civic and philanthropic organizations as UNICEF, the Scott Newman Foundation, The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Foundation, the National Foundation for Ileitis and Colitis, the Young Musicians Foundation, and the United Way, where he was national committee communications chairman. Read Less