Edgar Fosburgh Kaiser Jr. (July 5, 1942 – January 11, 2012) was an American-Canadian

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...

and a former owner of the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

team.

Biography

Kaiser was born in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, on July 5, 1942, and was the grandson of shipbuilding industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. He earned a BA degree from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and an MBA degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. Kaiser served as a White House Fellow and as a Special Assistant to President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...

, President Richard M. Nixon, and as a Special Assistant to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel. He became a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

citizen in 1980. He died on January 11, 2012.

Denver Broncos

Kaiser purchased the Broncos from the Gerald Phipps family in February

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...

for $29 million. He sold his 60.8% share of the Broncos to Pat Bowlen in March

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

for $78 million.
/ref> He then sued Bowlen for violating the original sales’ agreement, which he contended granted him right of first purchase of any sale of shares in the team. Kaiser claimed Bowlen violated this agreement by offering former Broncos quarterback John Elway a 10% stake of the company that holds ownership of the team. In 2004, a jury ruled in favor of Kaiser, and a federal judge decreed that Kaiser was entitled to purchase back 10% of the Broncos using the identical purchase terms offered to Elway. Bowlen appealed the original verdict that ruled in favor of Kaiser and won the appeal, as the

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

ruled that the structure of the Bowlen-Elway deal did not violate the original agreement.

Business career

Kaiser held several corporate positions during his life, including chief executive officer of

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

-based Kaiser Resources Ltd, the family holding company. Kaiser Resources' coal assets were sold to British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation and Ashland Oil Canada to Dome Petroleum. Kaiser served as chairman and CEO of the Bank of British Columbia from 1984 until the bank's 1986 demise. He also served on the board of directors of several large Canadian companies.

The Kaiser Foundation

In 1985, Edgar Kaiser Jr. established the Kaiser Foundation (unrelated to the American Henry J.

Kaiser Family Foundation KFF, which was formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation or The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, is an American non-profit organization, non-profit organization, headquartered in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. It prefers KFF, w ...

). It is a North Vancouver, British Columbia-based organization established as a Canadian national organization, operated separately from other ventures of the Kaiser family, with the goal of promoting the understanding and importance of mental health and addictions as health issues. It has also established the Kaiser Mental Health and Addictions Awareness Foundation and the Aboriginal Peoples' Health Initiative.

References

External links

*
Rockburn Presents - Edgar Kaiser Jr.
' (video, 30 mins.), Interview with Ken Rockburn, Cable Public Affairs Channel, August 9, 2011 * Vicki O’Brien:
The Reinvention of Edgar Kaiser Jr.
', BCBusiness, December 1, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaiser, Edgar Jr. 1942 births 2012 deaths Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon American emigrants to Canada Canadian financial businesspeople Naturalized citizens of Canada Denver Broncos owners Henry J. Kaiser Harvard Business School alumni Stanford University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century Canadian businesspeople