Walter A. Haas Jr. (January 24, 1916 – September 20, 1995) was President and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

(1958–1976) and Chairman (1970–1981) of

Levi Strauss & Co Levi Strauss & Co. () is an American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's () brand of denim jeans. It was founded in May 1853 when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, to o ...

, succeeding his father Walter A. Haas (1889–1979). He led the company in its growth from a regional manufacturer to one of the world’s leading apparel companies. In 1953, together with his wife, Evelyn, he founded the

Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund is a private foundation established in 1953 by Evelyn D. Haas and Walter A. Haas Jr. As of 2019, the Fund has awarded nearly $625 million in philanthropic grants. Based in San Francisco, California, the Haa ...

, a private family foundation based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Early life and education

Haas was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in San Francisco, the son of Elise (née Stern) and Walter A. Haas. His mother was the daughter of Sigmund Stern (the nephew of

Levi Strauss Levi Strauss (; born Löb Strauß ; February 26, 1829 – September 26, 1902) was a German-born American businessman who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm of Levi Strauss & Co. (Levi's) began in 1853 in San Francisco ...

University of California Berkeley website: About Walter Haas
retrieved March 27, 2013 and the son of

David Stern David Joel Stern (September 22, 1942 – January 1, 2020) was an American lawyer and business executive who was the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1984 to 2014. Stern oversaw NBA basketball's growth into one of ...

); and Rosalie (née Meyer) Stern (the daughter of Harriet Newmark Meyer and

Marc Eugene Meyer Marc Eugene Meyer (1842–1925) was an American businessman and was president of Lazard Frères in the United States. Biography Meyer was born to a Jewish family, the son of Sephora (née Loeb) and Isaac Meyer, in Strasbourg, France. His father w ...

; and the granddaughter of rabbi Joseph Newmark). Haas graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1937. His father was a prominent supporter of the university; the

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as Berkeley Haas, is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a public university i ...

was named in his honor. Haas attended the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

and earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

in 1939.

Oakland Athletics

Haas was the owner of the

Oakland Athletics The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The te ...

baseball club, acquiring the team from Charles O. Finley in August

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

for less than $13 million. The acquisition was to prevent the team from moving, as Finley had wanted to sell to industrialist

Marvin Davis Marvin H. Davis (August 31, 1925 – September 25, 2004) was an American industrialist. He made his fortunes as the chair of Davis Petroleum and at one time owned 20th Century Fox, the Pebble Beach Corporation, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the ...

, who planned to move the team to

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Under Haas' ownership, the Athletics won five

American League West The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...

Division titles (the first in

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

and the last in

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, advancing to three consecutive

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

between

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

and

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

, defeating the cross-bay rival

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...

in 1989 in a sweep marred only by the infamous Loma Prieta earthquake). On the date of his death, the organization memorialized Haas with a retirement of his "jersey" due to his services for the organization and the city of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. It remains placed with the jerseys of retired player numbers at the Athletics' current home field.

Philanthropy

Haas sought to strengthen Levi Strauss & Co.’s position as a socially responsible international corporation. During the 1950s, Haas, along with his brother, Peter E. Haas, oversaw

racial integration Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity ...

of the company’s plants. He also led the creation of Community Involvement Teams for Levi Strauss & Co. employees. Haas served on the boards of the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

and the

National Park Foundation The National Park Foundation (NPF) is the official charity of the National Park Service (NPS) and its national park sites. The NPF was chartered by Congress in 1967 with a charge to "further the conservation of natural, scenic, historic, scientif ...

while leading Levi Strauss & Co. He was also involved in other nonprofit institutions such as the Hunter’s Point Boys’ Club and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund. Together with his wife, Haas established the

in 1953 as a private family foundation. As its

mission statement A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation ...

describes, the Fund “seeks to fulfill (its) founders’ vision of a just and caring society that provides fundamental rights and opportunities so that all people can live, work and raise their families with dignity.” Of his family’s philanthropy, Haas used to say, "It's in the genes."

Personal life

In 1940, Haas married

Evelyn Danzig Haas Evelyn D. Haas (1917 – February 3, 2010) was a San Francisco Bay Area civic leader and philanthropist. She was the co-founder of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund which has contributed more than $364 million to Bay Area cultural, civic, an ...

; they had three children: Robert D. Haas, former chairman and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co.; philanthropist Betsy Haas Eisenhardt who is married to Roy Eisenhardt; and Walter J. Haas, co-chairman of the

and former chairman and CEO of the

.San Francisco Gate: "Philanthropist, arts patron Evelyn Haas dies" by Michael Cabanatuan
February 4, 2010 Haas died at age 79 from

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...

at his San Francisco residence. Funeral services were held at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

Awards and honors

*1979 – Alumni Achievement Award, Harvard *1983 – Alumnus of the Year, University of California *1983 – Honorary Degree, Wheaton College *1984 – Presidential Voluntary Action Award *1989 – Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

*2019 –

Athletics Hall of Fame The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The te ...

References

External links

Business Wire "OBIT/Longtime Levi Strauss & Co. leader Walter A. Haas Jr. dies"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haas, Walter A. Jr. 1916 births 1995 deaths American chief executives of fashion industry companies American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish American philanthropists Major League Baseball executives Major League Baseball owners Oakland Athletics owners Harvard Business School alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Businesspeople from San Francisco Haas family Levi Strauss & Co. people Newmark family Koshland family