Walter Abraham Haas, Sr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_A._Haas

Walter A. Haas graduated from [the University of California, Berkeley] College of Commerce in 1910. Over a long life, his loyalty to and support of the University were an inspiration to fellow alumni. His business career, and the company he led for 27 years, are a model for students of business everywhere. In recognition of the thoughtful generosity of his children, Rhoda Haas Goldman, Peter E. Haas, and Walter A. Haas Jr., and their families, Cal's business school bears his name.

A better fit between alumnus and school would be hard to imagine. Walter A. Haas led the school's first advisory council under Dean E. T. Grether, and until his death in 1979, he was a counselor and friend of each of the deans who succeeded Grether. In recognition of his close association with Dean Grether, Walter A. Haas helped establish the school's E. T. Grether Professorship in Marketing and Public Policy.

Walter A. Haas began his career with Levi Strauss & Company in 1919 upon completion of his military service in World War I. He became president in 1928 and served in that position until 1955. He served as chairman until 1970 and remained active in company affairs until his death in 1979. Working with his partner and fellow College of Commerce alumnus, Daniel E. Koshland, Sr., he built a company respected for its integrity and business success--both in its products and its dealings with its employees and the community. Walter A. Haas believed, and often said, that Levi Strauss "owes responsibility to the communities in which we do business."

As Dean Grether once observed, "Levi Strauss became a model for other companies because they put that philosophy into action first. They were practicing affirmative action before the term was invented and they were doing it in the South before the civil rights movement."

Walter A. Haas was married to Elise Stern for 65 years. On their 60th anniversary, he said that of all their accomplishments--and there were many--their children were the most significant. His family continues to build the business and to devote its talents and energies to the community and the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1989, the family of Walter A. Haas made the cornerstone gift to the campaign for the business school building. The UC Regents, with enthusiastic faculty support, voted that the school be named for Walter A. Haas.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Rhoda Haas Goldman said, "All of us want Cal to continue to be one of the world's premier institutions of higher education. We hope our gift will amplify the excellence of the business school. All of us have been devoted to Berkeley, no one more so than our father. He would be most pleased to know that his family is continuing his legacy of support to the University he so dearly loved."

From http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Building/page6.html

• Residence: San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA - 1918
• Residence: San Francisco Assembly District 31, San Francisco, California - 1920
  • Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Mar 30 2016, 5:35:40 UTC

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Walter A. Haas, Sr. (May 11, 1889 – December 7, 1979), son of the founder of Hellman-Haas Grocery (which became Smart & Final), was a former president and chairman of Levi Strauss & Co. Haas was credited with saving the once struggling company.

Haas was born to a Jewish family, one of four children of Abraham Haas and Fanny Koshland.[1] His father was an immigrant from Bavaria who founded the Hellman, Hass and Company which eventually became the Smart & Final grocery store chain. His mother was the daughter of one of the most successful wool merchants in San Francisco. His siblings were Charles, Ruth (1891), and Eleanor (1900). In 1910, Haas graduated with a BS degree from the University of California, Berkeley College of Commerce. Haas served in the U.S. Army Field Artillery during World War I.

Upon his return to the United States in 1919, he worked at the Levi Strauss & Company, then a small drygoods wholesaler and maker of work clothing, owned by the family of his wife. In 1928, he became president and served in that position until 1955; thereafter, he served as chairman until 1970 and remained active in company affairs until his death in 1979. Haas' tenure and dedication at Levi Strauss - along with that of his business partner and brother-in-law Daniel E. Koshland, Sr., father of physicist Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. - is widely credited with saving the company leading it through the Great Depression, racial integration at its factories, the global popularization of the Levi brand, and the creation of the Levi Strauss Foundation.

A Republican, he was an alternate delegate to the 1952 Republican National Convention. He was Jewish, and served as president of the San Francisco Jewish Welfare Federation.

In 1914, Haas married Elise Stern, daughter of Sigmund Stern, the nephew of Levi Strauss (Strauss had died unmarried and without children and deeded his company to his four nephews). Haas had three children: Rhoda Haas Goldman, Peter E. Haas, and Walter A. Haas, Jr. In 1989, the University of California, Berkeley Regents voted to rename the business school the Haas School of Business in his honor, after a large gift from the Haas family.