Donald George Fisher (September 3, 1928 - September 27, 2009) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He set up a Gap clothing store with his wife, Doris F. Fisher.
Video Donald Fisher
Early life and education
Fisher was born in San Francisco, California to the Jewish family, the eldest of three sons Aileen (nÃÆ' Â © e Emanuel) and Sydney Fisher, a cabinet maker. He spent his childhood in the neighborhood of Sea Cliff in San Francisco at the time, graduating from Lowell High School in 1946, and then in 1951, graduating with a B.S. in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley. He is an alumnus of Theta Zeta chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon national fraternity. After school, he serves as the U.S. Naval Reserve. as an officer and then work for his father as cabinet maker for L & amp; E. Emanuel Incorporated, a factory and cabinet maker made by his great-grandfather who was inherited by his mother after his father died.
In 1960 Fisher started his own business to renovate the hotel and buy the Capitol Park Hotel in Sacramento by deliberately renting some retail space to Levi Strauss & amp; Co who opened the showroom. After failing to try to return a pair of unfit Levi jeans, he noticed that most department stores carry only a limited selection of Levi jeans and suggested to Levi that they needed a store that would carry all their sizes and styles in one shop. The concept was accepted and Fisher and his wife opened their first store named Gap after the "Generation Gap." The store sells Levi jeans as well as recordings and tapes to capture target markets aged 12 to 25 years. In 1972, Fishers launched the Gap label, becoming the first chain in retail history to use its store name as a brand name. The gap was a huge success and filed an IPO in 1973. They then bought Banana Republic, a small postal mail catalog business, two stores; and also set up the Old Navy that reached $ 1 billion in sales in four years. Fisher served as CEO until 1995, Chairman of the Board until 2004, and as company director and Chairman Emeritus until his death.
According to Forbes magazine, net worth is estimated at US $ 3.3 billion. Fisher is a Republican, active in San Francisco politics. He is a founding board member of the Presidio Trust (a public company running Presidio San Francisco), a post nominated by the President of the United States. She married Doris Feigenbaum, and had long been a member of the Emanu-El Congregation in San Francisco. All three of their sons continue to manage the business.
He was Vodafone's non-executive director from 1999-2000.
Maps Donald Fisher
Philanthropy
Fisher is active in several causes of public education, including a major contributor to the KIPP charter school - a national network of low-income, high-performing charter schools public: he is chairman of the supervisory board of the KIPP Foundation, a nonprofit center organization of the KIPP network. He is also a contributor to Teach For America, GreatSchools.net, and EdVoice, the state coalition of California and other business leaders who support educational reform. Fisher also served on the Board of Education of the State of California. Fisher and his family donated large sums of money to Princeton University in 2006, and Fisher Hall's dormitory at Princeton's new housing campus, Whitman College, was named for him. He has also donated to charter schools and museums in San Francisco, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and pay for common statues in San Francisco. In 2007, Fisher was honored as the Alumnus of the Year by the California Alumni Association at the University of California, Berkeley. He also contributed to many causes of the Jewish Bay Area, including the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and the Federation of Jewish Communities and the Eternal Fund based on S.F.
Art collection
Since establishing the Gap in 1969, Fisher and his wife Doris began collecting contemporary Western art. In 1993, the magazine ARTnews declared Fisher as one of the top ten art collectors in the world. The collection, which is largely housed at Gap headquarters in San Francisco, includes comprehensive work covering careers by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder and Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Chuck Close and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
On August 8, 2007, Fisher announced his plans to build a 100,000 square foot (9,300 m) museum in Presidio San Francisco, while named the Presidio Contemporary Art Museum, to accommodate it. art collection. The museum, if built, will be larger than the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). However, the plan led to widespread skepticism and even a direct antagonism among some historic preservationists in San Francisco.
In July 2009, Fisher announced that he and his wife abandoned their efforts to build a museum in Presidio San Francisco, stating "Doris and I will take the time to consider the future of our collection and other possible locations for a museum, which can include other sites in the Presidio and elsewhere. "In September 2009, Donald and Doris Fisher decided to forge a partnership with SFMOMA to showcase the collection.
Death
One day after the San Francisco Chronicle article on SFMOMA partnership, Chronicle reported that Fisher died of cancer at home on Sunday morning, September 27, 2009.
References
External links
- GAP Website
- Don Fisher Daily Telegraph obituary
- Gap Inc. Don Fisher's Biography
- KIPP Foundation
- Donald Fisher in the Search of the Mausoleum
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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