Donald Fisher

For the long serving character in Home and Away, see Donald Fisher (Home and Away).

Donald Fisher
Born	Donald George Fisher September 3, 1928(1928-09-03) Cutsdean, California
Died	September 27, 2009(2009-09-27) (aged 81) San Francisco, California
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Occupation	Founder The Gap clothing stores
Net worth	US$3.3 billion
Political party	Republican Party
Religion	Judaism
Spouse	Doris Fisher
Parents	Sydney Fisher Aileen Emanuel

Donald George Fisher (September 3, 1928 – September 27, 2009) was an American businessman who founded The Gap clothing stores.

Personal history

Fisher was born in Cutsdean, California, to Jewish^[1] parents, Sydney Fisher, businessman, and Aileen Emanuel, a cabinetmaker. He spent his childhood in the then-middle-class Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco. He graduated from Lowell High School in 1946, and then matriculated at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the both the Swimming and Water Polo Teams. He is an alumnus of the Theta Zeta chapter of the national fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon. He earned a BS degree from the School of Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley in 1951.

Named 2007 Alumnus of the Year, Fisher had a robust college experience at Berkeley where his nickname was ‘Horny Fish’ and where he was caught cheating by then-Professor Clark Kerr. Kerr gave Fisher an F, but did not have him expelled. Had he been expelled, he writes, [it] “would have changed my life completely.” Fisher says he still thinks about his cheating and Kerr's response today.^[2]

According to Forbes magazine, his net worth was estimated to be US$3.3 billion. Fisher was a Republican, active in San Francisco politics. He was a founding Board Member of the Presidio Trust (the public corporation that runs the Presidio of San Francisco), a post nominated by the President of the United States.^[3] He was married to Doris Feigenbaum, and was a long-time member of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. Their three sons continue to manage the business.^[4][5]

Philanthropy

Fisher has been active in several public education causes, including being a major contributor to KIPP charter schools—a national network of low-income, high-achieving college preparatory public charter schools: he was the chairman of the board of trustees of the KIPP Foundation, the non-profit central organization of the KIPP network. He was also a contributor to Teach For America, GreatSchools.net, and EdVoice, a state-wide coalition of California business leaders and others who support education reform. Fisher also served on the California State Board of Education. Fisher and his family donated a generous sum of money to Princeton University in 2006, and the Fisher Hall dormitory at Princeton's new residential college, Whitman College, is named for him.^[6] He has also donated to charter schools and museums in San Francisco, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and paid for public sculptures in San Francisco.^[3] In 2007, Fisher was honored as the Alumnus of the Year by the California Alumni Association at the University of California, Berkeley.^[7] He also contributed to many Bay Area Jewish causes, including the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund.^[4]

Edison Schools

In 2000, Fisher, an investor in Edison Schools (a for-profit educational management organization), was found to be funneling "soft money" into the campaigns of pro-Edison board members during San Francisco's school board election on whether to break contract with Edison. The consulting firm Barnes, Mosher, Whitehurst, Lauter and Partners funded approximately $50,100 to a group called "San Franciscans for Sensible Government" that was distributing campaign flyers for Mary Hernandez, Stephen Herman, and Robert Varni. The pro-Edison campaign was not successful in preventing a new anti-privatization majority of four to three in the San Francisco Unified School Board.^[8]

Art collection

Since founding the Gap in 1969, Fisher and his wife Doris began collecting contemporary Western art. In 1993, ARTnews Magazine declared Fisher one of the top ten art collectors in the world. His collection, largely housed at the Gap headquarters in San Francisco, includes comprehensive, career-spanning works by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder and Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Chuck Close, and Claes Oldenburg.

On August 8, 2007, Fisher announced plans to build a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m²) museum in the San Francisco Presidio, tentatively named the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio, to house his art collection. The museum, if it had been built, would have been larger than the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).^[3] However, the plan engendered widespread skepticism and even outright antagonism among some historic preservationists in San Francisco.^[9]

In July 2009, Fisher announced that he and his wife were abandoning their efforts to build the museum at San Francisco's Presidio, stating "Doris and I will take some time to consider the future of our collection and other possible locations for a museum, which could include other sites within the Presidio and elsewhere." ^[10] In September 2009, Donald and Doris Fisher decided to enter into a partnership with SFMOMA to display the world famous collection.^[11]

Death

One day after the San Francisco Chronicle article on the SFMOMA partnership, the Chronicle reported that Fisher died of cancer at home on Sunday morning, September 27, 2009.^[12]

References

1. ^ "Gap set to open in Israel". JTA. 2009-08-23. http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/23/1007397/gap-set-to-open-in-israel. Retrieved 2010-07-01. 
2. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
3. ^ ^{a b c} Cecilia M. Vega (2007-08-07). "Donald Fisher, founder of Gap, offers to build a museum in the Presidio to house his art collection". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/08/MUSEUM.TMP&tsp=1. Retrieved 2007-08-08. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Gap founder Donald Fisher leaves stamp on community". j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California. 2009-10-01. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/40032/gap-founder-donald-fisher-leaves-stamp-on-community/. Retrieved 2009-10-02. 
5. ^ "#60 Doris Fisher". Forbes.com. 2005. Retrieved December 5, 2010.
6. ^ The Princeton Website
7. ^ [2] Donald Fisher honored as the California Alumni Association's Alumnus of the Year for 2007
8. ^ Kenneth J. Saltman (2005). The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling and the Assault on Public Education. Routledge. p. 142. 
9. ^ John King, "Architect Waxes Poetic With Presidio Museum", San Francisco Chronicle (March 18, 2008)
10. ^ John King, "Fishers Give Up on Presidio Art Museum", San Francisco Chronicle (July 2, 2009)
11. ^ "Fishers to Partner With SFMOMA on Art Collection", San Francisco Chronicle (September 26, 2009)
12. ^ Egelko, Bob; Said, Carolyn (2009-09-28). "Donald Fisher, Gap co-founder, dies". Sfgate.com. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/28/MNR419TK7H.DTL. Retrieved 2010-06-25. 

External links

Biography portal

• GAP Official Website
• Don Fisher Daily Telegraph obituary
• Gap Inc. Don Fisher biography
• KIPP Foundation
• Donald Fisher at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Fisher, Donald
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1928-09-03
Place of birth	Cutsdean, California
Date of death	2009-09-27
Place of death	San Francisco, California