Former U.S. senator and Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl died Wednesday after a “brief illness.” He was 88.
His death was announced by Herb Kohl Philanthropies.
“Throughout his life, Herb Kohl always put people first — from his employees and their families to his customers and countless charitable organizations and efforts,” Herb Kohl Philanthropies director of giving JoAnne Anton told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Herb Kohl Way isn’t just the name of a street in front of the Fiserv Forum. The Herb Kohl Way perfectly sums up a legacy of humility, commitment, compromise, and kindness to countless people he worked with, served and helped along the way. Those values will live on through his Foundation.”
Kohl grew up in Milwaukee, the son of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants.
“They came with zero,” Kohl said of his parents, according to the Journal-Sentinel. “None of us ever thought we could get by on anything less than a full effort in life.”
His father, Maxwell Kohl, founded Kohl’s Food Stores in 1946.
The supermarkets expanded across the Milwaukee area and ultimately yielded the first Kohl’s department store in 1962.
As the company continued to grow, Herb became president in 1970.
In 1972, when Kohl’s included 50 supermarkets and six department stores, the company was sold to British American Tobacco, and Herb stayed on in management through 1979.
Kohl served as a Democratic U.S. senator from 1989 through 2013, winning four elected terms before stepping aside.
He bought the Milwaukee Bucks for $18 million in 1985 from John Fitzgerald and sold the franchise in 2014 to New York financiers, Wes Edens and Marc Lasry, for $550 million (fellow New York financier James Dinan bought into the team later that year, and Lasry sold his stake in the team to Browns owner Jimmy Haslam earlier this year.)
Kohl was adamant about the team remaining in Milwaukee, rebuffing an offer from NBA legend Michael Jordan — who would go on to buy and later sell the Charlotte Hornets — and even kicked in $100 million for the construction of the team’s new arena, the Fiserv Forum, after he had sold the team.
In the 1990s, Kohl also donated $25 million for the construction of the Kohl Center, which hosts the Badger basketball and hockey teams at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“His humility was notable — for a man who certainly could have afforded the greatest luxury — it was not unusual to find him at a table in a downtown café,” Milwaukee mayor Cavalier Johnson said at a press conference Wednesday night.
“He did not put on any pretense of importance or snobbery. He was always Herb.”
Johnson added that Kohl “will be remembered for his friendliness and generosity” and included an important emphasis for the city’s die-hard sports fans: “Oh, yes, he saved the Bucks team for Milwaukee.”
