Levi Strauss heir, Peter Haas, dies

A great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, Haas continued the tradition of the jeans pioneer, teaming up with his older brother, Walter A. Haas Jr., to transform the small maker of Western apparel into one of the world’s most famous clothing brands during his 60-year career with the company.

"Throughout his career and in his personal life, my uncle Peter distinguished himself with his strong values and generosity,” Levi Strauss board chairman Robert D. Haas said in a statement Sunday. "His business accomplishments are a testament to his belief that you can both operate a successful company and have a positive impact on the community.”

As president of the company, Haas was a strong proponent of corporate social responsibility and worked toward racial desegregation of apparel factories during the late 1940s and 1950s. When the company sought to expand its operations to the South, Haas told local officials that Levi Strauss would only open manufacturing plants there if blacks were granted equal status with whites in the factories.

His work in equal opportunity led to his appointment to San Francisco’s Fair Employment Practices Commission — the state’s first — by former Mayor George Christopher.

"What I learned from Peter is you can win without compromising your integrity, self-respect and the things you most believe in,” San Francisco businessman and philanthropist Warren Hellman, a lifelong friend of Haas, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Born in 1918, Haas was the second of three children of Elise Stern Haas and Walter A. Haas Sr., who like his father and great-uncle before him, was president of Levi Strauss.

A young Peter Haas initially resisted joined the family business, dreaming instead of becoming an engineer. He pursued that passion for two years at the University of California, Berkeley, before switching his major and graduating with an economics degree in 1940.

Rejected from the military during World War II because of poor eyesight, Haas instead entered Harvard Business School. After graduating in 1943, he worked for a defense contractor, Hammond Aircraft, where he met his first wife, Josephine Baum.

The couple married in 1945, the same year Haas returned to the family business.

Haas and his brother, Walter, took over Levi Strauss in 1958. Five year earlier, Time magazine had named the brothers "Leaders of Tomorrow.”

Under their leadership, Levi Strauss capitalized on post-war demographic changes, marketing an extended line of blue jeans to young people.

By 1971, when the company went public, Levi Strauss had nearly 20,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $405 million. The company has since gone private again.

Also a well-known philanthropist, Haas was active in the United Way, and he and his second wife, Miriam, gave millions to support the arts, public policy programs and health and human services.

Haas also served as president of San Francisco Aid for Retarded Children, a group that was close to his heart as a parent of a developmentally disabled son.

Haas, an active alumnus of UC Berkeley, was an avid donor and fundraiser for the school. In 1989, he and his siblings gave $27 million to name the Haas School of Business in honor of their late father, who also graduated from the university.

"Each succeeding generation of the family has been enormously supportive of Cal, but none more generous — in spirit and in practice — than Peter,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau said in a statement. "His genuine humility, his pervasive concern for others, and his determination to improve the world were central to who he was.”

Despite a stroke that kept him in a wheelchair in his later years, Haas remained active in his family’s philanthropic efforts.

Haas is survived by his second wife, Miriam; two stepsons, Ari Lurie and Daniel Lurie; and three children from his first marriage, Peter Haas Jr., Michael Haas and Margaret Haas.

A memorial service was scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. The family planned a private interment.