Herb Kohl, who ascended from Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighbourhood to become a defining Wisconsin figure in politics, athletics, and business, died on Wednesday at the age of 88, following a brief illness.
Kohl left his mark on the state and his time as a four-term senator, Milwaukee Bucks owner, and retail entrepreneur. He was a multi-millionaire with a common touch, able to connect with people from all backgrounds.
“Throughout his life, Herb Kohl always put people first—from his employees and their families to his customers and countless charitable organisations and efforts,” said JoAnne Anton, director of giving at Herb Kohl Philanthropies.
“Herb Kohl Way is more than simply a name for the boulevard in front of the Fiserv Forum. The Herb Kohl road exemplifies a legacy of humility, devotion, compromise, and kindness to the innumerable people he worked with, served, and assisted along the road. Those values will be carried forward through his Foundation.” More:Memories of Herb Kohl: Humility, humour, and compassion throughout a remarkable career.
Kohl’s prominent participation in Wisconsin’s political, business, and sporting culture earned him a distinct public presence in the state.
It was one that blended immense riches and influence with a very low-key, even bashful, demeanour.
Kohl’s boyhood buddy, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig, stated Wednesday that the community has lost a singular personality.
“He loved sports, especially Milwaukee and Wisconsin. I think his career is quite rare in this day and age.”
Kohl’s entry into electoral politics in 1988, at the age of 53, was based on his household name and goodwill established through the Kohl supermarkets and department shops, as well as his acquisition of Milwaukee’s NBA franchise. This move was widely regarded as saving the team from departing.
Opponents in his first run accused him of attempting to purchase a Senate seat. Kohl’s response, that his ability to finance his own candidature rendered him independent, came in the form of one of Wisconsin’s more effective
Memorable campaign slogans include “Nobody’s Senator But Yours.” Kohl’s four Senate victories, the latest three by landslide, give him possibly the most unbeatable electoral record in contemporary Wisconsin history. Kohl, unlike other political titans such as Bill Proxmire (his Democratic predecessor in the Senate) and former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, has never lost an election.Kohl, a native son of Wisconsin, was instrumental in turning the family-owned supermarket and department store enterprises into a long-running Wisconsin success story.
He was a member of the group that brought the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team here in 1970. In 1985, he purchased the Milwaukee Bucks to retain the franchise in his hometown.
Much has been published throughout the years about multimillionaire Kohl’s enormous fortune. The only time it was obvious was when he was making news by purchasing an NBA team or using his own money to run for political office.
Kohl was unavoidably described as a quiet, introverted, and reclusive man.
Friends and relatives believed that, despite his soft-spoken and self-effacing demeanour, he was a fierce competitor.
“How rich he was was never very important to him,” stated brother Sidney Kohl, during Herb Kohl’s 1988 Senate campaign.
“Making a profit was more like the score in the ball game,” he said afterwards. “It was winning.”
Kohl was frequently regarded as one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with a net worth estimated at $300 million in 1999, according to one examination of partial data. Son of Jewish immigrants.
Money was not part of his childhood. He was the son of Jewish immigrants: Mary from Russia and Max from Poland. His father began working at a Schlitz bottle-cap factory before opening a modest grocery store on East Lincoln and South Kinnickinnic Avenues in the late 1920s.
Herb was six years old in 1941, and his father ran a handful of stores. The family relocated to North 51st Blvd., just north of Burleigh, a west-side neighbourhood that became home.
“They came with zero,” Kohl subsequently stated.
Of his parents. “None of us ever thought we could get by on anything less than a full effort in life.”
Kohl attended Sherman Elementary and Washington High School before spending a lonely semester at the University of Michigan. He transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, reuniting with his childhood buddies.
Kohl received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He served in the United States Army for six months before joining the family business in 1959. There were then twelve Kohl’s supermarkets. The brothers Sidney and Allen were also active in the firm.
Kohl, whose first paying job was working as a bag boy for Kohl, learnt every facet of
business. Two decades later, thanks in large part to a smart Herb Kohl, the family firm had grown to 74 supermarkets, 12 of which were in Illinois. Its share of the greater Milwaukee grocery market increased from one-tenth to nearly half.
“We just beat the crap out of everyone. “We just did it,” Kohl stated in a 1988 political narrative. “The moment came and passed, and we simply beat them up. And we did it cleanly. Always conduct yourself ethically. We resembled the old (Green Bay) Packers. They did not cheat anyone. They just beat the crap out of everyone.”
Kohl visited 30 to 40 Kohl’s locations each week. He personally interviewed all full-time employees, from executives and managers to grocery clerks.
“He knew the families of the employees and the names of their husbands or wives,” said former employee Frank Spicuzza, speaking years later. “He would often say, ‘How’s your wife?’ and name her.”
As Kohl once said: “If your employees think you are a jerk, you can’t succeed.”
“My father was a person who had a very strong control over his ego and his needs,” Kohl once said. “He was a very driven man, but he was not a person who had the need to belittle people or fight with people or reduce them. He learned to control those impulses, which we all have, I think. He was a very controlled, disciplined person, and he was very influential on me in that respect.”
The family enterprise also included 10 department stores and 13 drug, beverage and bakery stores and substantial real estate.
Drastic change came in 1972 when the Kohl family received an offer too good to refuse, especially as warehouse operations began to claim a greater share of the local grocery market.They sold 80% of the business to a British tobacco firm for a reported $72 million to $80 million. Herb Kohl retained a financial interest, served as the chain’s chief executive officer until 1979 when the majority owners exercised their purchase option.
For Kohl, it was an abrupt and wrenching transition, not unlike a death or divorce. He later called it a “watershed in my own personal development.
It meant that he was “starting over.”
He began running the Herbert Kohl Investment Co., maintaining his low-key approach.
“I do fine,” he said. “I’m lucky enough to deal with some very intelligent people.”
Ownership of the Milwaukee Bucks
He found a chance for change with the 1985 purchase of the Milwaukee Bucks, liquidating some of his assets to cover a then-record price of nearly $20 million for an NBA franchise.
Kohl maintained ownership of the Bucks until he sold the team to New York hedge-fund investors Marc Lasry and Wes Edens in 2014 for $550 million. He simultaneously pledged $100 million to the construction of a new arena, which became Fiserv Forum next door to the previous home, the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
As part of the transaction, Edens and Lasry vowed to keep the franchise in Milwaukee and pledged their own $100 million to a new building.
The arena opened for the 2018-19 season, and the Bucks celebrated their first year in the new building with the best regular-season record in the NBA and the franchise’s first trip to the Eastern Conference finals since 2001.
“This is a major step forward in my goal in keeping the Bucks here,” Kohl said.
And in 2021, he witnessed the Bucks winning the NBA title, rode in the team’s championship parade, and later received a championship ring and a standing ovation from the crowd.
“I didn’t go into this to make money,” Kohl said when he first bought the team. “I just hope to break even. Money doesn’t motivate me. The pursuit of the almighty dollar? That’s not me.”
Instead, Kohl saw the team as an investment in Milwaukee, believing its loss would have been a psychological and economic disaster for a community struggling to recover from a recession and other adversities.
“Milwaukee has been very, very good to me and to my family, for many, many years,” Kohl said. “I like it and I’m comfortable here. Whenever I return, I feel like I’m home.”
Did he meddle with the team, as Don Nelson had said in 1987? As owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, Kohl wasn’t afraid to spend money or to make hard choices. In 2003, he traded Ray Allen, Sam Cassell and Glenn Robinson, then sent high-paid George Karl packing.
He also nearly sold the team to former NBA superstar Michael Jordan that year but elected to keep his total ownership, and he held it for another decade. The Bucks made the playoffs five times during Kohl’s ownership tenure after the 2001 run, but none of those teams made it out of the opening round of the playoffs, and the franchise appeared to have stagnated.
“I wasn’t going to live forever,” Kohl said after the sale. “I approached a time in life when I had to think about approaching the idea of succession and then it was brought to a head the need for a new building and the fact that this is a project over several years. It doesn’t get done in a short time. It came to me and it was very clear that the owners of the team over the next period of years should have a central role in the project. Not me, but them.”
Before he took ownership, Kohl was involved in earlier unsuccessful efforts to bring the National Basketball Association to the city. He turned down the chance to buy the new Milwaukee Bucks franchise for $2 million in 1968, and businessmen Marvin Fishman and Wes Pavalon bought it instead.
“Milwaukee didn’t need me then,” Kohl said in 1985. “I think maybe Milwaukee needs me now.”
The quiet businessman — who had flown pretty much under the radar for most of his life — was suddenly in the civic spotlight. Exceptions to that were rare.
Active in Jewish causes, Kohl served as general chairman of the 1971 United Way campaign in the Milwaukee area, then known as the United Fund. When the campaign fell short of its goal, Kohl wrote a check to cover the remaining $25,000 shortfall.
Kohl served as state Democratic Party chairman from 1975 to 1977. He began the HHK Foundation for Contemporary Art in 1977, acquiring about 50 pieces from nationally recognized artists.
Some were donated to the Milwaukee Art Museum and other museums; others were sold to benefit the foundation’s work, which came to be directed toward social issues. In 1970, Kohl was also part of a group of investors that brought the Seattle Pilots baseball team to Wisconsin to become the Milwaukee Brewers.
Herb Kohl’s life in politics
Then came politics in 1988.
Kohl had flirted with a Senate run two years earlier but decided against it. This time, with the incumbent Democrat William Proxmire announcing he would retire, Kohl jumped into the race. And he faced a strong challenge, beginning with the Democratic primary, where he defeated former Gov. Tony Earl, attorney Ed Garvey and Secretary of State Doug La Follette.
His political promises were simple and often heartfelt.
“I promise if I am elected, I will work my heart out for you, each and every day,” Kohl declared.
Campaigning before a small group of senior citizens in Superior, his gaze was intense but his words were gentle. ”I give you my love … and I hope you’ll consider me this November,” he said.
Voters did. Kohl defeated Republican Susan Engeleiter, with about a 100,000 vote margin.
If a multimillionaire could be a man of the people, Kohl was that man. He liked to eat at Benjamin’s on Oakland Ave. in Shorewood or at a George Webb restaurant. His luxury apartment commanded a view of Lake Michigan and Prospect Ave., but was basically a convenient, private place to live. He usually rose before dawn, going to swim each morning.
An admirer of President John F. Kennedy, Kohl voiced support for improving educational opportunities, especially for the poor. He pushed for cuts in defense spending; establishing a national child care training and financial aid program; imposing trade sanctions on countries that allow illegal drug trade to flourish; reforming political campaign funding; and hiking federal income taxes for the very rich.
Despite all of the above, he bristled at being labeled a liberal.
“I’m running as a businessman,” he said. “I’m a person who hasn’t spent a nickel until he made a nickel.”
Kohl often laid low, staying uncommitted on major issues in the interest of further study and political effectiveness.
“I’d like to keep my mind open so I can make the best decision without pre-committing,” he said during the 1994 Senate race.
“I might have my own personal opinions,” he then said. “When I was in business I could have my opinions and make the decision and move it forward. But that’s not where I am today. I’m in a legislative body, and you must never get caught in positions that are too rigid because then you’re in a situation where you are ineffective.”
Kohl served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, advocating for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Diane S. Sykes to be confirmed in 2004 to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Kohl’s foundation noted during his 24-year political career, the senator defended “America’s Dairyland” and the state’s business interests, while also pushing key nutrition, health and safety legislation. On education, he sponsored legislation that served as a model for the No Child Left Behind Act.
His Senate office was also renowned for its service to constituents.
Over the years, Kohl also made substantial donations, including $25 million to the Kohl Center Arena at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Announced in 1995, It was then the largest single donation in UW history.
The Herb Kohl Educational Foundation, founded in 1990, has provided more than $34 million in grants and scholarships to Wisconsin students, teachers and schools.
“The more you give, the richer you get,” he once said. “That’s God’s way of taking care of things.”
In 1976, Kohl built a private dude ranch for himself in Red Hills, Wyoming. A few years earlier, he had visited a friend in Wyoming. He learned to ride horses and fell in love with the magnificent setting.
The ranch became a retreat, including for his circle of friends nicknamed the “Gang of 12.” He once called basketball coach and legend Al McGuire his best friend.
At one point, he owned one-third of all the privately owned land in the Gros Ventre Valley south of Grand Teton National Park.
In 1983, in the first such land swap, Kohl agreed to limit development on 1,200 picturesque acres in Wyoming in exchange for the ability to develop adjacent land. He sought to protect the land for environmental grounds. He also sought a fair price for doing so.
Kohl was always focused on creating value and improving the status quo.
During the 1988 campaign, David Axelrod, a friend and Chicago political consultant, stated, “I believe he wants to be remembered for more than just saving the Bucks and building a big business.”
“I think he’s tired of that,” he remarked. “I mean, how many millions can you make?”
“Life is change,” Kohl explained. “I look forward to the challenge.”
Kohl’s life revolved around only one thing That never altered.
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