Gap founder dies

The San Francisco Business Times reports: Don Fisher, who founded the Gap 40 years ago and built it into a worldwide retailing powerhouse, died Sunday. He was 81.

The company, announcing his death, said it came “after a long and heroic battle with cancer.”

Fisher, a third-generation San Franciscan and lifelong resident of San Francisco, was also well known in the community for his philanthropic activities.

Fisher, then working in real estate, had founded Gap Inc. as a single jeans and music store on San Francisco's Ocean Avenue on Aug. 21, 1969. Given the times, its name was short for “generation gap.”

Over the next four decades, the Gap expanded across the country and around the world, spinning off such subsidiary concepts as Old Navy and Banana Republic and, more recently, Piperlime and Athleta. It posted sales of $14.5 billion last year and operates 3,100 stores in 25 countries.

Fisher served as chairman and CEO of Gap since its inception, giving up the CEO title in 1995 and relinquishing the chairmanship in 2004.

“My father was an inspiration to many people both in his dedication to his business and through his enthusiasm and commitment to philanthropic efforts,” said Bob Fisher, who served as Gap Inc.’s Chairman of the Board from 2004 to 2007.

Fisher’s community and civic involvement in San Francisco was wide, deep and longstanding. He served on the Boards of Trustees of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and just last week concluded an agreement to house his large personal collection of contemporary art there.

He and his wife have also provided $100 million to educational causes. In 2000, they created the Knowledge is Power Program, a national network of college-preparatory public charter schools. KIPP has since grown to 80 schools and 20,000. They were also contributors to Teach for America, which sends recent college graduates into underserved schools.

Fisher was a leading figure in the Committee on Jobs, a San Francisco business advocacy organization, and served on advisory boards at graduate business schools at both UC Berkeley and Stanford and on the board of trustees at Princeton University. For the last few years he had also served as a director of the Charles Schwab Corp.

“Don’s contributions to public education, particularly for underserved communities, cannot be overestimated,” said KIPP Foundation CEO Richard Barth. “He used what he learned in growing Gap Inc. to show us what we could do in public education, and tens of thousands of children have benefited from his commitment and generosity.”

Fisher grew up in San Francisco’s Seacliff neighborhood and attended Lowell High School and UC Berkeley. He is survived by his wife, three sons and 10 grandchildren.