Chicago businessman James Crown, who recently pledged to address violent crime in Chicago by enlisting fellow CEOs to join him in a massive jobs program, died Sunday in a crash while driving on a racetrack outside Aspen, Colo.
Mr. Crown, 70, was chairman and chief executive officer of his family business, Henry Crown & Co. in Chicago, and managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co.
On Sunday, his 70th birthday, Mr. Crown was at Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colo.
“He was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve,” said his father, billionaire financier Lester Crown.
The Pitkin County, Colo., coroner’s office, said James Crown’s death was an accident. Though it hasn’t finalized its report, pending an autopsy, the coroner’s office said Mr. Crown suffered multiple blunt force trauma.
“He was the leader of our family both intellectually and emotionally, and he looked out for everybody,” Lester Crown said. “He also was a great leader also for the community. It’s just a heartfelt loss. There are no words that can express it.”
Just weeks ago, James Crown, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, announced that he and other Chicago corporate leaders were committed to finding jobs for as many as 10,000 young men from high-crime areas of the city.
Mr. Crown, who headed a Commercial Club task force on public safety, set an ambitious goal of reducing the number of killings in Chicago to fewer than 400 a year within five years. Last year, there were 695 killings in the city.
“People are really hoping that we can get traction here,” Mr. Crown said in a May 31 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “But it’s gonna take a lot of years before we can look back on this and say that we really had a lasting impact.”
“Jim embodied the very best qualities of Chicago’s business and civic leadership: generous, wise, thoughtful and committed,” the Commercial Club said in a written statement.
Lester Crown said his son’s civic-mindedness was something he came to on his own.
“An adult becomes their own person when they become an adult, and he had civic pride, but basically he loved to take care and do things for people,” he said. “He had no bias and very little ego. Just a remarkable, remarkable human.”
James Crown, who also was a director of General Dynamics and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — was one of the wealthiest men in Chicago. His family was ranked 34th-richest in America by Forbes in 2020, which estimated the Crown family fortune totaled $10.2 billion.
“One thing people who knew Jim well would say about him, which puts him in a rare category, in my experience, is that he was super-smart, really low-key and really down to earth and gentle,” his friend Christie Hefner said. “He wore his success and his power lightly.”
Hefner said his effort to reduce violence in the city is a “great example of who he was as a person, in terms of a deep feeling of responsibility to Chicago. It’s so easy to sit on the sidelines and be critical.”
Mr. Crown was one of President Barack Obama’s key Chicago fundraisers ahead of his first run for president, chairing Obama’s Illinois finance committee.
Mr. Crown lived in Chicago and was a part-time Aspen resident.
“It’s just sad for the city and leaves a gaping hole for me and so many others,” said Penny Pritzker, a friend who was commerce secretary under Obama.
Pritzker recruited Mr. Crown to help lead Obama’s fundraising efforts.
“When asked to help, he never said no,” she said.
Mr. Crown has played host to the Obama family in Aspen. ad for years hosted a mountaintop Fourth of July party there at which high-powered guests, after riding a gondola up to the festivities, would find such Chicago staples as hot dogs, pizza and Eli’s cheesecake, friends said.
“He also hosted a father-daughter ski outing,” Prizker said. “You can imagine the chaos of that, and yet he was just right there in the middle with all these dads and little kids.
“He took the most joy from his immediate family and doing activities together,” she said. “They were together more often than not, in a wonderful way.”
Born in Chicago, he got a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1976 from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1980.
He then worked for Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York City before returning to Chicago in 1985 to work for his family’s investment firm.
Mr. Crown’s survivors include his wife Paula, children Torie, Hayley, W. Andrew and Summer Crown, his parents Lester and Renée Crown, grandchildren Jackson and Lucas McKinney and six siblings.
Lester Crown said a memorial service is being planned.
