Herb Kohl, a longtime Democratic senator from Wisconsin and former owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, has died, his philanthropic organization announced Wednesday. He was 88.
The organization, Herb Kohl Philanthropies, did not list a cause of death but reported that he passed after suffering from a brief illness.
A popular figure across his native Wisconsin, he built a fortune running Kohl’s department store alongside his brother and father, who founded the company. He went on to become president and CEO before staking a then-staggering sum of nearly $20 million on the Bucks in 1985 to keep them from leaving town, a record at the time for an NBA franchise.
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Though it would later turn out to be a great investment, he said at the time that he saw the transaction as an investment in the larger community of Milwaukee, which was struggling to find its footing amid a recession and shifting business climate due to deindustrialization.
“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.”
It was an attitude he would carry while launching a career in politics just three years later, winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1988 with his catchphrase: “Nobody’s Senator But Yours.”
He was one of the wealthiest members of the Senate during his 24-year tenure, and was lauded by members on both sides of the aisle for his moderate voting record and humble—even shy—demeanor.
Kohl, who never married, famously shunned the spotlight—despite his place in a body often built on attention-seeking behavior.
“I am a person who does not believe in invective,” he once said, according to the Associated Press. “I never go out and look to grab the mic or go in front of the TV camera. When I go to work everyday, I check my ego at the door.”
During his more than two decades in the chamber, Kohl often quietly championed home-state issues—like dairy farming—and later served as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
He announced that he would not run for re-election in 2012 at the age of 76, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time, “The office doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the people of Wisconsin, and there is something to be said for not staying in office too long.”
“I’ve always believed that it is better to leave a job too early than a little too late, and that’s how I feel today.”
