Robert Bradley Haas, September 28, 2021
Update, October 18th — NY Times profile: Robert Haas, Financier and Aerial Photographer, Dies at 74
Orginal, October 8th, from Wall Street Journal
Robert B. Haas, who has died at age 74, made a killing in soft drinks and then sought wilder adventures in aerial photography and motorcycling.
In the 1980s, Robert B. Haas got rich way faster than he expected. With his private equity partner, Thomas Hicks, he combined soft drink brands Dr Pepper and 7UP into one company, then sold it in 1988, taking huge profits before the market for leveraged buyouts overheated.
“Timing is very important,” Mr. Haas told the Dallas Morning News later. “Blind luck is also good.”
The windfall created a challenge for Mr. Haas, a Harvard-trained lawyer who had reinvented himself as an investor: “I’m 41 years old and I’m where I thought I might be when I was 71, times 10,” he said in “Leaving Tracks,” a self-produced documentary about his life. “What do I do now?”
His answer was to spend less time making money and more time lavishing it on aerial photography, motorcycle riding and the founding of a Dallas museum featuring custom-made motorcycles.
Mr. Haas, who followed a vigorous exercise routine and survived a Covid-19 infection last year, died Sept. 28 at the age of 74. One of his daughters, Vanessa Hood, said his doctor described the cause of death as a heart attack.
Mr. Haas knew almost nothing about photography in 1994 when a friend suggested he try a photo safari in Africa. He bought a camera, learned to use it by watching professionals and discovered aerial photography in a helicopter. Though he was afraid of heights, Mr. Haas willed himself to strap on leather harnesses and lean out of helicopter doors to take pictures of landscapes and wildlife.
His images of glaciers, volcanoes, sand dunes and stampeding beasts were collected in several National Geographic books. Mr. Haas donated proceeds from the books to charities, including ones supporting endangered species.
“From above,” he said in a 2009 lecture, “the world looks very spiritual and magnificent.” When he came down, he added, “reality smacks me in the face.”
Though he had a poor sense of balance, Mr. Haas took up motorcycle riding at age 64. On long, lonely highway trips, he rode Harley-Davidson bikes with sidecars. A third wheel, he figured, would provide more stability.
Though he wore a leather jacket with a “Lone Wolf” patch, Mr. Haas craved the camaraderie he saw among biker clubs. He began traveling with a motorcycle club for veterans of the Vietnam War and more recent conflicts, who welcomed him even though he hadn’t served in the military. Mr. Haas relished the sense of brotherhood he found among those bikers, who nicknamed him Shakespeare because he introduced himself as a writer. His 2015 book, “Shakespeare and the Brothers,” recounts those adventures.
He also collected more than 230 motorcycles and became a patron of designers of custom motorcycles by financing their work and encouraging them to push beyond their comfort zones. Those motorcycles are now displayed at the Haas Moto Museum in Dallas.
The museum charges modest admission fees, but Mr. Haas knew it would be a drain on his finances. “Hanging out of helicopters and working with National Geographic for 10 years was my previous trip to Insanity Land,” he said. “This is my current trip.”
Robert Bradley Haas, known as Bobby, was born June 12, 1947, and grew up in suburban Cleveland. His father, Melville Haas, helped run a family-owned automobile dealership. Bobby Haas was a competitive swimmer. As a teenager, after concluding that his father was overly tough and authoritarian, he bolted from the family home and moved into a rooming house. He was estranged from his father for decades before reconciling with him.
While studying psychology at Yale University, he met Candice Goldfarb, a student at Ohio State University. He proposed within six weeks and they married in 1969. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972. While working as a lawyer in Cleveland, he drifted into venture capital investments. His early results were disastrous, he said later, partly because Cleveland “was not exactly a hotbed of creativity in finance.” His performance improved markedly after he moved to Dallas and teamed up with Mr. Hicks to form Hicks & Haas.
The firm’s other investments included A&W Brands and a maker of welding equipment. “We arrange the capital and enable management to perform its magic,” Mr. Haas told The Wall Street Journal in 1988.
His marriage ended in divorce in 2017. He is survived by a romantic partner, Stacey Mayfield, director of the motorcycle museum, along with a sister, a brother, three daughters and four grandchildren. He was devoted to rescue dogs and wrote a book about one of them.
His philanthropic priorities included Yale, Harvard and the Temple Emanu-El Dallas.
“If you only live once,” he wrote in his book about biker brotherhood, “you might as well live a few lives.”
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Appeared in the October 9, 2021, print edition as ‘Investor Reinvented Himself as Daredevil.’