Ken Behring obit

Former Seahawks Owner Ken Behring Passes Away At 91

Ken Behring, who owned the Seahawks from 1988 to 1997, passed away on Tuesday.

 

He was not on the list.

Ken Behring, the owner of the Seahawks for nearly a decade, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91.

"We are saddened by the loss of former Seahawks owner Ken Behring," the team said in a statement. "We send our heartfelt condolences to Mr. Behring's family and friends."

Behring bought the team from the Nordstrom family in 1988, later selling the Seahawks to Paul Allen in 1997. In 1995, Behring established the Seattle Seahawks Charitable Foundation to promote the healthy, social, emotional, intellectual and physical development of youth by enhancing opportunities for participation in sports and fitness activities.

After selling the Seahawks, Behring established the Wheelchair Foundation, committing $15 million to the cause in 2000, and he traveled the world to deliver wheelchairs to disabled people on five continents.

Born in Freeport, Illinois, Behring was the son of Mae (Priewe) and Elmer Behring. When he was four, his family moved to Monroe, Wisconsin, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Freeport. He grew up in poverty; his father worked in a lumber yard making 25 cents an hour, and his mother cleaned houses. Behring started working a variety of jobs around town starting at age seven: mowing lawns, caddying, transporting milk, selling newspapers, working at a grocery store, and at a lumberyard. He became a salesperson at Montgomery Ward at age 16, and started a side business selling sporting goods in town while attending Monroe High School.

A high school football player, he received a partial football scholarship to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but dropped out of college due to an injury that left him unable to play football, and therefore ineligible for his scholarship.

Out of college, Behring, a car buff, worked as a salesperson at a Chevrolet and Chrysler auto dealership. At age 21, he started Behring Motors, a used car business in Monroe. A savvy businessman, he was earning $50,000 a year and had $1 million in assets by age 27.

Behring moved from Wisconsin to Florida in 1956 and started the Behring Construction Company in Fort Lauderdale. He became a land developer, founding Tamarac Lakes, a new active-adult (which later became all-age) community in 1962. It was built on an area that was formerly wetlands, pastures, and fields. The new development was incorporated as Tamarac, Florida on July 25, 1963. Behring's company eventually became the largest builder of single-family homes in Florida, and the tenth largest in the United States.

In 1972, Behring moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was involved in developing the country club at Blackhawk, California, and later, the Canyon Lakes Development in San Ramon, California.

In 1988, Behring and partner Ken Hofmann purchased the NFL's Seattle Seahawks football team from the Nordstrom family for $80 million. After the 1995 season, they transferred the team's operations to Anaheim, California, a widely criticized move, although the team continued to play in Seattle at the Kingdome. The team was sold to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 1997 for $200 million.

Behring has been listed several times on the annual Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, including 1991, 1995, and 1997. In 1997, his last year on the list, he ranked #395, with an estimated net worth of $495 million. He has since been described in the press as a billionaire.

In 2004, Behring published a memoir called Road to Purpose: One Man's Journey Bringing Hope to Millions and Finding Purpose Along the Way. In 2013, he published a revised edition of the memoir titled The Road to Leadership: Finding a Life of Purpose. In his memoir, Behring describes himself as an "average man who achieved extraordinary material success doing a few simple things" who later discovered the "true foundation of joy" was finding purpose and causes worth fighting for.

Behring was a former president of Safari Club International and was at one time its largest donor. He has made multiple safari trips to East Africa, and has shot lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, an elephant, and an endangered bighorn sheep. He has been criticized for his trophy hunting practices and animal conservation ethics.

In 1997, Behring shot an endangered Kara Tau argali sheep in Kazakhstan (only 100 remained in the world at the time). He claimed he had permits to shoot the sheep and had Russian scientists in his hunting party; he was issued export permits two days before the enactment of a prior international decision to move Kara Tau argali to the most-endangered status Per American law, the remains of the endangered animal could not be legally imported into the United States. Behring donated $20 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History six weeks later, offering his private collection of stuffed hunting trophies to the museum, including four rare bighorn sheep, one of which was the Kara Tau argali sheep. The Smithsonian attempted to import the remains by petitioning the Department of the Interior for an Endangered Species Act waiver, but withdrew its request after questioning and negative publicity from Representative George Miller and groups like the Humane Society of the United States. Behring maintained that he had broken no laws, and had shot the animal legally while assisting Kazakh scientists. The National Museum of Natural History subsequently reevaluated their acquisitions policies in light of the charges.

In 1998, Behring shot and killed an elephant in Mozambique, where the sport killing of elephants was banned in 1990. His hunting companions, the then past and current presidents of Safari Club International, killed two more elephants. Mozambican wildlife officials believed that the group had come "to survey investment opportunities" in Cabo Delgado Province. The group was given a permit by the governor to shoot a lion, a leopard and a buffalo; a local wildlife official also added a note referring to "problem elephants," the only exception to the national ban on the killing of elephants.