Bernard Osher, a patron of education and the arts, is well known as “the quiet philanthropist”. He created the Bernard Osher Foundation in 1977 that seeks to improve quality of life through support for higher education and the arts.
A native of Biddeford, Maine and a graduate of Bowdoin College, Osher has pursued a successful career in business, beginning with the management of his family’s hardware and plumbing supplies store in Maine and continuing with work at Oppenheimer & Company in New York before moving to California. There he became a founding director of World Savings, the second largest savings institution in the United States, which merged with Wachovia Corporation.
Having served on a number of philanthropic and non-profit boards, Osher is an active community leader in the San Francisco Bay Area, the recipient of several honorary degrees, a serious student of opera, and an ardent fly fisherman.