He has also held non-profit positions; at one point he was Chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of California.
With the Dalai Lama among his influential friends, Mr. Blum became interested in South Asia as a home of Buddhist philosophy, a recipient of charitable aid, and a place of adventure: he once led an expedition to part of Mount Everest.
In a message of condolence, Mr. Biden called Mr. Blum “a successful businessman and a proud son of California who has dedicated much of his public life to fighting poverty around the world” via creation of the American Himalayan Foundationa non-profit group that builds schools and hospitals in Tibet; and the UC Berkeley Bloom Center for Emerging Economies, which is dedicated to innovative solutions to global poverty.
Richard Charles Blume was born July 31, 1935 in San Francisco to Louise Hirsch and Herbert Blume, robe and raincoat merchants who died in Richard’s childhood. Richard graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree and an MBA.
He joined Sutro & Company, a San Francisco brokerage firm, at 23 and became a partner before he was 30, by which time he was already a millionaire.
In addition to Ms. Feinstein, Mr. Blum is survived by a brother, Robert; his daughters Annette, Heidi and Eileen; his stepdaughter Katherine; and seven grandchildren.
During Ms. Feinstein’s race for governor of California in 1990, Mr. Blum described in The New York Times what he called a “political triathlon”.
“No. 1,” he said, “we regularly see in the papers everything that she has ever done and what I have ever done in a distorted way. No. 2, we can share our tax returns for 17 years on an intimate basis with 30 million people. And third, I’m paying to watch it all happen.”
Sean Hubler and Kitty Bennett provided reporting.