On March 15, 2025, Jack Birnbaum passed away peacefully, at the age of 99.
Born to Jewish immigrants of Central European descent, Jack was the eldest of three siblings. Along with his brother and sister, he was raised in New York, with Brooklyn and the Bronx his homes. Like so many others of his time, Jack’s life was turned upside down by the Great Depression. Gone was his father’s job; then, the family’s small, mortgaged house, and finally, the means to survive without government subsistence. Though the Great Depression came and went, its impact on Jack lasted a lifetime. He always looked for ways to economize and prioritized experiences, relationships, and personal growth over accumulating possessions.
In his youth, Jack developed into a responsible, caring, resilient young man, who was devoted to family, industrious, and wise beyond his years. He had a pleasant relationship with his brother and sister, which was fortunate since they all shared a small bedroom. Jack frequently cared for his siblings and spent his own money to take them to the movies, the circus, and other venues. Accompanied by his brother, Jack went on what he called his “rounds,” selling roasted pumpkin seeds—for a penny per two whiskey shot glasses worth of seeds—to people seated in the Southern Boulevard median, in the Bronx. On a very small investment of only two pennies per pound of seeds, Jack was able to make a couple of dollars on weekends and over the summer school breaks.
Despite moving from apartment to apartment, attending many schools in his grade-school years, Jack achieved above-average grades. In fact, being a pretty good student, he graduated high school at the age of 16, having readied himself for college by taking high school courses that would prepare him for a career in engineering. It was not to be, though, as Jack’s father had him visit his nephew, a successful accountant, with both convincing him that, not withstanding larger companies needing engineers, Jewish engineers were not typically acceptable to big business. Jack started City College of New York in the ensuing fall and attended uninterrupted due to a heart murmur, present since infancy, preventing him from being drafted. He graduated in 1946, at the age of 20 ½, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accountancy.
Jack worked just long enough as a junior accountant for a very small accounting firm to satisfy the employment requirements to sit for the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination, passing all four parts of the exhausting exam on his second attempt. Since public accounting was not to his liking, he left it after 3 ½ years to pursue employment with private companies and corporations. He even worked five years for the federal government as a defense auditor for the United States Air Force, stationed at two General Electric companies, first, in Pittsfield, MA, and later, in Johnson City, NY. All told, Jack worked in finance for over five decades, including 15 years each at Dataproducts Corporation (DPC) and at House of Printing (HOP), both in California. While with DPC, he was instrumental in establishing its offices and manufacturing facilities in Hong Kong and Dublin, Ireland, spending weeks and, at times, months abroad doing so. When stateside, he hosted many dinners at his house for high-level executives of these divisions. Jack also played a key role in the creation, in the mid-1970s, of an over 400,000-square-foot high-tech DPC office and manufacturing headquarters in Santa Clara, CA—a truly visionary undertaking since nothing of its kind existed there at the time. He was DPC’s treasurer and financial controller, and ultimately, the chief financial officer (CFO) of one of its divisions. Jack considered his employment at DPC to be a most satisfying experience. He ended his career at HOP, working there as its CFO from 1984 to the end of 1999. Jack streamlined its accounting systems and developed and implemented cost-saving measures and strategic plans, all of which enabled the business to operate much more efficiently and helped revolutionize its printing capabilities with the purchase of a six-color, state-of-the-art digital offset printer.
From his beginnings in New York, Jack eventually ended up out West, ultimately residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1954, his brother hitchhiked to California and asked the rest of the family to join him in “God’s country.” Jack drove his mother and sister to Los Angeles (LA) in his new 1954 Ford sedan, with him not owning another new car until 1995. His father joined them a year later, having waited until he knew that they would make LA their new home. In 1956, Jack completed his fifth and final year working for the federal government, after which the most significant series of events in his life took place. To meet other young people, hopefully Jewish, he joined a social/philanthropic club called the Hi Hopers, whose name was a play on words for two reasons—first, because its philanthropic purpose centered around raising money for the City of Hope hospital in Duarte, CA and, second, because many young and not-so-young Jewish singles joined it hoping to meet their ideal mates. That was how Jack met the love of his life, who he married in 1958 and with whom he fathered three sons. Ten years later, Jack and his family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, with Jack transferring from DPC’s headquarters to a DPC division there.
In retirement, Jack had several major interests. He regularly played the card game bridge, for which he was an “average plus” player, not excelling but sometimes showing traces of brilliance. Tennis was another serious interest of his, with him playing doubles for over 20 years with a group of 27 or 28 active players whose average age was a tad over 80. Jack also took considerable interest and pride in managing his family’s financial investments. He even became somewhat of a political activist, both devising an equitable federal tax system to replace the existing federal income tax system and advocating for the creation of an alternative gun rights group akin to the National Rifle Association of old as a way to enact gun reform and improve gun safety. Jack also donated money to many charitable organizations and volunteered as a literacy tutor, as well as took children from poor, dangerous neighborhoods to the symphony on his own time and own dime.
As a brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and simply a person, Jack was emotionally and mentally strong, positive, devoted, charming, witty, very smart, wise, honest, equitable, ethical, genuine, economical, firm in his convictions, and fairly opinionated. He lovingly and diligently cared for his wife after a near-fatal automobile accident and the 9 months or so prior to her passing. Despite enduring non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for almost 30 years, including several rounds of chemotherapy and other invasive treatments, plus a heart condition requiring aortic valve and aorta replacement, which unfortunately contributed to his congestive heart failure, Jack never complained about his lot in life. On the contrary, he always had a positive outlook, enjoying many things in life. Jack read voraciously, with Charles Dickens his favorite author. He took pleasure in listening to classical music, such as Bach, and really liked watching movies, especially old classics, and local sports teams, particularly the San Francisco Giants, having followed the Giants organization since his days in New York. Being a family-oriented person, Jack loved spending time with his relatives, particularly his parents, sister, brother, wife, children, grandchildren, niece, nephews, and daughters-in-law, as well as his caregiver, who he considered family. He relished watching his children and grandchildren play sports, cheering them on and occasionally making unsolicited comments to the coaches and officials. In his last years of life, with him almost always feeling cold, he delighted in basking in the sun.
Jack was preceded in death by his parents, brother, and his beloved wife of 62 years and is survived by his sister, three sons, and four grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Shriners Children’s Northern California (https://www.shrinerschildrens.org/en/locations/northern-california), St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital (https://www.stjude.org), or the American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org).
A small, private funeral service was held, with Jack laid to rest next to his dear wife at Hills of Eternity Memorial Park in Colma, CA.