James Crown - Aspen managing partner

James Crown, an owner and managing partner of Aspen Skiing Company, died June 25, on his 70th birthday, when the Spec Racer Ford he was driving crashed at Aspen Motorsports Park.

Born in Chicago in 1953, Crown earned a bachelor’s in political science in 1976 from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He received his law degree in 1980 from Stanford Law School. He later joined Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York and joined his family’s investment firm in Chicago in 1985.

The Crown family purchased half of Aspen Skiing Company in 1985 and bought out the remainder of the company in 1993. Crown was a key advocate in the development of the Snowmass base village. In 2017, the Crown family partnered with Denver’s KSL Capital Partners to create Alterra Mountain Company. village. Recently, Crown directed the re-branding of the renovated Buttermilk Ski Area in Aspen.

The grandson of industrialist Henry Crown, James Crown was chairman and CEO of Henry Crown and Co., a privately owned investment company. In addition to being a managing partner of Aspen Skiing Company, Crown served as lead director of General Dynamics Corp. and director of JPMorgan Chase. He also was a trustee for numerous organizations, including The Aspen Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the University of Chicago, among others.