An entrepreneur since the age of 10, Samuel Oschin lived a life of prosperity with a mind for community. He started out his business ventures working as a chimneysweeper. Before he had even finished elementary school, he had hired friends and transformed this small task into a growing enterprise. He died July 28, at the age of 89.
Continuing his natural air for success, he used his cunning instinct and savvy to later excel as a painter, manufacturer and commercial and residential real estate developer. At the age of 23, he used his remarkable drive and competitive pricing to outbid General Electric and Chrysler Corporation for a major government contract. Oschin combined his entrepreneurial skill and community compassion to design low-income housing with the Housing and Urban Development Agency, helping thousands of families in Los Angeles. An adventurer, Oschin trekked through the Amazon, placed a U.S. flag on the North Pole and even reenacted Hannibal’s epic 100-mile elephant ride through the Alps.
Oschin had a deep and varied compassion for philanthropy. He founded the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation in 1981, which helped to provide scholarships for disabled minority students at UCLA and Stanford University, a children’s playroom at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and ongoing support to The Jewish Federation, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Home for the Aging and countless others.
His abiding commitment to the United Jewish Fund was most notable at Brentwood Country Club, where, by his exemplary leadership giving, he served to inspire others.
He is survived by his wife, Lynda; son, Michael; daughter, Barbara; grandchildren, Sherly, Daniel, Karen and Katherine; great-grandchildren, Zachary and Jacqueline; brother Albert Oschin; and sister Ruth Weiss.
