Chicago businessman James Crown, who recently pledged to address violent crime by enlisting fellow CEOs to join him in a massive jobs program, died Sunday in a crash while driving on a racetrack outside Aspen, Colo.

Mr. Crown, 70, was chairman and chief executive officer of his family business, Henry Crown & Co. in Chicago, and also managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co.

On Sunday, his 70th birthday, Mr. Crown was at Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colo.

“He was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve,” said his father, billionaire financier Lester Crown.

The Pitkin County, Colo., coroner’s office, said James Crown’s death was an accident. Though it hasn’t finalized its report, pending an autopsy, the coroner’s office said Mr. Crown suffered multiple blunt force trauma.

“There never was a finer human being in every way,” Lester Crown said. “He was the leader of our family both intellectually and emotionally, and he looked out for everybody. He also was a great leader also for the community. It’s just a heartfelt loss. There are no words that can express it.” 

Just weeks ago, James Crown, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, announced that he and other Chicago corporate leaders were committed to finding jobs for as many as 10,000 young men from high-crime areas of the city. That jobs initiative is one of the ways the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club is planning to address the causes of violent crime in the city, he said.

Mr. Crown, who headed a Commercial Club task force on public safety, set an ambitious goal of reducing the number of killings in Chicago to fewer than 400 a year within five years. Last year, there were 695 killings in the city.

“People are really hoping that we can get traction here,” Mr. Crown said in a May 31 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “But it’s gonna take a lot of years before we can look back on this and say that we really had a lasting impact.”

“The Civic Committee and Commercial Club of Chicago are deeply saddened to learn of the tragic and untimely death of our longtime member and civic and business leader James S. Crown over the weekend,” the club said in a written statement. “Jim embodied the very best qualities of Chicago’s business and civic leadership: generous, wise, thoughtful and committed. Over the years, he and his family have contributed in countless ways to the region’s economic and civic health and vitality. Jim most recently chaired our Public Safety Task Force to help shape a role for the business community in addressing gun violence.”

Lester Crown said his son became civic-minded on his own.

“An adult becomes their own person when they become an adult, and he had civic pride, but basically he loved to take care and do things for people,” he said. “He had no bias and very little ego. Just a remarkable, remarkable human.”

Mr. Crown, who also was a director of General Dynamics and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — was one of the wealthiest men in Chicago. His family was ranked 34th-richest in America by Forbes in 2020, which estimated the Crown family fortune totaled $10.2 billion.

“One thing people who knew Jim well would say about him, which puts him in a rare category, in my experience, is that he was super smart, really low key and really down to earth and gentle,” said friend Christie Hefner. “He wore his success and his power lightly.”

She said his effort to reduce violence in the city is a “great example of who he was as a person, in terms of a deep feeling of responsibility to Chicago. It’s so easy to sit on the sidelines and be critical.”

Mr. Crown was one of President Barack Obama’s key Chicago fundraisers before Obama was elected to his first term in 2008. Mr. Crown was chairman of Obama’s Illinois Finance Committee.

Mr. Crown lived in Chicago and was a part-time Aspen resident.

Born in Chicago, he was the son of Lester and Renée Crown. In 1976, he got a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and went on to get a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1980.

After law school, he worked for Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York City before returning to Chicago in 1985 to work for his family’s investment firm, according to a biography.

Mr. Crown’s survivors include his parents, his wife Paula, six siblings, children Torie, Hayley, W. Andrew and Summer Crown and grandchildren Jackson and Lucas McKinney.

Lester Crown said a memorial service is being planned.