[1] He was born in Nový Hrozenkov in what is now the Czech Republic[2] and was educated at the Export Academy in Vienna, the London School of Economics and the Sorbonne.
With the rise of the German Third Reich, Koerner's family abandoned their possessions and business interests; he escaped to London, England and then travelled with his wife to North America.
[1] Founding a timber company with his brothers Theodor, Otto, and Walter,[4] he was able to market western hemlock successfully as "Alaska pine".
The company introduced innovative and progressive practices to the British Columbia forest industry such as selective logging, reforestation, improvements in workplace safety and better wages and benefits.
[5] In May 1972, he suffered a broken hip after a fall and he died later that year at the age of 80 in his penthouse[3] atop the Thea Koerner House Graduate Student Centre of the University of British Columbia.