[6] The son of Ruth (née Koshland)[3] and Marco "Mick" Hellman,[6] he was the great-grandson of banker and philanthropist Isaias W.

[7] During World War II, his family moved to Vacaville, California, where his father served as a Major in the Army and his mother worked as a Women Airforce Service Pilot, flying military planes from aircraft factories to bases.

[6] In 1995, the firm purchased Levi Strauss & Co. from 250 family shareholders and consolidated it among four men including Hellman and then-CEO Robert D.

[10] When he died in 2011, he was remembered by SFGate as "the San Francisco financier whose willingness to fund an unlikely range of passions made him a force in Bay Area politics, education and music," and as a "renaissance man.

Isaias Hellman was president of Wells Fargo and an active benefactor of the university, funding projects ranging from the Bancroft Library to the Alumni House and the former Barrows Hall.

His daughter, Patricia Hellman Gibbs, M.D., the 2006 recipient of Berkeley's Public Health Heroes Award and a graduate of Williams and Yale School of Medicine, is the co-founder of the San Francisco Free Clinic.

Hellman's son, Mick, an investment manager, like his father and grandfather, graduated from Berkeley, where he studied economics (Class of 1983), and from Harvard Business School.

His daughter, Judith Hellman, M.D., who studied microbiology at Berkeley (Class of 1984) and medicine at Columbia, is the William L. Young Endowed Professor and Vice Chair for Research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Hellman won the national championship in Ride and Tie racing (in his age category) five times and competed in the western States Endurance Run, a 100 mile ultramarathon.

[17][18][19] In 2011, Speedway Meadow was renamed Hellman Hollow to honor his history of philanthropy and civic involvement in San Francisco.

[20] Hellman was a donor and supporter of Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), a nonprofit organization that helps people transform their lives through work.