The San Francisco mayor who died unexpectedly Tuesday was a Bowdoin College graduate.

Ed Lee, who oversaw a technology-driven economic boom in San Francisco that brought with it skyhigh housing prices despite his lifelong commitment to economic equality, died suddenly early Tuesday at age 65.

A 2013 profile in Bowdoin Magazine notes that Lee — who graduated with highest honors — was involved in student government and campus politics, and participated in the college’s Upward Bound program,

He also studied Russian, and the profile recalls: “One summer Lee dropped in on a rural Russian Orthodox church — probably in Richmond, Maine. Lee was all wild-haired and sunburned dark from working outdoors. ‘ I started speaking Russian and they thought I had dropped in from Mongolia,’ he laughs.”

A statement from Lee’s office said the city’s first Asian- American mayor died at 1:11 a.m. at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Lee was surrounded by family, friends and colleagues. Supervisor Jeff Sheehy said Lee collapsed while grocery shopping at a Safeway Monday night.

His sudden death shocked public officials, who praised the low- key mustachioed mayor who was known more as a former civil rights lawyer and longtime city bureaucrat than as a flashy politician.

“ I am floored. I can’t believe he’s gone. I just held a press conference with Mayor Lee yesterday … He was his normal friendly and jovial self,” state Sen. Scott Wiener told KTVU-TV.

“He wasn’t the flashiest guy in the world, but he worked hard and it was an honor to work with him.”

Lee, the child of immigrants from China, was a staunch supporter of San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy toward people who are in the country illegally, which he reiterated last month when a Mexican man who had been repeatedly deported was acquitted of murder in the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle.

The case became a flashpoint in the nation’s immigration debate, with thencandidate Donald Trump repeatedly referencing it as an example of the need for stricter immigration policies and a wall along the Mexican border. Lee responded that San Francisco was a city of tolerance, love and acceptance.

Former Mayor Willie Brown and the late political power broker Rose Pak talked Lee into filling out the rest of Gavin Newsom’s term when he was elected California’s lieutenant governor in 2010. Lee was appointed interim mayor by the Board of Supervisors in 2011 after professing no interest in taking on the job permanently.

Lee changed his mind and won a four-year term in 2011. He was re-elected in 2015.