“Oh no?!” says Gert Boyle and looks at me as sternly as possible. I’ve just told her that in person she doesn’t look nearly as formidable as in the “Mother Boyle” advertisements, in which she and her son Tim display all that is possible with clothing from Columbia Sportswear. FashionUnited traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a conversation with Gert Boyle. The firm was founded by her father, but under her leadership it has grown to be one of the largest outdoor clothing manufacturers in the world and market leader in skiwear in the United States.
It was 1937 when Paul Lamfrom decided to flee with his family from the Nazi regime in Germany to America. He left behind a successful clothing factory in Munich and nearly all his money and possessions, but sought safety for himself and his family. An uncle had earlier come across to scout out the territory, and it was through him that the family came to end up in Portland, Oregon. It was there that 67 years later I spoke with Paul’s daughter Gert, who is still quite active in the business. “We traveled by ship from Germany to New York”, said she about their departure. “My father had purchased first class tickets, since he had to leave all his money behind anyway. That was quite a trip!”
Once he’d arrived in Portland, Paul took over the Rosenfeld Hat Company. He gave the company a new name: Columbia Hat Company, named after the Columbia River, which forms most of the border between the states of Oregon and Washington. “My father decided that our family also had to make a new beginning; we were in a new country and needed to learn a new language. From that moment on no more German was spoken in our house.”
Gert Lamfrom was 13 when she arrived in America and spoke not a word of English. But she learned quickly and in 1946 received her sociology degree from the University of Arizona. In 1948 she married Neal Boyle, who went to work for his father-in-law in the business. The business grew slowly but steadily. So that the firm could enter other market segments, the name was changed to Columbia Sportswear Company in 1960. When Paul suddenly died of a heart attack four years later, Neal took over the helm. He saw expansion possibilities and took out a considerable loan in September 1970.
Neal himself couldn’t carry out his expansion plans however, because three months laterfate intervened. Neal awoke with pain in his chest. With the help of 12 year old Sally, Gert got her husband into the car and tried to reach the hospital as quickly as possible. But she didn’t make it, and the 47 year old Neal died in her arms in the parking lot of a fire station. “He was an Irishman who could tell stories like no other”, she said. “He could always make me laugh. And that was good because in those days we certainly had no money for other things.”
That afternoon an attorney showed up with questions about the loan Neal had just arranged. There was work to do at the store. Middle daughter Kathy (18) had just begun college and since son Tim (21) was already reasonably well along in his studies, he helped his mother try to hang on to the business. But that wasn’t to be. Both suppliers and customers had little faith in the inexperienced mother and son. And also within the business there were rumblings. “It was unbelievable”, says Gert. “I had no experience with bookkeeping, so I trusted my personnel completely. Suddenly one of the bookkeepers gave notice that she wouldn’t come to work until she received a raise. I was at the end of my rope, so I gave her the raise. But what she didn’t think of was that women hold on to things. So I let her do the bookkeeping while I observed how she did it. As soon as I could do it myself, I fired her.”
The hard work bore few fruits. Sales dropped steadily and finally she found herself negotiating with potential buyers for the sale of the company. “Buyers? Vultures you mean!” Finally when one prospect, after a laundry list of concessions and demands, came up with a final bid of $1400, something snapped in Gert. The shy housewife and widow who would rather have said nothing at the meeting came back with a verbal cannonade and showed him out of her office. As he was trying to get out of the building as quickly as possibly, she called after him: “For that amount I’ll gladly run the company into the ground myself!”
It was a turning point. Gert and Tim went all out and got things slowly under control. And this time they had some luck: halfway through the seventies the market for sportswear and outerware improved. Columbia’s sales numbers began to climb and at the end of the decade the business was profitable for the first time. They were continuously striving to keep up with the competition. Features such as an extra panel/pocket on the sleeve of a ski jacket were copied as they are thought up. “Finally it dawned on us that the one thing that couldn’t be copied, was the brand itself.”
Therefore in 1984 a startup advertising agency in Portland was hired. Gert became the central character as a controlling and meddlesome mother who makes her son’s life difficult. Tim wasn’t originally so sure of the idea, but “the longer I thought about it, the more logical it seemed. Gert is ruthless and resolute and worries constantly about quality control. Besides she is terribly opinionated, in short she is “One Tough Mother”. Indeed, everyone has a mother and most people have a sense of humor, so it can work worldwide”. It was a gamble, but one that paid off. Twenty years later the campaign is still extremely successful, both in the U.S. and overseas, and is an important part of Columbia’s identity. Gert Boyle has become quite famous and the campaign has raked in the prizes. Thanks to the ‘Mother Boyle’ campaign sales have climbed from $3 million in 1984 to around $950 million in 2003.
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The products themselves are also responsible for this success. At the beginning of the eighties a project was started to develop a jacket for hunters, who frequently complained that they needed a thick jacket for cold mornings, but a thinner one for warm afternoons. Gert and Tim came up with the Quad Parka, a new jacket with a removable lining. Years earlier, on her kitchen table, Gert had designed a special jacket for fishermen, supplied with all sorts of handy pockets and compartments, and that jacket had been very successful. In 1983 the two models were combined into the Bugaboo, named after the Bugaboo mountain range in Canada, notorious for its extreme weather conditions. The Bugaboo – not to be confused with the Dutch baby buggy of the same name – has become the best selling jacket in the history of skiwear.
Columbia has also been sold in Europe since the mid eighties, but only in the past couple of years has Columbia developed a strong brand name for itself there. In 2003 nearly 4000 retailers in 13 EU countries brought in $135 million. Columbia expects good things from Europe. Since more people live in northern regions than in the US, Europe is a prime market for the cold weather clothing in which the company specializes. In order to facilitate expansion in Europe, a huge distribution center has been built in Cambrai, France. By far the greatest part of production occurs in Asia, so central distribution is crucial for Columbia’s worldwide sales network. The Boyles realize that production is one thing, but selling is something entirely different. They listen to retailers and consumers about what they’d like to see. Owing to this Columbia is one of the few companies that actually listens to feedback from the people who buy their products. “As long as we keep listening to consumers, things will go well. If we begin to think that we know more than the consumer, then we have a problem.”
In retrospect Gert explained how she kept things going in difficult times. “It was necessary, there was no other option if we didn’t want to go under. If someone asks you if you can swim the North Sea, you say, probably not. But if they dump you into the ocean, you learn how to swim in a hurry. That’s really how my whole life has gone.” Gert also realizes that without good business connections success would not have come. Early on she developed a relationship with a banker who specialized in helping businesses get off the ground. At the time he also provided a loan to a startup shoe factory. That was Nike.
Gert Boyle has been the face of Columbia Sportswear for decades. She is now 80, and although her son officially took over the helm from her in 1989, she doesn’t see why you should be obliged to retire when you turn 65. “What should I do then, sit at home? The housework? Bah!” Tim has a better idea. During a meeting with potential investors, right before the company went public in 1998, someone asked what would happen to the identity of Columbia if the matriarch of the company died. Tim stood perplexed and looked at his mother as if the possibility had never occurred to him. Even Gert didn’t know what to say. There followed a long silence. Suddenly Tim’s face brightened. “That’s easy”, he said, “we’ll just have her stuffed!”.
Bram Strijbos Translated by Dave Leslie from an article in Dutch, published in the January edition of FashionUnited Magazine NL .