Thursday, May 22, 2008

New Day #147


Had dinner with two Oregon legends.

Gert Boyle, chairman of Columbia Sportswear, joined me, Floyd and her co-author Kerry Tymchuk on a road trip for a joint appearance at the library in Salem, where we stopped for dinner at Gerry Frank's Konditorei. Frank is the heir to the Meier and Frank department store family, ran Senator Mark Hatfield's office, writes a bestselling travel guide to New York and, most impressively, judges the annual chocolate cake contest at the Oregon State Fair, where he takes two bites of over 150 cakes.

Gert's no slouch, either, having inherited a company $250,000 in debt when her husband died unexpectedly in 1970, then building Columbia Sportswear into a billion dollar business in 78 countries, due in no small part to the company's hilarious ad campaign.



You can read Gert's funny and inspiring story in her book One Tough Mother.

Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | StumbleUpon

1 comment:

Edgy Mama said...

I'm wearing yummy spandex yoga pants at this moment made by Columbia Sportswear. Thanks, Gert!

One of my colleagues just reviewed your new book, so I came by to visit.