The "mother's" will to "embodied user needs" is passed down.
1938 | OREGON, USA | PAUL LAMFROM/Gert Boyle

Columbia Sportswear Company is a well-known outdoor brand. However, the person who actually grew this brand to a global scale was a woman known as the "Mother."

The company's predecessor was founded in 1938 in Oregon, USA, by German immigrant Paul Lamfrom. It was a company primarily engaged in the manufacture of hats, named Columbia Hat Company after the Columbia River near its office.

The person who dramatically changed the company's history was the aforementioned "Mother," Gert Boyle. She was the daughter of the founder, Paul, and worked tirelessly to expand the business alongside her husband, Neil Boyle, who would later become president of Columbia. In 1960, the company merged with a ski glove manufacturer, and Columbia Sportswear Company was born. The "Multi-Pocket Fishing Vest," one of Columbia's iconic items, is based on a design that Gert Boyle handmade herself on a sewing machine at the request of her husband and his friends around this time. She is sometimes called an "inventor of the outdoor world" because of her talent for realizing the high functionality that users demand.

However, shortly after the new company was established, the founder, Paul, passed away. Her husband, Neil Geil, who took over the business, also died suddenly in 1970. Faced with a large amount of debt and three children, Gard considered selling the business, but then she made a firm resolution and steered the company toward reconstruction.

The hardships she endured must have been unimaginably arduous. But motherhood is powerful. With her inherent toughness and ingenuity, she elevated Columbia's status in the outdoor world. A major turning point was the "Interchange System," which allowed the outer and inner jackets to be connected with zippers, enabling three different ways of wearing them depending on the weather. The "Bugaboo Parka," which adopted this groundbreaking system, met the needs of many users and achieved sales of one million units in the United States. In 1989, as an outdoor apparel brand, it finally rose to become one of the world's leading companies, achieving the No. 1 market share in the United States.

Columbia now offers a wide range of items, from outerwear such as mountain parkas and down jackets to gear like backpacks and shoes. Sadly, Gert Boyle passed away in 2019 at the age of 95, but the mindset of realizing what users want lives on in the company, with the same passion as when she created the fishing vest.