Gert Boyle

Gert Boyle, the longtime chairwoman of Columbia Sportswear and the caustic star of the most memorable advertising campaign in outdoor apparel history, died Sunday morning at the age of 95. Ms. Boyle was chairman of Columbia Sportswear Company, which was founded by her father in 1938. At age 13, Gert Boyle and her family fled Nazi Germany and moved to Portland, Oregon. Her parents, Paul and Marie Lamfrom, founded what was then called Columbia Hat Company in 1938. After attending the University of Arizona she and her husband, Neal Boyle, returned to Oregon and joined the family business. After the death of her father, Neal became president. Six years later at the age of 47 he died of a heart attack. Gert found herself at the helm of a financially struggling company. Her son Tim, while still in college, helped run the business. When her $100-million pledge was first announced last summer, Ms. Boyle, a well-known business figure in the Portland, Ore., area, didn’t want her name attached to it. But when she found out a local newspaper was about to reveal she was the donor, the 90-year-old retail magnate, who is known for her sense of humor and no-nonsense attitude, told university officials to beat the paper to it. So the university posted a humorous video on Facebook in which Brian Druker, head of the university’s Knight Cancer Institute, and Ms. Boyle talk about the donation. In the video, Ms. Boyle speculates the donor must have been "a very wealthy man who did that." Ms. Boyle’s late sister, Hildegard Lamfrom, was a researcher at the University of California at San Diego in the 1970s when Mr. Druker was a graduate student there. He credits Ms. Lamfrom with helping him decide to go to medical school. Ms. Boyle is directing the money toward the cancer institute’s 10-year program to expand research and develop techniques to detect deadly cancers at the earliest stages. The gift will be paid over time. In addition, Ms. Boyle gave the university $2-million for other cancer programs. Boyle is survived by her son, Tim, and two daughters, Sally Bany and Kathy Deggendorfer; her younger sister, Eva Labby; five grandchildren; and the 5,300 employees at Columbia Sportswear.