Timothy P. Boyle (born 1949) is an American
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
, and the president and
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
Columbia Sportswear.
[Forbes: "Columbia Sportswear Thrives, Lifting CEO Tim Boyle To Billionaire Ranks" by Kathryn Dill]
November 8, 2013
According to ''Forbes'', his estimated net worth was US$2.0 billion in November 2022.
Early life
Boyle was born and raised in
Portland, Oregon.
He is one of three children of Joseph Cornelius "Neal" Boyle, an Irish Catholic, and
Gertrude Lamfrom.
His mother was Jewish and fled as a teenager from
Nazi Germany. She immigrated to
Portland, Oregon,
[Immigrant Entrepreneurship: "Gertrude Boyle"]
retrieved November 9, 2013 and converted to
Catholicism after marrying her husband.
He has two sisters: Kathy Boyle (born 1952) and Sally Boyle (born 1958).
His grandfather purchased the Rosenfeld Hat Company
and changed its name to the Columbia Hat Company
(after the
river).
His father became president of Columbia Hat after his grandfather died and then diversified the hat business into outerwear
for hunters, fishermen, and skiers.
In 1960, his mother designed the first fishing vest (his father was an avid fisherman) and the name of the company was changed to Columbia Sportswear.
Boyle was educated at
Jesuit High School, in
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, in the U.S. state of Oregon with a small portion bordering Portland in the Tualatin Valley. The city is among the main cities that make up the Portland metropolitan area. Its population was 97,494 at the ...
, just outside Portland, followed by the
University of Oregon, where he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1971.
Career
Boyle was still at university when his father died in 1970
[Oregon Business: "Tim Boyle charts the future as Columbia Sportswear turns 75" by Linda Baker]
January 28, 2013 at the age of 47. He left to join his mother, who had become president of Columbia Hat, which was then earning $800,000 in annual sales and had 40 employees.
The company struggled and teetered on bankruptcy
until in the 1970s when Boyle and his mother refocused the business on outdoor clothing and casual wear which paralleled a general trend away from formal work attire.
In 1975, they were the first company to introduce
Gore-Tex parkas.
In 1986, Columbia released the ''Bugaboo'', a jacket with a zip out lining which became quite trendy and further propelled the company's growth.
Columbia was unique among specialty clothing manufacturers in that it would sell its products to any retail shop or chain.
In 1987, Columbia had $18.8 million in sales and by 1997 it had grown to $353.5 million.
Boyle took over from his mother,
Gert
Gert is a mainly masculine given name ( short form of Gerrit, Gerard, etc.) with some female bearers (short for Gertrude).
Since 1993 no one in Sweden has been baptised as Gert according to the Swedish Bureau of Census, so the name is becoming ...
, as company president in 1988.
The company
went public
Going public may refer to:
* Initial public offering, financial action by a business
* Whistleblowing, exposure of previously private information
* ''Going Public'' (Newsboys album), 1994
* ''Going Public'' (Bruce Johnston album), 1977
{{Dis ...
in 1998.
In the early 2010s, Boyle refocused Columbia away from top line products and more towards the mid-range, moderately priced products; he also continued to align sales with changes happening in the
retail industry, shifting the company more toward
internet sales.
Columbia grew into a $6.5bn public company, and Boyle's 41% ownership interest in
Columbia Sportswear was worth over $1.0 billion in 2013.
In 2020,
Forbes ranked Boyle No. 378 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.
Personal life
Boyle and his wife Mary have a son, educated at
Drake University in
Des Moines
Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...
, and a daughter, educated at the
University of Washington.
They live in Portland, Oregon.
[
In 2007, he and his wife Mary donated $5 million to the University of Oregon. In 2016, he donated $10 million to the University's aquatic animal care facility. More recently the couple donated $10 million towards a biomedical data science initiative. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boyle reduced his own salary to $10,000 while maintaining the full salary and benefits of all his company's retail employees.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyle, Timothy
1949 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesspeople
American billionaires
American business executives
American people of German-Jewish descent
American people of Irish descent
Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon
Jesuit High School (Beaverton, Oregon) alumni
University of Oregon alumni