One Tough Mother

Taking Charge in Life, Business, and Apple Pies

Contributors

By Gert Boyle

With Kerry Tymchuk

Foreword by Mark O. Hatfield

Formats and Prices

Price

$19.99

Price

$25.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around December 12, 2006. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

When a heart attack claimed Gert Boyle’s husband in 1970, the forty-six-year-old housewife and mother of three found herself at the helm of Columbia Sportswear, a small outerwear manufacturer in Portland, Oregon, that was struggling financially. With no business experience whatsoever, Boyle was faced with the challenge of running Columbia, which had been founded in 1937 by her father — a Jewish immigrant who had fled Hitler’s Germany. Boyle and her son Tim persevered, turning a company that in 1970 had forty employees and less than 800,000 in annual sales into the leading seller of skiwear in the United States, with more than 2000 employees and over a billion in annual sales. Along the way, thanks in part to a creative marketing campaign that billed her as “one tough mother,” Boyle established herself as an industry icon, and the first woman ever inducted into the International Sporting Goods Hall of Fame. One Tough Mother presents an honest and often irreverent account of Boyle’s journey from a childhood in Nazi Germany to incredible success in America. She offers insights into succeeding in business and in life, and shares many of the advertisements and strategies that have made her so recognizable.
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Genre:

On Sale
Dec 12, 2006
Page Count
208 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780786719143

Gert Boyle

About the Author

Gert Boyle is the recognizable face of Columbia Sportswear.

Coauthor Kerry Tymchuk serves as State Director for United States Senator Gordon Smith. He previously worked for Senators Bob and Elizabeth Dole, and has assisted the Doles in the writing of several books.

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