BOSS Goes One-on-One with Columbia’s Gert Boyle

When you took over the reins at Columbia, was it difficult being a woman in a male-dominated industry?

GB:

The ease of being a woman in this business increased with the success of the company. People don’t mind listening to a woman that has a proven [record of] success. Who raised you, your mother or your father? We women know something about good planning and finance. It just comes by nature. Although men have changed somewhat, they would still like to think that they are running the club.

BOSS:

What was the industry like when you first entered it?

GB:

First of all, it was very male-oriented. The guys would go hunting and fishing, and if a woman wanted to go hunting or fishing she had to wear men’s clothing. But now that women have become more prominent in the sports industry, we make clothing for women. I had been after that for a long, long time. I said, “Hey, women are active-they don’t like having to wear a man’s coat that’s too tight in the back-end and that has sleeves that are too long. Make clothing for women.” We finally convinced the guys that there was a need. But it wasn’t only the fact that we had to convince the guys here-we also had to convince our customers that they needed to carry [women’s-specific apparel], because they were going to have women coming in who would want clothing that looks halfway decent, that fits, and is comfortable.

Today, we dress the outdoor athlete or outdoors person who’s going to go skiing, hunting, fishing, hiking and biking. When it gets hot you’ve got to make shorts and shirts, and you’ve got to have sun protection-which is very, very important these days. In that respect things have changed.

BOSS:

How has the retail environment changed?

GB:

The whole sales environment was very different. We used to have lots of small mom and pop operations, but now they’ve been eaten up by all the big guys. You used to be able to run your business the way you wanted to, but nowadays, with your customer base being so small, you have to partner with your customers more than you used to.

You used to just be able to bring customers a hat or a pair of socks or a jacket and say, “This is what I’ve got, and this is what you’ve got to buy.” Now, your partners influence the way you do business, because they have so much clout. A big customer may say, “I’m out here in the Northwest and I need rain things,” and if that’s what the customer needs, then that’s what you do. The way that you build clothing for the South is different than it is for the Northwest. You just become a partner with your customer.

BOSS:

What other parts of the business have changed?

GB:

A lot of the customers that we have see the incredible clothing, styles and innovative things we do, and then they do private labeling. This is something that’s come into play quite a bit. All you have to do is look at the sewing. If you do seven inches to the stitch instead of five, then it’s a different garment. A lot of our larger customers are doing private label, and it’s really not fair as far as we’re concerned because it costs a lot of money to build a product.

BOSS:

Was there ever a day that you walked into your office and stopped worrying if the company would succeed?

GB:

First of all, you never want to forget who your customer is- they’re the ones you want to please. And then, you always want to look over your shoulder to see who’s trying to catch you. I’ve never sat back and thought, “We’ve made it. Now we can relax.” I don’t think that way. As they always say, “Money does not make you happy-it just helps you to suffer in comfort.” I don’t think of [success] in terms of money.

I think of myself as being just an ordinary person, but I don’t do floors or windows anymore. Other than that, I do all my own stuff…

BOSS:

How did the idea arise to portray you in the company’s advertising as a “Tough Mother” who is always picking on your son, Tim?

GB:

It was actually the ad agency’s idea. The first commercial was the car wash [in which Tim, wearing a Columbia jacket, is strapped to the car’s roof as Gert drives the vehicle travels through a car wash]. He doesn’t come by very often, because he’s afraid of me! The thing is, when you’re working, the way our American system is set up, if a gentleman works with his son, everybody says, “Oh, you are so fortunate, how nice.” If he works with his mother, people say, “Oh God, how can you stand it?” But we both have jobs, we’ve made a bit of money, and the thing is, he has to do his job and I do mine. We try not to get in each other’s way.

One time, someone asked Tim, “What’s going to happen when your mother dies?” Tim said, “We’ll have her stuffed.” And then I got a note from someone that asked, “Did you ever think of Lucite?”

BOSS:

What was the most challenging part of running the business?

GB:

I think you have challenges every day. The biggest challenge is to hire the right people. It takes a team to run a company-I didn’t do this by myself. We were able to attract people that had the same vision and the same energy to spend on the company.

We have a number of really dedicated people. They spend a lot of time working-not just 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.-they’re just incredible, really good people. If you don’t have the right people, what you’ve got to do is clean house, and you can’t be afraid to do that. In order to grow, you have to grow the people who have the same vision and energy that you have.

BOSS:

Which product helped transform Columbia?

GB:

The Bugaboo jacket. It started out as the Quad Parka, which was a hunting coat. When you go hunting, you start off at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and it’s cold, but by the time you walk four or five miles you get hot. The three-in-one coat-shell, liner, and shell and liner together-became so popular, that we did the same thing for skiers and called it the Bugaboo. We’ve sold about five million Bugaboos-it’s really been a very popular coat.

BOSS:

Any final words of wisdom?