Gert Boyle

Gertrude Boyle (née Lamfrom; March 6, 1924 – November 3, 2019) was a German-born American businesswoman in the U.S. state of Oregon. After her family fled Nazi Germany, her father founded the business that became Columbia Sportswear, where in 1970, she became company president. She remained president until 1988 and additionally, was chairwoman of the company's board of directors from 1983 until her death in 2019. Starting in the 1980s, she appeared in a series of advertisements for Columbia Sportswear with her son, Timothy Boyle, often humorously testing the quality and durability of their products. She was also a philanthropist and memoirist.

Early life and education Born Gertrude Lamfrom to a German Jewish family in Augsburg, Germany, she was the daughter of Marie (née Epstein) and Paul Lamfrom. Her father owned the largest shirt factory in Germany (after the river). and later graduated with a B.A. in sociology from the University of Arizona. until, in the 1970s, she and her son Timothy 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 2010, she endowed the Hildegard Lamfrom Chair in Basic Science in association with the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University with $2.5 million which honors her sister, Hildegard, a pioneering molecular biologist who died from a brain tumor in 1984. In 2014, Boyle donated $100 million to the Knight Cancer Institute.

Personal life In 1948, she married Joseph Cornelius "Neal" Boyle, an Irish American from Pennsylvania whom she met in college, at All Saints Church in Portland, Oregon. Kathy is an artist and real estate saleswoman and Sally is the co-owner of Moonstruck Chocolate, an upscale chocolatier.

In 2010, she was tied up at gunpoint by an armed robber in her home in West Linn, Oregon. She was able to trigger a silent alarm which alerted police, and the robber was later captured. Her cause of death was not disclosed.

Awards and honors 1992 Inc. Magazine’s Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year 1998 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement 2003 The National Sporting Goods Association Hall of Fame 2018 ISPO Cup