Tim Boyle

Timothy P. Boyle (born 1949) is an American billionaire, and the president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear.

According to Forbes, his estimated net worth was US$1.9 billion in July 2026.

Early life and education 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, and converted to Catholicism after marriage. purchased the Rosenfeld Hat Company (after the river). 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 at the age of 47. He left to join his mother, who had become president of Columbia Hat. until Boyle and his mother refocused the business on outdoor clothing and casual wear in the 1970s which, paralleled a general trend away from formal work attire. In 1975, they were the first company to introduce Gore-Tex parkas.

The company went public 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. and in 2013, Boyle's 41% ownership interest in Columbia Sportswear was worth over $1.0 billion.

Personal life Boyle and his wife Mary have a son, Joseph Boyle, educated at Drake University in Des Moines, and a daughter, educated at the University of Washington. In 2025, Joseph was named as copresident of Columbia Sportswear. They live in Portland, Oregon. In 2016, he donated $10 million to the university's aquatic animal care facility. In 2019, 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.

In 2025, Boyle donated $10 million to University of Oregon for research including fish breeding and zebrafish genomics research.