Synopses & Reviews
**All royalties from the sale of
One Tough Mother will benefit Special Olympics and CASA for Children.**
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 and financially struggling outerwear manufacturer in Portland, Oregon. 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 fled Hitler's Germany to come to America.
Though many expected Boyle to fail, she and her son Tim persevered, and kept the business afloat through very challenging times. In 1970, Columbia Sportswear boasted forty employees and $800,000 in annual sales. Under the leadership of Gert and Tim Boyle, the company now has more than two thousand employees, annual sales approaching one billion dollars, and is the leading seller of skiwear in the United States. And thanks to a creative advertising campaign that billed her as "one tough mother," Gert Boyle has become an icon in her industry, and she is the first woman ever inducted into the International Sporting Goods Hall of Fame.
In One Tough Mother, Boyle presents an honest, open, and often irreverent account of her truly remarkable journey from a childhood in Nazi Germany to fame and fortune in America. Boyle offers insights into succeeding in business and in life, and shares many of the advertisements and strategies that have made her so recognizable. Her story is one that will inspire anyone who dreams of turning a small business into a bigger business, as well as individuals who find themselves facing circumstances beyond their control.
About the Author
Gert Boyle chose to collaborate with Kerry Tymchuk, co-author of Bob and Elizabeth Dole's autobiography, Unlimited Partners: Our American Story. Additionally, he assisted Bob Dole in the writing of Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way to the White House and also Great Presidential Wit: I Wish I Was In this Book.