Patagonia has teamed up with Weekend Sherpa to talk about initiatives they support, activities they love, and clothes they dig.
Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia Inc.
Yvon Chouinard climbs, surfs, kayaks, fly-fishes and donates his erstwhile undies to the environment. He went green before Kermit the Frog was born and plans to make Patagonia a fully recyclable company by 2010. He believes strongly in the M.B.A. business theory: Management By Absence, meaning you won't find him in a 14th-floor boardroom hocking PowerPoint presentations to glossy sets of eyeballs. He'd rather be fly-fishing in Wyoming. Maybe it's the off-the-beaten-path location of San Francisco's Patagonia that makes it his favorite retail store, or maybe it's just the rekindled memories of taking employees to the Marin Headlands for work seminars among the trees, near the ocean, and at quiet campsites. After more than three decades, Yvon still owns Patagonia Inc., and still infuses the company with his passions, from encouraging staffers to go surfing to making meticulously earth-friendly clothes. That's the Patagonia way.
To learn more about Yvon, pick up a copy of his memoir, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, at any of these Patagonia stores:
Patagonia San Francisco, 770 North Point St., San Francisco; 415-771-2050.
Patagonia Palo Alto, 525 Alma St., Palo Alto; 650-329-8556.
Patagonia Outlet Santa Cruz, 415 River St. #C, Santa Cruz; 831-423-1776.
Miss a week? Click here to see an archive of Patagonia's 12 Weeks of Summer