Tim Boyle (businessman)

Boyle was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.^[4] He is one of three children of Joseph Cornelius "Neal" Boyle, an Irish Catholic, and Gertrude Lamfrom.^[5] His mother was Jewish and fled as a teenager from Nazi Germany. She immigrated to Portland, Oregon,^[6] and converted to Catholicism after marriage.^[6] He has two sisters.^[5]

His grandfather, Paul Lamfrom,^[7] purchased the Rosenfeld Hat Company^[5] and changed its name to the Columbia Hat Company^[8] (after the river).^[5] His father became president of Columbia Hat after his grandfather died and then diversified the hat business into outerwear^[5] for hunters, fishermen, and skiers.^[6] In 1960 the name of the company was changed to Columbia Sportswear.^[8]

Boyle was educated at Jesuit High School, in Beaverton, Oregon, just outside Portland,^[9] followed by the University of Oregon, where he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1971.^[10]

Boyle was still at university when his father died in 1970^[11] at the age of 47. He left to join his mother, who had become president of Columbia Hat.^[5] At that time, the company was earning $800,000 in annual sales and had 40 employees.^[5] The company struggled and teetered on bankruptcy^[12] until in the 1970s when Boyle and his mother refocused the business on outdoor clothing and casual wear which paralleled a general trend away from formal work attire.^[13] In 1975, they were the first company to introduce Gore-Tex parkas.^[14][8]

In 1986, Columbia released the Bugaboo, a jacket with a zip out lining which became quite trendy and further propelled the company's growth.^[5] Columbia was unique among specialty clothing manufacturers in that it would sell its products to any retail shop or chain.^[6] In 1987, Columbia had $18.8 million in sales and by 1997 it had grown to $353.5 million.^[6] Boyle took over from his mother, Gert, as company president in 1988.^[15][16]

The company went public in 1998.^[13] 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.^[2]

Columbia grew into a $6.5bn public company,^[17] and in 2013, Boyle's 41% ownership interest in Columbia Sportswear was worth over $1.0 billion.^[2]

In 2020, Forbes ranked Boyle No. 378 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.^[18]

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.^[19] In 2025, Joseph was named as copresident of Columbia Sportswear.^[20] They live in Portland, Oregon.^[3]

In 2007, he and his wife Mary donated $5 million to the University of Oregon.^[21] In 2016, he donated $10 million to the university's aquatic animal care facility.^[22] More recently the couple donated $10 million towards a biomedical data science initiative.^[23] 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.^[24][25]

In 2025, Boyle donated $10 million to University of Oregon research, including fish breeding and zebrafish genomics research.^[26]