Columbia Sportswear Company™ was founded in 1938. Columbia Sportswear Company™ began as a small family-owned distributorship and today Columbia is one of the world's largest outerwear companies. The history begins with Paul and Marie Lamfrom. They fled from Germany and settled in Portland, Oregon. Paul and Marie opened up a hat distributorship and named their company the Columbia Hat Company. They took the name from the nearby Columbia River. Today, their 82 year old daughter, Gert, is the Chairman of the Board and her son, Tim Boyle is President and Chief Executive Officer. Columbia Sportswear Company™ has a wide-range of stylish, and functional products to choose from. Columbia is famous for their Interchange System™. This concept was developed in 1982 and made Columbia a leader in the outerwear industry. Columbia first started with an interchange jacket which was made for hunting and featured a weatherproof outershell with an insulating inner jacket that could be worn together or separately, thus making each parka three or four garments in one. Because of the popularity of this garment, Columbia applied the same concept to a ski parka and called it the Bugaboo™. The Bugaboo™ became one of the best-selling ski jackets in history. In 1991, Columbia developed a waterproof, breathable coating — Omni-Tech® — which makes it now the second-largest user of waterproof, breathable fabric in the world.
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