Kris Tompkins
| Kristine McDivitt Tompkins | |
|---|---|
Tompkins in 2012
|
|
| Born |
Kristine McDivitt Wear 1950 |
| Occupation | businesswoman, conservationist |
| Spouse(s) | Douglas Tompkins (m. 1993–2015) |
| Website | http://www.kristinetompkins.com/ |
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins (born in 1950, née Wear) is an American conservationist and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. She is the widow of businessman and conservationist Douglas Tompkins, who died in 2015. The two worked together to create large wilderness conservation areas in Chile and Argentina. Kris continues with strong efforts in South America today, alongside those who have been with the various areas from the beginning working to revert them to their original state.
For the most part, Tompkins grew up on her family ranch south of Santa Barbara, California, centered in Ventura County although she spent some early years in Venezuela, where her father worked for an oil company. At age 15, she met and befriended rock climbing legend and equipment manufacturer Yvon Chouinard; he gave her a summer job working for Chouinard Equipment. After finishing college at the College of Idaho in Caldwell, where she ski-raced competitively, she started to work full-time for what later became Patagonia, Inc.
Beginning in 1973, Tompkins helped Yvon Chouinard turn his fledgling piton business into Patagonia, Inc. In 1980, Patagonia started to donate 10 percent of their profits to environmental organizations such as Earth First! In 1984, the company formed the "One Percent for the Planet Club", which donates either 1% of sales or 10% of profits—whichever is greater—to environmental causes.
In the early 1990s, Tompkins retired from Patagonia, married Douglas Tompkins (founder of The North Face and Esprit), turned her entrepreneurial talents to saving nature’s beauty and diversity in Chile and Argentina. Together, they protected more land than any other private individuals—over two million acres. Their first project was the creation of Pumalin Park, a public-access 800,000-acre nature reserve in Chile’s Los Lagos Region. The park, a project of the Conservation Land Trust, is a private initiative to create a public-access nature preserve in the threatened Valdivian temperate rainforest. The Tompkinses later launched conservation efforts in the Iberá Wetlands of Northeastern Argentina. In the wetland ecosystem, they have launched projects to reintroduce extirpated species, such as the giant anteater.
...
Wikipedia