North Face founder Douglas Tompkins, 72, dies in kayaking accident
DOUGLAS Tompkins, the founder of the clothing brands North Face and Esprit, has died after a kayaking accident in Chile. He was 72.
WEALTHY US businessman Douglas Tompkins, the founder of the clothing brands North Face and Esprit, has died after a kayaking accident on in the Patagonia region of southern Chile.
The 72-year-old died on Tuesday from severe hypothermia, Chilean authorities said.
Tompkins was boating with five other foreigners when their kayaks capsized on General Carrera Lake. He died in the intensive care unit of the hospital in Coyhaique, a town 1,700 kilometres south of Santiago.
Chile’s army said strong waves on the lake caused the group’s kayaks to capsize. A military patrol boat rescued three of the boaters and a helicopter lifted out the other three, it said.
After retiring in 1989, Tompkins was active in conservation and environmentalism. He owned hundreds of thousands of hectares (acres) in Patagonia, a sparsely populated region of untamed rivers and other natural wonders straddling southern Chile and Argentina. On his Chilean land, he created Pumalin Park, 290,000 hectares (716,606 acres) of forest, lakes and fjords stretching from the Andes to the Pacific.
Tompkins was one of the founders of The North Face, an activewear company that is now owned by VF Corporation of Greensboro, North Carolina. He also founded, with his wife, the Esprit clothing company.
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