Columbia Sportswear's Tim and Mary Boyle make $10 million gift | OHSU Foundation

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Columbia Sportswear President and CEO Tim Boyle and his wife, Mary, have made one of the largest gifts in the campaign to date — $10 million to create a mentorship fund honoring Tim Boyle’s late aunt, Hildegard Lamfrom, Ph.D.

It’s the second gift the couple has made in honor of Dr. Lamfrom, sister of Gert Boyle, the face of Columbia Sportswear, known as “one tough mother.”

Turns out, Dr. Lamfrom was one cool researcher who happened to have mentored Dr. Brian Druker, director of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. During her career, Hildegard Lamfrom crossed paths with nearly a dozen Nobel laureates, including the men who cracked the DNA code, during an extremely exciting time in molecular biology. She worked in Cambridge with Francis Crick, she worked at Cal Tech under Linus Pauling. She introduced physicist Richard Feynman to the genetics of the pea. She broke new ground of her own in the field of protein synthesis.

Dr. Lamfrom was a passionate mentor, encouraging many renowned scientists, like Dr. Druker, to reach new heights. She was also known as the lady who brought fireworks to parties.

Read the Portland Business Journal’s story about the Boyles’ $10 million gift