Eddie Bauer (1899-1986) was born and raised in the state of Washington, he was a husband, a father, a businessman, an innovator and a true outdoorsman. Eddie Bauer lived a full life filled with ideas and inventions.
Early Life
Eddie Bauer was born on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands in Washington on October 19.
In 1913 He got his first job in sporting goods with Piper & Taft at the age of 14. In addition to his basic duties running errands, washing windows and doing other odd jobs, Ed would display his catches on ice at the entrance of the store. This began to develop his reputation as a top fisherman and made his name well known among Seattle's sports enthusiasts.
He turned his love of the outdoors into a viable business in 1920, opening Eddie Bauer's Sport Shop in Seattle, Washington.
He established the Eddie Bauer Creed and Guarantee that is still the foundation for the company's customer service today back in 1922.
In 1934 he developed and patented a regulation badminton shuttlecock (the Bauer Shuttlecock) that remains the standard for the sport today.
Late on in 1936, he created the "Skyliner," the first quilted goose down jacket in North America, a design he would patent in 1940. This innovation revolutionized outerwear as the down jacket has become a classic American sportswear piece.
He began producing garments and sleeping bags in support of the war effort in 1942. He was able to talk the military into letting him sew the Eddie Bauer label into each garment. It was the only private manufacturer's label to appear on government issue gear during the war.
In the same year, he launched the company's mail-order division, selling goose-down garments and goose down-insulated sleeping bags.
He was both physically and financially drained as a result of all the work he did to support the war effort. As a result, he reached out to his friend and hunting partner William Niemi for help with his business, transferring all of the common stock in Eddie Bauer, Inc. to Mr. Niemi in 1949.
In 1953 he once again became a shareholder in the business forming a fifty-fifty partnership with Mr. Niemi.
Finally, in 1968, he and his son, Eddie C. Bauer sold their interest in the company to William Niemi, Sr. and William Niemi, Jr. After the sale, he kept busy hunting, fishing and bird shooting. He also raised Labrador Retrievers and created new products such as the B&B flasher, a trolling lure he patented.
He was named "Retriever Breeder of the Year" by the Professional Retriever Trainers Association. He had loved dogs since he was a teenager and owned a hunting dog named Speed. In 1930, when he returned to Seattle from a hunting trip to Alberta, Canada, he brought with him an outstanding gun dog named Blackie, the very first Labrador retriever in Washington State.
Eddie Bauer died at the age of 86 on April 18, 1986.
Eddie's spirit and legacy lives on at Eddie Bauer. The Company continues to build upon the foundation that he built with a great love for the outdoors, quality you can trust, passionate product design, great customer service, and a spirit of innovation.
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