Kristine Tompkins Biography

Kris was born and raised on a ranch in southern California, except for a three-year stint in Venezuela. 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, his climbing gear company. After finishing college in Idaho, where she ski-raced competitively, she started to work full time for what then became Patagonia, Inc. During her 20 years as CEO, Kris helped Yvon build Patagonia into a renowned “anti-corporation” and a leader in the outdoor apparel industry. Recognizing that manufacturing inherently causes pollution, Patagonia became a model of corporate responsibility, mitigating its ecological impacts and educating its customers about threats to the Earth. In 1993, Kris retired from Patagonia, married Doug, and moved to south Chile.

Kris led Patagonia, Inc. from its founding in 1973, and was with the company for 20 years. In the early 1990s, she retired from Patagonia, married Douglas Tompkins (founder of The North Face and Esprit), and moved to southern Chile to work full-time on conservation initiatives. In 2000, Kris founded Conservacion Patagonica, an NGO focused on creating national parks that protect and restore Patagonia’s wildlands, biodiversity, and communities. CP’s first project was the establishment of the 155,000-acre Monte Leon National Park, Argentina’s first coastal continental national park. In 2003, she and CP launched the Patagonia National Park project.

For their conservation work, the Tompkins have received accolades such as the Scenic Hudson’s Visionary Conservationist Award, the African Rainforest Conservancy’s New Species Award, and Latin Trade’s “Environmental Leader of the Year” award, and the American Alpine Club’s David Brower Award.

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