Patagonia

CNN Money featured a video interview with Yvon Chouinard founder of Patagonia. Chouinard is certainly the epitome of “do what you love and the income will follow.” An impassioned outdoors man, Chouinard used his knowledge of climbing to create some of the best ice and rock climbing gear available today. He opened Patagonia in 1970. I personally own only 2 articles of Patagonia clothing. Purchased on sale of course. One fleece pullover is over a decade old and my synchilla jacket is 5 years old. Both look as new as the day I bought them.

I always thought of Patagonia clothing as high quality, but expensive. It hardly occurred to me that the company would have an environmental message. They actually recover plastic pop bottles to create their recycled fleece fabric. They also have a program whereby you can surrender your old, worn out fleece from any manufacturer and Patagonia will recycle it turning into new material for new clothing.

Patagonia actually has a list of fabrics that they use in their clothing available for anyone’s perusal on their site. Yvon was asked during the interview what he would say to customers: “I would say only buy a jacket if you need one.” Wow! How is that for not promoting consumption for the sake of consumption. Here is the full interview here. (just takes a couple of minutes. Depending on your browser, it will play when you click or download)

Business, financial, personal finance news – CNNMoney-2.com

I just learned more about the Wolverine visiting their site than I ever knew.
Over the past week I have blogged about Goldman Sachs and Magnetar. It is just plain wonderful to see a businessman engaging his passion and extending a hand to do some good.

Please comment.

Upcoming, my mother will contribute to the blog with an explanation of how the Health Bill affects student loans. Sounds like that reform was long overdue.