Our Founder
Eddie Bauer (1899-1986)
Did you know that Eddie Bauer was a real person? 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. Below are some of the highlights of his extraordinary life.
1899 Eddie Bauer was born on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands in Washington on October 19.
1913 He got his first job in sporting goods with Piper & Taft. 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.
1920 He turned his love of the outdoors into a viable business, opening Eddie Bauer's Sport Shop in Seattle, Washington.
1922 He established the Eddie Bauer Creed and Guarantee that is still the foundation for the company's customer service today.
1934 He developed and patented a regulation badminton shuttlecock (the Bauer Shuttlecock) that remains the standard for the sport today.
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.
1942 He began producing garments and sleeping bags in support of the war effort. 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.
1942 He launched the company's mail-order division, selling goose-down garments and goose down-insulated sleeping bags.
1949 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.
1953 He once again became a shareholder in the business forming a fifty-fifty partnership with Mr. Niemi.
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.
1974 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.
1986 Eddie Bauer died at the age of 86 on April 18.
Present 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.
