She was the longest-standing member of REI, formerly called Recreational Equipment Inc., the company she founded with her husband, Lloyd Anderson, in 1938. I interviewed this founding couple a few years before Lloyd Anderson died in 2000, at the age of 98. To this day, REI is not a corporation in the normal sense of the word. There are more than six million active members, and Mary Anderson, officially, was member No. Business schools study this sort of thing — how to achieve a branding of authenticity, how to be seen as a corporation with a conscience.

Source: New York Times April 07, 2017 07:18 UTC