Malinda Pennoyer, a student in art and home economics, is Yvon Chouinard’s wife. They met and got married. They have a girl (Fletcher) and a boy (Claire).
He is an American rock climber, philanthropist, environmentalist, and businessman in the outdoor recreation industry. People know that his business, Patagonia, cares a lot about the environment.
Chouinard likes to go fly fishing with a tool called a tenkara. He is also a good surfer, kayaker, and falconer. He has written about business, the environment, and ethical issues. He has also written about climbing.
Together with Fred Beckey, he went to Western Canada in 1961 and was the first person to climb the North Face of Mount Sir Donald, the North Face of Mount Edith, and the Beckey-Chouinard Route on South Howser Tower in the Bugaboos Edith Cavell in the Rockies (Selkirk Mountains).
Who is the wife of Yvon Chouinard?
Huunard met the love of his life in 1971. Malinda Peenoyer studied art and home economics at California State University.
As their love grew stronger and they couldn’t be without each other, they decided to get married the same year.
The couple has two cute kids. Their son’s name is Fletch, and their daughter’s name is Larissa. The company gave him the chance to reach his goals, so he agreed to work for it. The company also opened a cafeteria on site that served mostly vegetarian food.
Be sure to support and pay employees who work hard on local projects. He bought a second hard coal-fired forge, which he used in Yosemite Valley to make hardened steel stools. He did this to help himself make more money.
How Much Will Yvon Chouinard Make in 2022?
The website for celebrity net worth says that American rock climber and maker of outdoor gear Yvon Chouinard has a $100 million net worth because he has given all of his money to charity.
Yvon Chouinard started the company Patagonia, which makes trendy and modern outdoor clothing and gear that is also good for the environment. He is best known as the company’s founder.
Yvon Chouinard is said to be the “least willing” billionaire in the world. The company earns about $100 million each year and makes $1 billion in retail sales. The company was worth $3 billion, so Yvon had a net worth of $3 billion.
In August 2022, Yvon and his family made a donation to charity that surprised and amazed everyone. Technically, the family gave 98% of Patagonia’s private shares to the Holdfast Collective, a 501(c)(4) non-profit that will now get all of the company’s future income. Holdfast will use the money to protect the environment and stop global warming.
Yvon Chouinard, who started Patagonia, gives the company away to help fight the climate crisis
Patagonia will still be a privately owned business that makes money, but it is no longer owned by the Chouinard family, who ran it before.
Yvon Chouinard, the billionaire who started the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, said on Wednesday that he is giving the business to a trust that will use the money it makes to fight climate change.
Chouinard, who is famous for climbing mountains in Yosemite National Park and has a net worth of $1.2 billion, is giving his family’s business to a trust and a non-profit organization instead of selling it or taking it public.
The change was first reported by the New York Times earlier on Wednesday. Patagonia will still be run as a private, for-profit business. Still, the business is no longer owned by the Chouinard family, which used to run it.
More About the Family of Yvon Chouinard
Chouinard’s father was a mechanic, handyman, and plumber who was French Canadian. In 1947, Yvon and his family moved from Maine to Southern California. Chouinard now has two kids, Fletcher and Claire.
Tom Frost and Royal Robbins were some of the first people he climbed with. As a young man, he started the Southern California Falconry Club and joined the Sierra Club. Through his research on falcon nests, he learned how to climb rocks.
He decided to learn blacksmithing so that he could make his own climbing tools, save money, and change them to fit the way he climbed. He opened a business in the end.
In 1957, he started making hardened steel pitons in Yosemite Valley. This was after he bought a used coal-fired forge. Between sessions of surfing and rock climbing, he sold pitons out of the back of his car to make money. From 1957 to 1960, big-wall climbing became popular in Yosemite. This was due in large part to improvements in pitons. Because his pitons were so popular, he set up Chouinard Equipment, Ltd.
The Inspiring Story of Yvon Chouinard, Who Started Patagonia
When Yvon Chouinard was in his 20s, he and his friends did a lot of traveling in North America and the Alps. They spent more than six months a year climbing mountains. They would make 50 cents a day. He caught squirrels to eat, and sometimes he had to hide from park officers when he stayed longer than his camping permit let him.
Chouinard started Patagonia, a company that makes gear for the outdoors. Also, he might be the “least willing” billionaire in history.
On September 14, 2022, Yvon said that he had given all of Patagonia to charity because he was so reluctantly rich. Not just a few billions of dollars of his wealth. He gave the whole business away.
Since Patagonia is now a non-profit organization, all of its about $100 million in annual profits will go toward fighting climate change around the world.
Yvon Chouinard was very important to the success of Patagonia
Patagonia has always cared a lot about activism and problems with the environment. A graduate student who was working to protect wildlife near the company’s offices in Ventura, California, got an office, a mailbox, and money from the company.
In the middle of the 1970s, Patagonia was close to going out of business because they were selling cheap, low-quality shirts. Then, Chouinard’s accountant put him in touch with a Los Angeles Mafioso who offered him a loan with 28% interest. He didn’t accept the money, and Patagonia was able to fix its failing business.
Between the middle of the 1980s and 1990, sales went from $20 million to $100 million. At the moment, Patagonia makes $800 million each year. Chouinard didn’t realize until then that he had become a businessman. But he never wanted to be a drone for a big company.
Patagonia got rid of private offices in the year 1984. In 1986, the business promised to give 10% of its income before taxes to small groups that worked to protect the environment.
Early years
Chouinard’s French-Canadian father was a handyman, mechanic, and plumber. In 1947, Yvon moved to Southern California with his family from Maine. They went to church.
Royal Robbins and Tom Frost were some of his early climbing partners.
He was a member of the Sierra Club and started the Southern California Falconry Club when he was young. It was his research into falcon nests that led him to start rock climbing.
[4] He decided to make his own climbing tools to save money and adapt them to the way he was climbing. He taught himself blacksmithing and eventually started a business.
From rock climber in Yosemite to top alpinist
Chouinard was one of the best climbers in Yosemite during its “Golden Age.” He was one of the main people in the movie Valley Uprising, which was made about this time (2014). In 1964, he climbed the North America Wall with Royal Robbins, Tom Frost, and Chuck Pratt. They did not use fixed ropes. The next year, he and TM Herbert climbed the Muir Wall on El Capitan. This was a better style of first ascent than what had been done before. Chouinard was the best person to talk about how important style is to modern rock climbing, which is based on it.
In 1961, he went to Western Canada with Fred Beckey and was the first person to climb the North Face of Mount Edith Cavell in the Rocky Mountains, the Beckey-Chouinard Route on South Howser Tower in the Bugaboos, and the North Face of Mount Sir Donald in the Purcell Mountains (Selkirk Mountains). These climbs opened his eyes to the idea of using Yosemite big-wall climbing techniques for mountain climbing, and his advocacy was important to modern, high-grade alpinism. Also in 1961, he went to Shawangunk Ridge for the first time. He freeclimbed the first pitch of Matinee, which at the time was the hardest free climb at Shawangunk Ridge. He also brought chrome-molybdenum steel pitons to the area, which changed the way climbing was protected. In 1968, he and Dick Dorworth, Chris Jones, Lito Tejada-Flores, and Douglas Tompkins climbed Cerro Fitzroy in Patagonia by a new route called The Californian Route. This was the third time the mountain had been climbed.
Chouinard has also been to the European Alps and Pakistan and climbed there.
Chouinard Equipment, Ltd
In 1957, he bought a used coal-fired forge and started making hardened steel pitons for use in Yosemite Valley. He made money by selling pitons out of the back of his car when he wasn’t surfing or climbing. From 1957 to 1960, when big-wall climbing started in Yosemite, the improved pitons were a big reason why. He started Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. because his pitons were so popular.
Chouinard and his business partner Tom Frost started looking into ice climbing gear in the late 1960s. They changed the basic tools (crampons and ice axes) so they could be used on steeper ice. With these new tools and his book Climbing Ice (1978), he made ice climbing into a sport. [needs citation]
Around 1970, he found out that Yosemite’s cracks were being badly hurt by the use of steel pitons made by his company. Seventy percent of his income came from these pitons. [8] In 1971 and 1972, Chouinard and Frost made new aluminum chockstones called Hexentrics and Stoppers. They also made steel Crack-n-Ups, which weren’t as popular, and made the company’s mission to promote the new tools and a new way of climbing called “clean climbing.” This idea changed rock climbing and made the company even more successful, even though it hurt sales of pitons, which had been his most important product.
In 1974, they asked for a U.S. patent on Hexentrics, and on April 6, 1976, they got it. Black Diamond Equipment is still the company that makes these.
After trips to the Alps in Europe and the Sierra Nevada ice gullies in the fall of the 1960s, Chouinard tried to make some big changes to the tools and techniques used for ice climbing. He took away the flex in the crampons to make them stiffer and better for front-pointing. He shaped the end of a rock hammer into a point so it would grip the ice better. He made ice screws with a bigger cross section and lighter materials. He tried out ice axes with different picks and blades. Before this, many people thought that ice climbing was just cutting steps. He tried to replace hand-held ice picks used for climbing with a small head for an ice axe called a Climaxe.
Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. filed for bankruptcy in 1989 so that it wouldn’t have to worry about being sued for damages. Through the Chapter 11 process, Chouinard Equipment, Ltd.’s employees bought the company’s physical assets, and the company was renamed Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.