after the death of her father, but when her husband died in 1970, she found herself at the helm of a company near bankruptcy. With much hard work and strong and determined leadership, Boyle grew Columbia, a leading global seller of outdoor apparel, footwear, and equip- ment, to over a billion dollars in annual sales.


Boyle has become an industry icon. This well-respected leader in Portland and around the world published her autobiog- raphy, One Tough Mother, in 2005. She has received many awards including be- ing the first woman to be inducted into the Sporting Goods Association Hall of Fame. She has also been inducted into the Global Business Hall of Fame and the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame.


More recently, me- chanical engineer Helen Greiner be- lieved that robots could be developed as prod- ucts that would take on dangerous and unde- sirable tasks. She in- vented the iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robot, which has sold more than two million units to consumers throughout the world, and co-founded iRobot Corporation. Under Greiner’s leadership,


24 Kalon Women Magazine


the company grew from a garage ven- ture to being valued at over $50 million. iRobot also makes robots that are used in defense and security applications. Inc magazine reports: [iRobot] robots have been asked to perform jobs in some pretty intense places, from war zones in the Middle East (iRobot PackBot® Tacti- cal Mobile Robot), to the surface of Mars to the unexplored corners of Egypt's Great Pyramid.


In her role as Chairman of the Board, Greiner’s forward-looking instincts and leadership have led the company to be- come a world leader in the robot indus- try. She created iRobot’s Government & Industrial Robots division – starting with government research funding leading to the first deployment of robots in combat in Op- eration Enduring Free- dom. In 2005, she led the company through its initial public offering. She also guided iRo- bot’s early strategic cor- porate growth initiatives by securing $35 million in venture funding to fi- nance iRobot’s expan- sion in the consumer and military categories. Because of the success of the company’s initia- tives and her vision of how robots can be used, Greiner has helped en-


Jan/Mar 2014


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