All Obituary articles – Page 2

  • News briefs

    Ernst Aichinger has passed away

    2021-01-20T16:43:00Z

    Ernst Aichinger, a former vice president of the European sporting goods retailers’ federation (FEDAS) who contributed to the launch of the annual European Week of Sport, passed away on Jan. 14 at the age of 73. The Austrian business graduate was a retail member of Sport 2000 Austria and a ...

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    Obituary: Pat Doran

    2020-12-02T17:42:00Z

    Patricia Doran, a well-known and respected American fashion designer and fashion journalist, has passed away. John Horan, former editor of Sportstyle and current editor of the American edition of Sporting Goods Intelligence, calls her “the first lady of sports fashion.” She began her career in fashion journalism at Ski Magazine ...

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    News briefs

    Former Zappos head Tony Hsieh dies

    2020-12-01T10:00:00Z

    Tony Hsieh, who co-founded Zappos.com, the pioneering American footwear and clothing online retailer, and ran it for about two decades, died at the age of 46 due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire in New London, Connecticut. Known for his kindness, generosity and a relentless focus on ...

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    ​Roger Pirot, Salomon’s commercial director for 15 years, has died

    2020-11-11T18:33:00Z

    Roger Pirot, who served as commercial director at Salomon from 1965 to 1980, has passed away. He was 93 years old. Pirot, who joined Salomon at the age of 38, directly participated in the establishment of Salomon’s subsidiaries in Japan, Switzerland and the U.S. During his tenure, the staff of ...

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    Article

    Bob Gore, inventor of Gore-Tex, has died

    2020-09-21T17:38:00Z

    Robert W. “Bob” Gore, chairman emeritus of the board of directors of W. L. Gore & Associates, died on Sept. 17 at the age of 83. Gore sat on the board of his family’s materials science company for 57 years, 30 of them as chairman, and served as president from ...

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    Article

    Josef “Pepi” Fischer is dead

    2020-08-27T21:12:00Z

    Josef Fischer, the son of the company founder and owner of Fischer Sports GmbH, died on Aug. 26 at the age of 90.After the passing of his father, Josef Fischer took over the management of the company together with his sister in 1959, when he was not even 30 years ...

  • News briefs

    A Foot Locker pioneer, Harold Sells, passed away

    2020-08-13T17:42:00Z

    Harold Sells, a U.S. executive closely connected with the history of Foot Locker, has died at the age of 92. His career started in 1954 when he opened the first store of Kinney Shoes, a American shoe retail chain that was then bought by Woolworth Corporation, where he helped found ...

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    Shimano’s chairman emeritus has died

    2020-07-07T13:07:00Z

    Yoshizo Shimano, chairman emeritus and former president of his family’s eponymous company, died of chronic heart failure on July 2. He was 85. He was the third son of Shimano’s founder, Shozaburo Shimano, and joined what was then called Shimano Industrial in 1958. Yoshizo Shimano will doubtless be remembered for ...

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    Article

    Frank Dassler has passed away

    2020-06-24T16:00:00Z

    Frank A. Dassler, a member of the family that founded Puma and Adidas in 1948 and 1949, died of a long and severe illness in Hamburg on June 20, six days after his 64th birthday. His passing closes an important chapter in the history of the sporting goods industry, in ...

  • Laurent Boix-Vives
    Article

    Rossignol’s spiritual father has passed away

    2020-06-20T12:41:00Z

    Laurent Boix-Vives, a great gentleman, a visionary and a relentless entrepreneur who made a major contribution to the development of the snow sports sector, passed away on June 18 at the age of 93. He ran the Rossignol Group for nearly 50 years, building it into the world’s biggest ski ...

  • News briefs

    Manuel "Manolo" Freixas is dead

    2020-06-01T13:17:00Z

    Manuel Freixas, an influential publisher in the Spanish sporting goods sector, passed away on May 30, following a long illness. He was 68 years old. Back in 1982, after working for a magazine called Turisport, Freixas co-founded Diffusion Sport, which remained for many years the only major Spanish B2B publication ...

  • News briefs

    Pascal Aymar has passed away

    2020-05-09T09:21:00Z

    Pascal Aymar, a well-known and influential figure in the sports and outdoor sector, passed away on May 6 due to a heart attack. Based in the region of Annecy, the 63-year-old Frenchman was active lately as a consultant, as a vice president of the Outdoor Sports Valley (OSV), the French ...

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    Wolfgang Schnellbügel, 61, passed away on Jan. 1 after four...

    2020-01-11T00:00:00Z

    Wolfgang Schnellbügel, 61, passed away on Jan. 1 after four years of fighting against the Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a form of lateral sclerosis. The well-known German executive was the managing director of Sport 2000 International from 2006 to 2015, developing its operations all over Europe and the buying ...

  • News briefs

    Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards and one...

    2019-11-28T00:00:00Z

    Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards and one of the true snowboarding pioneers, died on Nov. 20 at the age of 65 of complications from a relapse of testicular cancer. Jake was instrumental in making snowboarding a major sports activity, an important business and an Olympic discipline. He ...

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    Werner Marzin, the former president of Messe München who helped...

    2019-11-08T00:00:00Z

    Werner Marzin, the former president of Messe München who helped turn Ispo into a global trade show, died on Oct. 14 at the age of 89. He spent 30 years with the company, which is owned by the state of Bavaria, after joining it at its very start in 1964. ...

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    Jennifer Ridgeway, 69, a three-decade veteran at Patagonia credited with...

    2019-10-04T00:00:00Z

    Jennifer Ridgeway, 69, a three-decade veteran at Patagonia credited with creating the outdoor brand's aesthetic, has died at home in Ojia, California. She had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. Ridgeway was hired by Patagonia's marketing department in 1973 and wrote copy for its catalogs. She then became the company's first ...

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    Jerry Turner, founder of American Sporting Goods and Turner Footwear,...

    2019-08-01T00:00:00Z

    Jerry Turner, founder of American Sporting Goods and Turner Footwear, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 84. Turner was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, in the center of the U.S., but was educated on both coasts, ending up with an MBA from Berkeley in California. In ...

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    Richard Engelhorn has passed away at the age of 80...

    2019-08-01T00:00:00Z

    Richard Engelhorn has passed away at the age of 80 after a long illness. For more than 50 years, the German retail executive had been a representative of the third generation of the company that was founded in 1890 by his grandfather, Georg Engelhorn, and Adam Sturn. It was not ...

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    Gary Burrell, co-founder of Garmin International, a unit of Garmin...

    2019-06-20T00:00:00Z

    Gary Burrell, co-founder of Garmin International, a unit of Garmin Ltd., died on June 12 at the age of 81. Burrell was an electrical engineer specializing in integrated avionics, designing and developing the first successful combined navigation receiver and communications transceiver (nav/comm) for the general aviation market. He held executive ...

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    Marzio Brombal, who was for many years the chief executive...

    2019-05-14T00:00:00Z

    Marzio Brombal, who was for many years the chief executive of Diadora, passed away on April 7 at the age of 71, due to a heart attack, while he was watching a football game in which his son was playing. He had founded a distribution company, Sportlab, in 2000 which ...