Patagonia leader to share insights during speech

A leader of Patagonia will share lessons about creating successful, responsible businesses during a Feb. 18 campus speech.

The event is sponsored by the UCCS College of Business’ Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative and the UCCS Office of Sustainability.

Vincent Stanley, Patagonia’s vice president of marketing and co-author of “The Responsible Company” will speak at 5 p.m. on Feb. 18 in the University Center Theater. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited to 100. For more information, please contact Elizabeth Moore at (719) 255-5168 or [email protected].

Stanley will talk about environmentally responsible business practices as well as Patagonia’s mission statement to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

He will describe steps businesses large and small can take to thrive in uncertain times while reducing social and environmental damage. His speech will include strategies to improve the quality of a business, ways to reduce harm, and how companies can provide meaningful work to employees. A question-and-answer period with the audience is planned.

Stanley, nephew of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, has worked for the company since its inception in 1973. In 2012, Stanley and Chouinard wrote “The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 40 Years” to describe the steps and missteps the company took to become more responsible.

For the past eight years he has focused on the intersection of the company’s brand, sport, and environmental stories. He has helped initiate and produce the Footprint Chronicles, the company’s interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; the Common Threads Partnership; and Patagonia Books.

— Eric Nissen, College of Business