Hap Klopp (Dick Klopp) is perhaps the name most prominently associated with the arising of "The North Face" as the modern giant it has beome today; however, Doug Tomkins was the originator of the North Face name (more below). Hap was a Stanford School of Business graduate circa 1966. His business training there, and past hands-on experience running a family business, were being put to good use in efforts that he and some others were making to buy The Ski Hut in Berkeley from George Rudolf. That did not happen because George Rudolf could not be convinced to sell. (note: "Rudolph" is a misspelling). Other important names in the North Face story are Sally McCoy, Bill Simon at Odyssey, Jack Gilbert, and Bruce Hamilton (at one time President). See link to Al Tabor's "outinunder" site below for details.
Meanwhile, still in the Bay Area, and still within the same general time frame, another outdoor gear manufacturer was just getting launched. That was Sierra Designs. George Marks and Bob Swanson, who had been with the manufacturing branch of Rudolf's The Ski Hut called Trailwise, struck out in 1965 on their own and began Sierra Designs. George remained good friends and neighbors with Rudolf until Rudolf's death in 1998.
Duncan Dwelle (in picture below) remembers
that he had involvements with both fledgling companies, having
had a role in the original "North Face" retail store
as early as May 1965, and, as part of that, being the staff person
who "wrote the
first three catalogs in '66-68." Later, in 1968, Mr. Dwelle
"worked for a short time with Bob Swanson and George Marks
setting up retail for Sierra Designs." In the picture, Duncan
is modeling in the 1968-69 Sierra Designs catalog. He had suggested
a photo shoot on the headlands in southern Marin County to Bob
and George (the SD founders). It was a very low-budget affair,
so here on the catalog's Mountain Parka page we have Duncan modelling
the SD 60/40 and Reevair parkas with Jean, the (then) spouse of
Bob Swanson. (go to Duncan
Dwelle's website and learn more about his contributions to
the Industry). Jean
Martincich-Swanson.
Meanwhile, as time went by, Hap Klopp
was still searching for an outdoor business to buy. Soon Hap shifted
his focus to a new target. He remembers, "I bought The North
Face, which was a retail store run by Doug Tomkins.
The climbing poster below was commissioned by Tomkins in about
1966, for placement in the store(s).... When Tomkins owned the
store, TNF had no product of its own but sold gear that included
private labelled products from George [Marks] of Sierra Designs.
Tomkins [the original
founder of the North Face name] had
sold TNF to three people. Arne and Glen Hiersoux and Justus Bauschinger."
It took many months of negotiations, but in May of 1968 Hap's
offer to buy was accepted. Justus stayed on for awhile as Head Designer, but the Hiersouxs
left... Meanwhile, Doug
Tomkins and his wife Susie went on to found the highly sucessful
company "Esprit." Many years later, Esprit picked up
Moonstone.... (click for more about Justus
and Tomkins and
early North Face history)... Since the
early 1990s, according to Wayne Gregory, Doug and his wife (the
former Kristine McDivitt) are leaders in efforts to save our Planet
through the creation of enormous eco-preserves (Pumalin Park),
chiefly in temperate rain forests of South America (Chile). (search
for "Foundation for Deep Ecology").
Below is a picture of Mr. Tomkins in 2009.
Breaking News, December 8, 2015: Mr. Douglas Tomkins has died of hypothermia at the age of 72, due to a kayaking accident on a lake in Southern Chile, see: http://www.journalnow.com/news/nation_world/north-face-co-founder-douglas-tomkins-dies-in-kayaking-accident/article_d3791e22-9e2e-11e5-9b51-e7bbb647cacf.html.
Related material-- Justus Bauschinger was another ex-Ski Hut person; he had left The Ski Hut and was part of The North Face both before and after Hap bought it. He moved on to found the Bay Area company named Class Five in 1971. More about Justus and his role in the early North Face, click here.
Hap quickly moved to establish the North Face logo and trademark that still exist today, and swiftly created their own design and manufacturing operation, which was at first located in the back half of the newly set up Berkeley store. At the very first, the product line was an internal frame pack named the Ruth Sack, and a line of down sleeping bags (they did not continue to have Sierra Designs make products for them, but Hap and George Marks always remained good friends). TNF's first wholesale deals, masterminded by Jack Gilbert, were to two Portland, Oregon stores, Howell's and Cloud Cap Chalet. The company grew very fast and steadily and by 1981, had acquired the Colorado giant Holubar Mountaineering.
By 1988, annual gross sales had increased to $50 million. The North Face (TNF) remained under Hap up until 1989, when he sold it to another long-time gear pioneer Bill Simon, the man who had run Snow Lion many years before. Bill Simon had the company for awhile, but more recently it's ownership has become very complicated and very corporate. Their gear itself remains top-flight.
Please Note: All Material on this page, and in all my "History of Gear" webpages, is copyrighted, and no usage of my material is permitted unless explicit permission is granted by me, Bruce B. Johnson, owner of OregonPhotos.com. Material here is derived from interviews and/or correspondence with Hap Klopp, some from Duncan Dwelle,some from my friend Al Tabor*,and some from George Marks, founder of nearby Sierra Designs. Material about North Face tents came from Mark Erickson. Much material also is derived from Bob Woodward's articles in Gear Trends Magazine, in particular Summer 2007. Finally, Wayne Gregory of Gregory Packs has contributed information about Doug Tomkins.... Editors: Please contact me at oldgear@Oregonphotos.com, if you have interest in publishing....Others: if you were involved with one of the old-line, vintage gear companies and have a story to tell in these pages, please contact me soon. Sponsors: the History of Gear Project is soliciting a few quality sponsors to support its continued research and publication efforts.
Al has a massive website with intensly more detail on the histories of the Bay Area companies. Check his site out! https:/outinunder.com/organization/north-face
but the caravan
moves on"Collector's Note: if you find a sleeping bag in good condition with a label that says "Made for The North Face by Sierra Designs," you've got a real collector's item. It would date to a small time period in about 1965-67, and was likely directly made by one of the two founders of Sierra Designs!
Hap Klopp still lives in the Bay Area.
He is heavily involved in a various roles in companies that could
be loosely grouped into "outdoors-related." I would
add the adjective "innovative." This is true of London-based
"d3o," and especially
true in regards to a company named "Ardica"
for which Hap is Executive Director. Ardica is developing working
examples 
of "heat
and power for apparel." An example would be a jacket or glove
warmed by a fuel cell. George Marks is one of his collaborators
on this project.
Hap has also taught classes about entrepreneurship and other business subjects. He has written books, the two that most caught my eye were "The Adventure of Leadership" (1992), and "The Complete Idiot's Guide: Business Management" (1997).
Hap told me, "I don't believe in retiring."
As mentioned previously, The North Face as a company continues to be highly successful. With massive growth, its structure is now far-removed from the genteel collection of independent-thinkers who first grew it in the late Sixties! Click for a look at it's ownership in recent times.
BOOK ALERTS: MY FIRST BOOK IN A SERIES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF GEAR WAS ABOUT FROSTLINE KITS of COLORADO. PLEASE VISIT MY FROSTLINE PAGE FOR A LINK TO ORDER IT, IN EITHER SOFT-BOUND OR HARD BOUND EDITIONS. (I have now written a total of five books about the History of Gear)..... My second book was released May 20, 2008 and is titled, "GERRY, To Live in the Mountains" (click on GERRY link below). The third book of the series covers the story of Holubar and was honored in 2012 as one of the year's best "Local History" books at Chautauqua in Boulder, Colorado.... All my books feature major contributions from their founders or their Presidents. My most recent additions to the series are "MSR, Defying Tradtion" and "Stephenson's Warmlite: Still Controversial After All These Years."
Justus: "The North Face was a couple of retail stores (SF & Palo Alto) that Doug [Tomkins] started; when he was going broke, Arne & Glen Hiersoux and Justus Bauschinger bought the stores, mainly for the name, added a store in Orinda, and built a store with a small factory behind it on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley. That's where I started the design & manufacturing for NF. Since I knew Hap Klopp from my Ski Hut days, and we were running out of dough, I invited Hap to join the venture, which he did. When it became apparent that we as a group didn't get along, the Hiersoux bros. left, and then I quit some months later, to start Class-5. I had hired and trained Mark Erickson as my understudy at NF, before I left---and to his credit, Mark became a damned fine designer and design director for NF thereafter. He and I remain friends to this day." 01/24/2014