Yvon Chouinard, environmentalist and founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia was welcomed by a full crowd Tuesday night.

Chouinard never had any intentions of becoming a businessman. He left his home in California at the age of 16 and went to Wyoming to climb mountains. He soon realized the equipment he was using for climbing was very damaging to the rock.

He wanted something that could be reused and did not leave a mark once he was gone. Through trial and error and ample field research, he came up with equipment that was so innovative no one knew how to use it — he had to write detailed instructions to go along with it. He redesigned nearly every piece of climbing equipment.

“Perfection is achieved not when you cannot add anything more to a product, but when you can’t take anything out. We are about simplicity,” Chouinard said.

After a trip to Scotland, Chouinard brought back a colorful rugby shirt to climb in. At the time men’s sport wear consisted of grey sweatpants and grey sweatshirts. Other climbers complimented him on his shirt and asked him where he got it. Chouinard imported shirts from England and began selling them to climbers. “It was the first colorful thing men wore,” he said.

Chouinard came up with another innovation when he saw a friend wearing a brushed, wool sweater and thought it would be great for climbing if it was synthetic and waterproof. He sent his wife out to find something that he could use. He said what she brought back for him was “ugly, it looked like what your grandmother covered her toilet with,” but that was how fleece started.

Not long after, the recession of 1989 hit and people who did not need fleece were not buying it anymore. The company was very financially stressed, the banks would not loan them money at interest rates they could afford.

Chouinard and his colleagues went to Patagonia in South America. While there, they figured out why they were in business, after all none of them wanted to be businessmen.

“We were from the 60s and businessmen were grease balls,” Chouinard said. “We needed to figure out what our values were.”

The company came up with three core values: they wanted to make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm to the environment and they wanted to hire their friends and the line between work and play needed to blur.

“I don’t care when you work. I don’t care how hard you work. I care about what you produce. That’s all, so figure it out,” he said to his employees.

Chouinard believes businesses should have a responsibility to leave things in good shape. Many businesses don’t do this. They grow and produce as fast as possible without much thought to anything else. He limited the growth of his company to a place where they could be out of debt. The company also charges itself a 1 percent “earth tax.” Each year they donate 1 percent of its company to environmental causes. The final point Chouinard brought up was that we all need to do what we can because we are the problem — we are also the solution.