In 1975, with $3,000 in savings
Roxanne Quimby and her boyfriend moved to Maine. They bought a tract of land on which they built a cabin and an outhouse. Near her Guilford homestead, Quimby later met beekeeper Burt Shavitz and used his beeswax to create candles (making $20,000 in her first year selling at local crafts fairs) -- and later their (yes, the two
cofounded a company together) best selling product
Burt's Bees Lip Balm (it's
Burt's image that still graces many of the company's products). With the phenomenal success that followed, she
sold 80 percent of her shares in the company to New York investors in 2003 (
eventually the company was sold to Clorox) to help
fund significant land purchases. For years Maine sportsmen have been outraged with Quimby for forbidding hunters, loggers, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on the 120,000 acres of woodlands she now owns. Quimby has recently offered a compromise. She wants to
donate 70,000 acres to help create a new national park (
Maine Woods National Park) while "
setting aside another 30,000 acres of woodlands ... to be managed like a state park, with hunting and snowmobiling allowed."
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Mar 28, 2011 -
49 comments
