In September, Gore researchers discovered that certain oils in human sweat could clog the pores in the Gore-tex membrane, which, in turn, altered the surface tension of the membrane, allowing water molecules to pass through. In short, sweaty parkas leaked. But they also discovered that such "contaminated" parkas could be restored if they were washed in a detergent and doublerinse cycle or, in extreme cases, in a denatured alcohol bath. This became known as the "Ivory Snow Solution" and it was passed on to every Gore-tex manufacturer and dealer. For a while, there was hope that this solution would remedy the relatively few complaints being reported. Then, in November, Gilson received a disturbing letter from a part-time employee of Sierra West who also worked as a mountain guide. He told Gilson about a recent experience when he led a small group of campers into the Sierras and they were hit by a freak storm. "His name was Butch," Gilson says, "and I remember he wrote: 'My parka leaked, and my life was in danger.' That scared the hell out of us. Clearly our solution was no solution at all to someone on a mountaintop."
Gilson, at Gore only a few months, was faced with a decision that could cause serious damage to the entire company. Bill Gore calls decisions of this type "waterline decisions," using the image of a sinking ship. At any other time, Gore associates are allowed to solve their problems independently; free to seek advice or not, as they see fit. But if the problem could twist toward the company's waterline, associates must consult with other associates before proceeding. As evidence mounted, it became clear that the contamination problem was larger in scope and carried more serious consequences than had first been imagined.
Gilson sat down at a conference table with Bob Gore and four other associates. The circumstances were undeniably grave, but otherwise the meeting merely reflected the normal metabolism of a healthy lattice organization. Once again, associates with different skills had been brought together to solve a common problem. Bob Gore was there for his scientific expertise and the others brought talents in marketing, manufacturing, and quality control. The more they talked, the more they realized that there was only one thing they could do. "We took all of the noninsulated Gore-tex garments off the market," Gilson says. "We brought back, at our own expense, a fortune in pipeline material. Anything that was in the stores, at the manufacturers, or anywhere else in the pipeline, we stopped."
Meanwhile, Bob Gore set out to find a permanent answer to the contamination problem. One month after the garments were taken off the market, Bob Gore came out of the lab having restructured the molecular configuration of the membrane to exclude the oils that were causing the contamination. By late December, parkas made with improved, second-generation Gore-tex laminates were already on dealers' racks. In addition, Gilson told dealers that any time a customer returned a leaky parka, they should replace it with a second-generation model and bill the company. "In the four years since 1978, we've taken back roughly $3.5 million of first-generation products. But hind-sight tells us that we made the right decision. We didn't lose our credibility. We haven't lost even one customer."
As time passed, Gilson's perspective changed to give equal weight to what was gained as well as to what hadn't been lost. In four years, Gore's customer list grew from the original 6 to 125, including names like North Face, C. B. Sports, and Sierra Designs. Gore-tex fabrics blossomed into a profusion of products. There are Gore-tex jogging shoes, hiking boots, and high-fashion boots for women; Gore-tex hats and gloves; and trench coats, ski jackets, and golf jackets. There are even Gore-tex space suits on the space shuttle, Columbia. The fabrics division has grown "substantially faster" than the company as a whole, and Gilson expects it to double its size in the current fiscal year alone. And, he says, there is more growth on the way. This year the Army and the Marine Corps will begin outfitting troops in Gore-tex wet-weather parkas, pants, and headgear. "That," says Gilson, "is a sizable piece of business."
Still, the scare of '78 hasn't been entirely forgotten. Bill Gore, for example, likes to test a sample of every new garment personally to assure himself that it doesn't leak. Sometimes, he is spotted wandering around the grounds of the Newark plant during a rainstorm wearing a colorful, hooded parka, but at other times, when nature fails, he is perfectly content to wear a similar parka out to the garden behind his house and stand there with a hose over his head.
Ever since Bob Gore yanked a new future out of preheated goop, W. L. Gore & Associates has risen at a pace and in directions that no observer could have anticipated. But just as the company seems focused on a future of dramatic growth with fabrics as the largest and fastest-growing business in the company, yet another Gore prepares to yank something spectacular out of the goop.
"It will be the desalination of sea water; you know, malking it drinkable," says Bill Gore. "We haven't talked much about it, because it's still in development. But my son, Dave, is going to give a paper on it next month."
Dave Gore is a 37-year-old physicist who has been working on the process for almost three years in Flagstaff. He says the idea first impressed him when he was a child watching his father scamper around the roof of the house setting up solar-distillation experiments. "It's always been a big dream of mine," he says. "It would have impact. You can make the desert bloom." But it was the invention of the Gore-tex membrane that made the dream come true.
