Skip Yowell, a passionate outdoorsman who helped found JanSport, a leading producer of backpacks, died on Wednesday in St. Peter, Kan. He was 69.His sister, Diana Crouch, confirmed his death and said that he had battled lung cancer.Fueled by a 1960s back-to-nature craze and a love of the outdoors, Mr. Yowell and a cousin, Murray Pletz, started JanSport in 1967 in a spare room above a Seattle office belonging to Mr. Yowell’s uncle. The company was named after Mr. Pletz’s girlfriend, who became his wife.JanSport soon grew into a multimillion-dollar business.“His whole life was outdoors and introducing it to generations of people. That was so important to him,” Ms. Crouch said.Mr. Yowell never lost his passion for nature, but when America’s love of camping cooled in the 1980s, companies making outdoor goods had to adapt.JanSport’s initial focus was on external-frame backpacks, the type commonly used by hikers, but by the mid-1980s those packs made up just 20 percent of the company’s sales.

Day packs, the kind students often use to lug around their pencils and books, made up half.The VF Corporation, a lifestyle brand based in Greensboro, N.C., purchased JanSport in 1986. Since then, the company’s backpacks have evolved to meet the needs of a changing world. Its customers, now more apt to be students than mountaineers, need backpacks to be water-resistant to protect their smartphones, tablets and other electronic gear.Harold Murray Yowell was born on July 5, 1946, in Hays, Kan. His father, Harold, worked in the oil well business. His mother, Marjorie, was a homemaker taking care of four siblings.After graduating from Great Bend High School in Great Bend, Kan., Mr. Yowell attended Wichita State University and then Fort Hays State University but did not graduate, Ms. Crouch said.Mr. Yowell soon joined his cousin in Seattle. Mr. Pletz’s idea for an adjustable backpack had won some money in a design competition, and he enlisted Mr. Yowell and other family members to help him start a company.

Mr. Pletz promised his girlfriend, Jan Lewis, that if she married him, he would name the company after her. It was several years until JanSport got real office space. Ms. Lewis helped with the sewing, while Mr. Pletz led the design work. Mr. Yowell was the salesman and would lecture the others on the importance of marketing the brand.“Every day we heard, ‘Marketing!’ ” Ms. Crouch recalled.At the time of his death, Mr. Yowell held the title of vice president for global public relations.Ann Daw, the vice president for marketing, said that until his failing health prevented it, Mr. Yowell would often drive four and a half hours to the Denver airport to fly to Indonesia, Brazil or anywhere else he was needed to promote the brand.“The hardest thing for him over the last 10 months was that he couldn’t travel,” she said.Besides his sister, survivors include his wife, Winnie Kingsbury; a stepdaughter, Wesley Kingsbury; a stepson, Hunt Kingsbury; and a brother, Lindsey.Mr.

Yowell’s lifelong love of nature had material results. He and Mr. Pletz came up with the idea for a dome tent after being caught in a snowstorm on Mount Rainier.He was a founding member of the Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group, and worked with the Big City Mountaineers, a wilderness mentorship program.On its website, JanSport still offers a rugged-looking line of backpacks inspired by Mr. Yowell. vip i5 extra secure laptop backpackOne model, the Pleasanton, which sells for $245, comes with pockets designed to fit laptops and electronic tablets. backpack dizionarioBut its look — a more classic style with leather details — is more reminiscent of Mr. Yowell’s early days at the company.“klattermusen backpack review

Things just took off,” Mr. Yowell once said. In the beginning, he added, his major worry “was whether I was going to have enough money to go skiing.”Skip Yowell, a Kansas boy and avowed hippie who made it to Mt. Everest, co-founded the JanSport company and sold backpacks by the millions, has died. He was 69.Yowell had lung cancer, his sister Diana Crouch said in an interview Monday. snugli backpack carrier weight limitHe died Wednesday at his home in St. Peter, Kan.backpack england pantip In 1967, he left college in Kansas and joined his cousin Murray Pletz for a starry-eyed venture in Seattle.Pletz had won a design competition with his idea for a flexible aluminum backpack frame. coqenpate backpackStarting a tiny operation over his father's transmission shop, he promised his girlfriend, Jan Lewis, that he would name the new company for her if she would sew the packs, and, incidentally, marry him.

Cousin Skip would take care of sales. With that, JanSport was born."Skip was and still is the soul of the JanSport brand," Steve Munn, the company's president, said in a statement. "Veterans admired his long-term commitment and passion for everything JanSport. Newcomers, 20-somethings, admired him for starting a company to avoid getting a real job."Yowell retired in 2010 as JanSport's vice president of global public relations. However, he continued making appearances for the company until January. Pletz left in 1982 and Lewis retired in 2005. Though the company outfits hikers with backpacks and tents, its most visible contribution has been on campuses.In 1972, a buyer for the University of Washington bookstore gave Yowell a transformative tip: Students were starting to use JanSport daypacks for hauling books from class to class. JanSport, the buyer suggested, might want to reinforce the packs for items heavier than a sandwich and a compass."Thankfully, I didn't ignore the tug inside of my gut that confirmed Ed might just be on to something," Yowell wrote in his 2007 book, "The Hippie Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder and Other Mountains."

The company bolstered the packs with vinyl, then leather. Soon, students throughout the Northwest, then the U.S., were dumping books, water bottles, gym clothes, fruit, CD players and computers into JanSport packs."Today our daypacks are used worldwide," Yowell wrote. "You can be in the outback of Bhutan, India or the Himalayas, and you'll find kids going to school carrying a daypack with their books and possessions in it."Born July 5, 1946, in Hays, Kan., Yowell was the son of Harold, an oil field worker, and Marjorie, a mother of four. He planned to become a photographer after his studies at Wichita State and Fort Hays State University, but he changed direction after the fateful call from his cousin Murray.In its first years, JanSport was a family affair. Yowell's Aunt Mabel kept the books. Her husband, his Uncle Norm, fabricated the aluminum tubes in his transmission shop. Sometimes his father came from Kansas to help.Yowell himself came up with a barrage of wild marketing ideas stressing JanSports' western roots and its young owners' countercultural leanings.

In some of the ads, they struck tongue-in-cheek poses as miners or '49ers; later, in a 1982 shot that would have gone viral if it were possible at the time, Yowell, with his flowing blond hair and Fu Manchu mustache, puckered up next to a kissing llama named Cisco.In his book, he wrote of driving to San Francisco with Pletz in 1970 to pitch distributors on JanSport packs. For some reason, the two bought suits for the occasion — and were so uncomfortable that they blew at least one sale."As we moved through the store, the employees started giving us these shocked looks as if we belonged in a freak show at the circus," he wrote. "I overheard one person say, 'What, those are the JanSport guys?'"For Yowell, who said he seldom suited up after that, hiking shorts and headbands were a more natural fit.Once a year, he took staffers, reporters, sporting goods buyers on a rigorous climb up Mt. Rainier. The tradition endured more than 40 years.Yowell and Pletz frequently tested out their products on the trail.