Walking the Walk

Swartz wasn't always this way. For most of his life, he was, as he puts it, the "overeducated, watered-down third-generation entrepreneur--what I would call a 'trained seal.' " But things took a dramatic turn when, in 1989, the then-tiny City Year asked him to donate boots to its workers. Soon, cofounder and CEO Alan Khazei challenged Swartz further. "He said, 'You think my job is to save the world and your job is to make boots,' " Swartz remembers. " 'If you give me half a day, I'll show you how the two could be one.' " With nine other employees, Swartz agreed to help clean up Odyssey House, a residence for troubled teens. There he met a young man who asked him what he did. "I'm the COO," he said. "He says, 'What do you really do?' I say, 'I'm responsible for the global execution of strategy.' Then I say, 'So what do you do?' He said, 'I work at getting well.' That was an answer that sort of trumped mine."

In a thunderbolt, Swartz felt he had a new purpose, a true calling.

It was a life-altering moment for Swartz, who suddenly saw his woes as minuscule compared with the teen's vast emotional and physical struggles. In a thunderbolt, he felt he had a new purpose, a true calling: helping those less fortunate than himself. "It wasn't frightening; it was, in fact, exalting and exhilarating," he says. "There was a discontinuity between how you are in the world and an opportunity to reimagine how you would be in the world." Swartz, who would replace his father as CEO in 1998, was determined to make Timberland a living laboratory for an altruism-driven culture--without torpedoing the family business.

If it sounds like a religious conversion, that may be because it came on the heels of one. Although he was raised in the more secular Reform tradition of Judaism, Swartz had recently become an Orthodox Jew. Somehow, this perpetual insomniac (four hours is a good night) now devotes nearly as much time to Torah study and to philanthropic activities as he does to his day job. "He's an amazing person," says Barry Schrage, president of the Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies. "I've rarely met a volunteer who has the capacity to move people as strongly as he does."

Although Swartz knows the business inside and out, it's hard to get him to talk about it. Asked if he cares about shoes, he looks shocked. "Am I proud of the boots and shoes we make? Desperately." But making good gear, he says, doesn't matter enough. "I can't care enough about shoes or clothes to do what I do unless there is a different kind of purpose to it."

Certainly, Swartz's quest has created a cohesive culture at Timberland. Even outsiders understand it, like the car-service driver, who, when asked about the fact that Tyco International used to share the same leafy office park in Stratham, New Hampshire, says pointedly: "These people are really different from those people." In the parking lot, the primo spots are reserved for employees with hybrid cars. Just past the main entrance is Timberland's Community Impact Center, featuring a bulletin board and computer where employees can sign up for a host of volunteer projects or propose their own. After that, you pass the local offices of City Year, housed entirely within Timberland. There's a gleaming on-site day-care center--and no stock ticker.

Betsy Blaisdell, manager for environmental stewardship, laughs when she thinks how horrified she originally was at the thought of working for a big, bad corporation. With Swartz's support, she has helped push through such initiatives as a $3,000 cash incentive for employees to purchase hybrid cars (six have taken advantage so far) and the company's $3.5 million solar array at its Ontario, California, distribution center. Although it will provide 60% of the center's energy, it may take as many as 20 years to show a return, and that's just fine with Swartz.

For Timberland, service is not something you do once a year. While volunteer projects are always under way, many of them have been organized under the rubric of Serv-a-palooza, held in late September. Its 2005 projects included a massive effort to clean up and reclaim public spaces around Lawrence, Massachusetts, and a plan to improve a center for handicapped kids in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Timberland suppports these efforts for their own sake, but the potential corporate benefits do not go unnoticed. "There are lots of things people do to build teams," says Danette Wineberg, Timberland's general counsel. "They use consultants, exercise programs, off-sites. Not only does [service] not cost anything, it does some lasting good."

In the most recent employee survey, 75% of employees said they would choose Timberland again if they were looking for work, while 79% said Timberland's reputation had played a big role in their decision to come to the company. "I love my job," says Michael Moody, a staff attorney. "The core values are humanity, humility, integrity, and excellence, and I see those values used as a touchstone in all conversations."