Gert Boyle, a German-born businesswoman who built the billion-dollar Columbia Sportswear Company and starred in its ads as “One Tough Mother,” died on Sunday in Portland, Ore. She was 95.

Her son, Timothy Boyle , confirmed the death, in an assisted living facility.

A charismatic figure known for her wry sense of humor, Ms. Boyle had taken over the company from her husband, Joseph Boyle, who was known as Neal, after he died of a heart attack in 1970 . Columbia Sportswear was a small company in debt. Ms. Boyle was 46 and had spent her life raising three children. But she decided to take the helm when her bank encouraged her to take an offer of only $ 1,400 for the company.

“For 1,400 dollars, I would just as soon as run this business into the ground myself,” she recalled saying to a local business executive in her 2005 memoir, “One Tough Mother: Taking Charge in Life, Business, and Apple Pies.”

Ms. Boyle, becoming president and chairwoman, soon repositioned the company as one that offered sportswear for everyone, not just experienced athletes. She knew that as a middle-aged woman she was an unusual president, so she made herself the face of Columbia, starring in a print and television ad campaign as the Tough Mother who stood stone-faced as she oversaw absurdist product tests on her son (dropping him out of a helicopter, strapping him to the roof of her car).