This is how one woman rose through this world.

It all started when she joined her husband in learning how to climb mountains. They quickly got good at it, so good that they decided they should upgrade their climbing equipment. Which led them to realize the best equipment came from Austria, was really expensive, and was not available in their native Seattle.

So the second thing she did was talked to all of her mountaineering friends. She made a list of what kind of equipment they wanted, and on the group’s behalf placed a bulk order from the company in Europe. Everyone got the equipment they wanted, and at a lower price than if they had bought it piecemeal. She had, in essence, developed what today we call a “buyers’ cooperative.”

The next thing she did, together with her husband, was start a new company. She convinced 21 of her friends to pay $1 for a lifetime membership in the cooperative, which would allow them to place future bulk orders together. Within the first year, the company’s membership had quadrupled. And as the company made a profit, members received a cash dividend proportional to how much gear they had bought.

The fourth thing she did was turn her home into an operations center for placing and fulfilling orders, storing merchandise, fabricating tents and other equipment, and even for packaging food for expeditions. Soon it was a thriving business, and eventually it moved to a larger location.

The last thing she did was work her butt off. Over the years the business became a mail order catalog – which eventually expanded to include other sports like hiking, camping, skiing and cycling – and then a retail operation of over 140 stores, and then an online presence which has helped the company grow in the digital age.

Today the cooperative earns over $2.5B in annual sales, and provides its members with about $2MM in annual rebates. Roughly 70% of the profits are returned to the outdoor community, and about $10MM goes to non-profit groups. The name of the company began as the Recreational Equipment Cooperative, but today you may know it as REI.

Last month, REI’s co-founder reached the end of her long adventure. She and her husband Lloyd had retired in 1970, and they had enjoyed their retirement together until his death in 2000. But she had kept going and going, occasionally appearing at REI events where she was treated like a rock star.

Her name was Mary Gaiser Anderson. And on March 27 she finally stopped to rest, and passed away in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

She was 107 years old.