Background
Quimby was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, a daughter of an engineer and salesman father and a homemaker mother.
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Roxanne Quimby
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Career
Although her family was business oriented, she initially took a different path, going to art school in San Francisco, where she was influenced by the "back to the land" ideas of Helen and Scott Nearing. In 1975 she and her boyfriend, George Saint Clair, moved to Maine, bought a tract of land near Guilford, built a cabin and outhouse, and lived a rustic lifestyle. In 1978, the couple had twins.
A little later, Saint Clair left the family.
Eventually, she met Burt Shavitz and in 1984 began selling candles made of his beeswax at local fairs. In the 1990s, Quimby acquired Shavitz"s stake in the company.
In 2007 Quimby sold the company to Clorox. After turning Burt"s Bees over to outside investors, she used her new fortune to deepen her long running conservation advocacy.
The most visible action was the purchase of over 120,000 acres of Maine forest, which she then placed off limits to hunters, loggers, and other users.
She has since proposed a donation of 70,000 acres of her land towards a new Maine Woods National Park. An additional donation of 30,000 acres would be managed like a state park and would allow activities such as hunting and snowmobiling. This plan is controversial to some Mainers.
As of 2011, she is a resident of Portland, Maine, where she leads a number of philanthropic organizations in the area.
