science

Kris Tompkins

Kris Tompkins is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kris Tompkins rather than just read about it. In short: Kristine "Kris" Tompkins (née McDivitt) (born June 1950) is an American conservationist. Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and was CEO of Patagonia for 20 years, leaving the company in 1993.

Key takeaways

Kris Tompkins belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kris Tompkins to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kris Tompkins from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kristine "Kris" Tompkins (née McDivitt) (born June 1950) is an American conservationist. Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and was CEO of Patagonia for 20 years, leaving the company in 1993.

Early life Born Kristine McDivitt in Southern California, Tompkins spent much of her childhood on her great-grandfather's ranch. She lived in Venezuela during her early years while her father worked for an oil company. As a teenager, she met and befriended Yvon Chouinard in the Ventura County surf scene. She later studied at the College of Idaho in Caldwell, where she competed in ski-racing.

At Patagonia, Inc. In 1973, Tompkins returned to California and began working for Yvon Chouinard, assisting him in transforming his small piton business into Patagonia, Inc., eventually becoming the company's first CEO, a position she held until her retirement in 1993.

Conservation work In 1993, Tompkins retired from Patagonia and married Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face clothing company and co-founder of Esprit. The Tompkinses moved to Chile and focused on preserving national parks, establishing several nonprofit organizations, including the Conservation Land Trust, The Foundation For Deep Ecology, and Conservación Patagónica, which have now consolidated under Tompkins Conservation. In 1991, Doug Tompkins began acquiring private land for conservation in Chile's Los Lagos, managing it as a public-access park within the threatened Valdivian temperate rainforest. Pumalín Park received official nature sanctuary status in 2005 and became a national park in 2018. This designation followed Tompkins Conservation's donation of nearly 725,000 acres to help establish the new park, Pumalin Douglas Tompkins National Park, covering approximately 1 million acres and named in honor of its founder. The Tompkinses' conservation efforts expanded to Argentina, starting with the Iberá Wetlands of the Corrientes. In the wetland ecosystem, they launched projects to reintroduce extirpated species, such as the giant anteater, jaguar, red-and-green macaw, and giant river otter. The rewilding work in Ibera, and many other projects in the country, is now carried out by Rewilding Argentina, the team assembled by Kris and Doug, led by Sofia Heinonen. In January 2018, Tompkins and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed decrees on behalf of Tompkins Conservation to create five new national parks in Chile and expand three others, adding a total of 10.3 million acres of new national parklands to Chile. One million acres of land came from Tompkins Conservation, with the Chilean government providing the rest in federally controlled land. At the time, it was reported as the largest donation of land from a private entity to a country in South America.

Recognition

Awards 2026 The Explorers Club Medal from The Explorers Club 2025 Ellis Island Medal of Honor 2023 Ohana Festival's Inspiring Activism Award 2023 Ken Burns American Heritage Prize 2022 Senckenberg Prize for Commitment to Nature 2021 Inducted to the Kyoto Earth Hall of Fame 2018 Designated the UN Environment Patron of Protected Areas 2018 Luis Oyarzún Award granted by the Universidad Austral de Chile 2017 Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship granted by the Woodrow Wilson Center 2017 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy 2017 Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal granted by the Garden Club of America 2017 David R. Brower Award granted by the American Alpine Club

See also Wild Life – 2023 film by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin Conservación Patagónica

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kris Tompkins

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kris Tompkins claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kris Tompkins before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kris Tompkins ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kris Tompkins

In research: Kris Tompkins appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kris Tompkins in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kris Tompkins is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, Activists from California, American chief executives of fashion industry companies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kris Tompkins outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kris Tompkins in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kris Tompkins means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kris Tompkins out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kris Tompkins in simple terms?

Why does Kris Tompkins matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kris Tompkins?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kris Tompkins.