Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but
that is pretty rare. Here’s the interesting info.

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the
most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or
above!).

And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here are the
facts:

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228
(220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95
or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!)

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year
2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no
one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this
year!

Walking through downtown Boulder in spring 2005, looking at people’s jackets, sneakers, and boots, Swartz recognized maybe five or six brands–but, he says, there must have been another 20 names that he didn’t know. Says Swartz, who doesn’t take himself too seriously: “There was one called Horny Toad,”–that’s a real brand–”and one called Chipped Toenail”–he’s being funny now–”and I whipped out my cell phone, because I’m a corporate guru, and I said, ‘BYNHO. Brands You’ve Never Heard Of.’” He repeats all of this at approximately 80 miles an hour. “I get it,” Swartz told Steere. “The next best thing is the small thing. People are postindustrial. They are sick of mass.” He takes a breath. “It’s hard to be big and cool.”

That insight, coupled with the realities of Timberland’s business, which lately has been proving by way of slowing sales and shrinking profits that it is indeed hard to be big and cool, would ultimately lead to a titanic shift in the company’s strategy. Until recently, it had consistently turned away investment bankers who wanted to sell companies to Timberland. In the company’s 33-year history, it had acquired only one business, and that was in 1985. From its entrepreneurial roots–Jeffrey’s father, Sidney, tested the waterproofing of early Timberland boots by drowning them in toilets full of bright-blue Tidy Bowl water–Timberland had become mass market, a single mammoth brand from head to toe. And it had remained so even after its competitors–VF Corp (NYSE:VFC)., which owns The North Face; Wolverine World Wide (NYSE:WWW), which markets Merrell footwear; Columbia Sportswear (NASDAQ:COLM); and many others–had discovered the power of owning a portfolio of brands. In this changing world, Timberland stood pretty much alone, attempting to build its brand by itself.

That stance began to change after Swartz’s Colorado epiphany. The publicly owned company decided that it might just consider acquiring some smaller companies. Maybe. If the companies were entrepreneurial enough and values-driven enough. It was a big if. It was a strategic question that Swartz and the rest of the management team–COO Ken Pucker, president of the outdoor group Gary Smith, and CFO Brian McKeon–would take more than a year to settle. They met biweekly for marathon debating sessions, carving out a list of criteria to which they would stringently adhere when selecting acquisition targets.

Swartz and his team would consider only companies committed to treating their workers, and the planet, as well as they believe Timberland does. They would look for untapped growth potential, brands that would benefit from Timberland’s international supply chain, working capital, sales force, and expertise in entering new markets. They would look for founders who wanted to stay. “We’re really interested in people who understand their brands and are interested in continuing to guard them,” Pucker says. But on their long list of criteria, one element was so important that it far outweighed the others: They would search for “authentic” brands, Pucker says, brands that are “rooted in something real, not fashion brands.” Indeed, they would look for brands that were small and focused and passionately entrepreneurial–precisely the kind of brand that Timberland once was.

One of the lesser-known logos that Jeff Swartz might have spotted as he strolled through downtown Boulder was the brainchild of Kim and Demetri Coupounas, a married couple who are polar opposites in looks and manner. Demetri, who everyone calls Coup, is 41, dark, and Greek. Kim, 40, is blond with startlingly clear blue eyes. Coup’s stories come with punch lines; he waits for the laugh, like the deadpan comic Steven Wright. Kim is his straight man. They are, however, identical twins in brains and ambition: They both graduated from Princeton and then earned joint degrees from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Each wanted to save the world, he by balancing the federal budget (he was policy director of Washington’s Concord Coalition during the Clinton years), she as one of the early employees of the experimental Edison Schools Project.