Wilbert Lee “Bill” Gore was born in 1912 in Meridian, Idaho, U.S. He trained as a chemical engineer, first earning his bachelor of science degree in the field from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and going on to earn his master’s of science in physical chemistry. He worked for American Smelting and Refining Company, Remington Arms, and DuPont before forming a company with his wife.

Meanwhile, Genevieve “Vieve” Gore was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., in 1913, and spent much of her childhood on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, USA. Devoted to education, she traveled each day to a one-room school on horseback. She studied elementary education at the University of Utah and graduated from the Henniger Business College in 1935, the same year she married her husband and business partner Wilbert “Bill” Gore.

In 1958, leaving the security of Bill’s job at DuPont, Bill and Genevieve officially launched their business in the basement of their home in Newark, Delaware. Bill wanted to pursue his own idea of making electronic ribbon cable insulated with polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE). While Bill invented, Vieve managed the business, ensuring bills were always paid and helping the company grow into a successful global corporation. They received their first major order in 1960, supplying 7.5 miles of insulated ribbon cable to the city of Denver. In 1962, W. L. Gore & Associates supplied cables used in order space on Bell Laboratories’ Telstar satellite.

Only a sophomore in college at the time, Bill and Vieve’s son, Bob, secured the company’s first patent in 1963 for the multiconductor wiring strip, or MULTI-TETTM cable. In subsequent years, W. L. Gore & Associates supplied NASA with cable for its Surveyor missions, the first U.S. effort to make a soft landing on the moon. And in 1969, Gore cables accompanied Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong as they became the first human beings to set foot on the moon.

In 1969, the company developed a remarkably versatile new polymer, which would become the most successful and most notable discovery—the expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE). Over time, they found ePTFE could be applied in medical, textile, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, oil and gas, aerospace, automotive, mobile electronics, music, and semiconductor uses. But perhaps its most widely known use is in GORE-TEX® Fabric, which launched in 1976. 

Initially used in rainwear for Earl Winters, Ltd., GORE-TEX was soon integrated into gear for first responders, protecting fire fighters from excessive heat stress, because of its ability to release sweat and other fluids while remaining waterproof. In 1981, Gore’s products found their way into space yet again, this time in space suits for astronauts on the Columbia, NASA’s inaugural space shuttle mission. GORE-TEX also found a new medical use as a cardiovascular patch.

The late 1980s found the company manufacturing GORE-TEX fabric for military personnel, and in 1990 was used in outerwear for explorers on an international mission in Antarctica. W. L. Gore & Associates continued to grow and flourish through the 1990s and 2000s and beyond.