L.L.Bean is an American privately-held retail company that was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean. The company, headquartered in the place in which it was founded, in Freeport, Maine, specializes in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment. Company history L.L.Bean was founded in 1912 by its namesake, hunter and fisherman Leon Leonwood Bean, in Freeport, Maine. The company began as a one-room operation selling a single product, the Maine Hunting Shoe, also known as duck boots and later as Bean Boots. Bean had developed a waterproof boot, which is a combination of lightweight leather uppers and rubber bottoms, that he sold to hunters. He obtained a list of nonresident Maine hunting license holders, prepared a descriptive mail order circular, set up a shop in his brother's basement in Freeport and started a nationwide mail-order business. By 1912, he was selling the Bean Boot through a four-page mail-order catalog, and the boot remains a staple of the company's outdoor image. Defects in the initial design led to 90 percent of the original production run being returned: Bean honored his money-back guarantee, corrected the design, and continued selling them. According to Bean, relating the incorporation of the company, "officers elected Nov. 16, 1934...L.L. Bean, President and Treasurer; Carl Bean Vice President and Assistant Treasurer; Jack Gorman, my son-in-law, Vice President and Clothing Buyer; and Warren Bean, my son, Clerk." Gross sales for his company amounted to $1 million in 1946, increasing to $3.8 million in 1966, $20.4 million in 1974, and $237.4 million in 1984. The L.L.Bean retail store campus in Freeport, Maine, is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Leon L. Bean died on February 5, 1967, in Pompano Beach, Florida and was buried in Webster Cemetery in Freeport. The company passed into the directorship of Bean's grandson, Leon Gorman, from that time until 2001, when Gorman decided to take the position of chairman. Christopher McCormick assumed the role of CEO, the first non-family member to assume the title. On May 19, 2013, Shawn Gorman, 47, a great-grandson of the company's founder, was elected L.L.Bean's chairman. The company announced a US$125,000 donation to a new scholarship fund upon Leon Gorman's death in 2015, representing about 2.5 years of tuition at Bowdoin College, Gorman's alma mater. Stephen Smith was named chief executive officer (CEO) in November 2015, the first time in the company's 103-year history that a CEO had