It was 1967. The Summer of love. The summer JanSport was born in the back of a Seattle transmission shop. Seattle native and backpacker Skip Yowell and his cousin Murray Pletz graduated from college with no interest in real jobs. Murray's girlfriend Jan Lewis knew how to sew. Murray told her, if she whipped up a prototype and they got it into a store he would marry her and name the company after her. She did. It did. And JanSport was born.