YVES CHOUINARD

His deep belief that ''we should do whatever we're capable of'' had its origins in his early childhood in Lisbon, Me. One of the most profound memories of his youth was watching his father, a French Canadian plasterer, carpenter and electrician, sitting in the kitchen next to the wood-burning stove, drinking a bottle of whiskey and pulling out his teeth, good ones and bad, with his electrician's pliers. ''He needed dentures but felt the local dentist was asking too much money to do a job he could just as easily do himself,'' Chouinard said. ''I'm a wimp compared to that.''

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