PORTLAND — In 2001, Jeff Auerbach found himself in the cigar lounge in the posh El Gaucho restaurant in downtown Portland. Nike co-founder Phil Knight was hosting a gathering to celebrate his entry into show business.
Auerbach had been recruited from Los Angeles to help run Will Vinton Studios, the stop-motion animation company. He’d recognized quickly that the company was in a death spiral. A couple of animated series made with Vinton’s “Claymation” process had been canceled, and the studio was flirting with bankruptcy.
After several years as a passive investor, Knight had gone ahead and purchased control of the company. Among the army of animators working for Vinton at the time was Travis Knight, Phil’s son.
“(For) Phil Knight the billionaire, it wasn’t a lot of money,” said Auerbach, who was president of Vinton’s studio at the time. “He was only doing it to support Travis and his coworkers. As a father, I really respected that.”