The founders were members of the Portland Rowing Club, and in 1913, the company was asked to provide a rowing suit for use in the chilly mornings on the Willamette River.
With the relative scarcity of building easements, lakefront property remains prestigious, and a number of architecturally significant homes have been built along its shores, including the Carl C. Jantzen Estate, a Tudor-style estate on the National Register of Historic Places, built on an island on the lake's north shore by the founder of the Jantzen swimwear company in 1930.
Bette Ford began her career as a model and actress in New York, where her modeling credits included stints as the Jantzen Bathing Suit Girl, the Camay (soap) Bride, and the Parliament Cigarette Girl, and her acting credits included appearances as a regular on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Jimmy Durante Show.
Jens Carsten Jantzen (born 18 October 1948, Störtewerkerkoog, Nordfriesland) is a mathematician working on representation theory and algebraic groups, who introduced the Jantzen filtration, the Jantzen sum formula, the Jantzen conjecture, and translation functors.
In 1874, together with the Woermann agent in Liberia, Wilhelm Jantzen, the two merchants founded their own company, Jantzen & Thormählen there.
On March 9, 2007 San José Grand Prix President Dale Jantzen announced that Redback Networks, an Ericsson company, would be the title sponsor of the 1.443 mile, seven-turn downtown temporary street circuit in 2007, the "Redback Raceway".