| | | Growing up in Laguna Beach during the 1950s, Hobie Alter always knew he wanted to make life fun. But how could he have known that he would someday make a life out of fun? And in the process forever change the way people play in the water. It all began on a sunny day at Laguna's Main Beach, when a teenaged buddy of Hobie's asked "What are we going to do with our lives?" For Hobie the answer was simple. He looked out onto the waves, dug his toes in the sand and said, "Nothing where we have to wear boat shoes, or live on the east side of the Pacific Coast Highway." The solution was born in his parents' garage, when Hobie decided to apply his love of woodworking to the then-fledgling sport of surfing. Dad backed the Buick out of | | the way to make room for a shipment of balsa wood, Hobie got out his drawknife and carved out his very first surfboard. Friends soon started dropping by and before you knew it there was no room left for the Buick—Hobie's business of fun had begun. | | |
| | | Hobie opened up Southern California's first surf shop in Dana Point. Then in 1958 Hobie and buddy Gordon "Grubby" Clark began experimenting with new materials, literally inventing the polyurethane foam surfboard (and blowing up the garage in the process). The new marine boards were lighter, faster and easier to ride than anything else in the water. Suddenly everyone wanted to be a surfer—and every surfer wanted a Hobie. By the mid-1960s, while the Beach Boys were making records, the legendary Hobie Surf Team was setting them. Hobie's lineup was a veritable Who's Who of surfing greats. Phil Edwards, Joey Cabell, Corky Carroll, Mickey Munoz, Joyce Hoffman, Joey Hamasaki, Gary Propper, Billy Hamilton and Herbie Fletcher are just a few of the champions who sported the distinctive Hobie diamond logo over the years. Hobie's enduring combination of innovation and meticulous attention to detail would continue to attract the world's best surfers and shapers to the label for the next 50 years. But for Hobie Alter, the fun had just begun with surfboards. | | |