![]() ![]() There he sold his first wetsuits, a few vests he made from gluing together pieces of neoprene. In 1952, Jack opened his first surf shop in a garage across the Great Highway in San Francisco, a dune away from his favorite bodysurfing break. Looking back now, that concept can be traced back to the day when a young grade school kid went body surfing. Through the years O'Neill's wetsuit has provided warmth for many surfers. Tony tried one on back then and recalled "You needed cornstarch to get into those early wetsuits because they did not have nylon lining."Īs surfboard designs changed, so did surfing wetsuits. He remembered only a few older surfers were able to have a custom beaver tail jacket made by Jack O’Neill. Surf wetsuits were in the early stages of design development when Tony Mikus started surfing. Jack O'Neill would eventually phase out of surfboards and concentrate on wetsuits. "We had the only Surf Shop in Northern California for years," says Jack. "I was up here doing it while Hobie and Clark were doing it down there, Robertson and Sweet were into it too." Then as the '60s began, Clark Foam and Walker Foam were the main suppliers of foam blanks. Polyurethane foam was just starting to happen says Jack. Some of the other guys that were working there with Doug were Joe Woods, and Tom Hoyt, they were doing the glassing. Haut remembers doing the sanding and inlaying wooden skegs and any other jobs that were assigned to him. Doug was part-time help at the production factory, which was behind the showroom on 41st Ave. Doug Haut's first job in board building was with Jack O'Neill, it was late 1959 to early 1960. Another individual to who Jack taught board building to was Don Hansen, Don was in the Army and stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey. Jack still remembers Phil as being known as Numero Uno in the surfing community during the early 1960s. He would have Phil Edwards come up from Oceanside and shape some of the O'Neill boards. In the summer of 1957, Mike Eaton shaped a few boards for Jack in Santa Cruz.ĭuring 1960 Jack was doing some of the shaping, but was more into wetsuit designs at this time. During a surf movie that Greg Noll was showing, Mike and Jack started talking about board building and shaping. In 1957 Mike Eaton was stationed in the Bay Area with the Coast Guard. Jack was the only person doing wetsuits and surfboards so he coined the name Surf Shop, and was the first to do so. The two other board builders were Dale Velzy and Hobie Alter. He would load up on balsa from a local supplier and supply the Bay Area surfers with his boards. Jack O'Neill started his first Surf Shop in 1952, not far from the beach where he surfed. Having worked as a salesman for a couple of companies. "I started doing more board surfing than anything else," Jack said. ![]() ![]() Switching to board surfing and the camaraderie of other surfers, Jack was hooked on the Surfing lifestyle. Jack moved up to San Francisco in the late 40s and resumed body surfing in the cold waters of San Francisco. From it came a program for kids, wetsuits for surfers around the world, and surfboards. This special relationship with the sea has lasted through the years. ![]() It could have disappeared if he wanted it to, but it didn't. He soon developed a special stoke for the sea. Jack O'Neill began body surfing in Southern California while in grade school. ![]()
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