Surfing pioneer
Born: March 27, 1923;
Died: June 2, 2017
JACK O'Neill, who has died aged 94, was a colourful, eye-patched pioneer in the world of surfing who was credited with popularising the wetsuit and helping to transform the image of surfing from a past-time for hippies into a serious sport.
O'Neill, who began wearing a black eye patch after his surfboard hit his left eye while riding a wave, first hit on the idea of a wetsuit after trying various methods for keeping warm, including wearing clothes coated with oily sealant. Then a friend told him about a rubber coating which was used on the underside of carpets and O'Neill began using the material to develop suits.
O'Neill said at the time that his friends did not have much faith in his invention.
"All my friends said, 'O'Neill, you will sell to five friends on the beach and then you will be out of business'," he said.
However, his product began to attract popularity. He opened a surf shop in San Francisco but in 1959 moved his growing family 75 miles south to Santa Cruz, where he opened his second shop to cater to the city's growing surf scene.
By the 1980s O'Neill had become the world's largest recreation wetsuit designer and manufacturer and the O'Neill surf brand had reached Australia, Europe, Japan and other corners of the globe. The company's motto was "It's always summer on the inside."
Jack O'Neill was born in Denver and served as a navy pilot during the Second World War before studying business at the University of Portland in Oregon.
After working as a taxi driver and fire extinguisher salesman in San Francisco, he moved to Long Beach, California, where his passion for the ocean seriously took hold.
He considered O'Neill Sea Odyssey, a marine and environmental education programme for children, his proudest achievement.
Founded in 1996, it has taken nearly 100,000 school-aged children in his personal Team O'Neill catamaran to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to learn about the ocean.
"The ocean is alive and we've got to take care of it," O'Neill said about the programme.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the O'Neil Sea Odyssey is the best thing I've ever done."
O'Neill had a stroke in 2005 and had not surfed in recent years. He died of natural causes at his Santa Cruz home, his family said. He died peacefully, surrounded by family in his oceanfront home of more than 50 years, waves lapping at his deck.
His first wife died in 1972 and he is survived by his second wife, his three daughters, three sons and six grandchildren.
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