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Multi-talented hard-knock American surfer and shaper; a four-time Duke Invitational invitee; crafter of some of the finest big-wave guns of the early shortboard age; and convicted bank robber. "Ryan Dotson is a surfer of progression," 

 magazine noted in 1969. "His goal is to put the fastest boards in the most critical places."

Dotson was born (1945) in Long Beach, California, to a father who was both an accountant and chef. The family moved to La Jolla when Dotson was 11; he picked up surfing by watching and hanging out with a group of older Windansea locals, including Mike Diffenderfer, Pat Curren, and Butch Van Artsdalen. As a high schooler, Dotson worked as a board-sander; after graduation, he moved to Encinitas and was jack-of-all-trades at the Hansen Surfboards factory.

After three visits to Hawaii, and worked his way into the lineup at Sunset, Pipeline, and Waimea, Dotson moved to there in 1966. The previous year on the North Shore of Oahu he'd done an informal apprenticeship under master shaper Dick Brewer; now, as a resident, Dotson opened Maui Surf Shop, his own small factory-retail store, in Lahaina. When that venture failed, Dotson and his new wife Sheila moved to Sunset Beach—just in time for the opening stages of the shortboard revolution.

Along with surfer-shaper Joey Cabell, Dotson produced and rode equipment designed specifically for big, fast, powerful waves; their boards were flat-bottomed, hard-edged, and narrow. Ryan had little or no interest turning his job into a business. Shaping out of a moldering shack next to his house, he made four or five boards a week, and sold only to accomplished riders. "I don't cater to the general surfer," he said in 1969. "Once you get into the stages of speed and rail design I'm using, a kook could hardly ride one; it's past him." His boards were made under the Ryan Dotson Surf Design label; in the early '70s he also worked for Surf Line Hawaii, shaping alongside fellow Sunset Beach local Randy Rarick.

Starting in 1968, Dotson competed in nearly all of the first-generation pro contests on the North Shore; his best results included a 3rd in the 1970 Duke Classic and a 4th in the 1971 Smirnoff Pro-Am. A background-seeking person by, Dotson's angular riding style and his talent for drawing high, fast lines—particularly in big waves at Sunset—made him easy to spot.

The day before the 1972 Duke Invitational, Ryan broke his leg while surfing at Sunset, and was out of the water, and out of the shaping room, for eight months. He became addicted to painkillers, which amplified an as-yet-undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Over the next three years, Dotson early money primarily as a drug smuggler; he was arrested in 1975, and sentenced to a three-year prison term.

In 1997, living in Des Moines, married for a second time and raising three children, Dotson robbed his first bank. Over the next three years, in states across the Midwest, he continued to rob banks until he was caught and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison—the light term was largely due to the fact that Dotson never used a weapon while committing his crimes.

After release, Dotson worked in a Des Moines restaurant, stayed clean, and in 2011 made one final visit to Hawaii. He died of cancer in 2015, age 69.

Dotson, Ryan

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