Alter, Hobie (1933 – 2014)
Ocean-sports industrialist from Orange County, California; founder of Hobie Surfboards in 1954 and the Hobie Cat sailboat company in 1967. "Perhaps more than anyone else," surf journalist Drew Kampion wrote in 1988, "including Gidget, Dora, Frankie and Annette, even the Duke, Hobie Alter has been responsible for the growth and development of surfing."
Alter was born on Halloween, 1933, in Ontario, California, the son of an orange farmer, and began surfing at age 16 in Laguna Beach, near his ...