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Barrel-chested regularfoot surfer from Long Beach, California; winner of the 1965 United States Surfing Championships, and globetrotting lead in a series of surf movies made by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman in the mid- and late '60s. 

Martinson was born (1947) and raised in Long Beach, the son of a mechanic and stock-car racer father, and began surfing at age 10. Six years later he placed runner-up in the 1962 West Coast Championships; in 1964 he won the United States Invitational, and in 1965 he won the men's division of the United States Surfing Championships.

Martinson returned from a poor showing in the 1965 World Championships in Peru to find his U.S. Army induction notice. He deferred entry for as long as possible, then spent six years hiding from Selective Service agents. Martinson didn't quite go underground, as he continued to have a presence in the surf media, but had no phone number or mailing address and was virtually incommunicado. Much of his time from 1965 to 1969 was spent traveling with the MacGillivray-Freeman team—to Peru, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, Portugal, and Hawaii—while filming 

Federal agents finally caught up with Martinson in 1971; an asthmatic, he washed out of basic training after three weeks.

Although Martinson never had a major contest result after 1965, he hit his peak as a surfer in the late '60s as one of the first California riders to fully adapt to the new short surfboards. Stocky and short (5'6", 160 pounds), Martinson rode out of a low crouch, and occasionally pushed his turns past the breaking point at places like Sunset Beach in Hawaii.

The amiable Martinson worked as a commercial fisherman from 1973 to 1992; since then he's shaped a line of longboards for Robert August Surfboards in Huntington Beach. In 2009, Martinson was inducted to the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame.

Martinson, Mark

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