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 Bob Simmons
Bob Simmons was born in Los Angeles in 1919. He was raised in the communities of Silver Lake and Pasadena. One day in 1936, a 17-year-old Bob was riding his bicycle when he was struck by a car, permanently injuring his elbow. While in the hospital, a fellow patient suggested that he should start surfing to strengthen his arm.
Bob got his first surfboard in 1939. Surfboards at this time were solid wood or of the hollow Blake types and weighed from 45 to well over a 100 pounds. Because of his handicap he started to look for different materials on which to shape lighter surfboards.
In the early 1940s, Simmons dropped out of the California Institute of Technology where he had learned about aero- and hydrodynamics. He started applying these radical new principles to the surfboards he shaped. These surfboards were made of balsa wood with a spoon-like nose, a thin squared-off tail, and calibrated rails.
He was also one of the first to use resin and fiberglass cloth which had been developed during WWII. This added both strength and a light weight to his boards. He also invented the first Styrofoam core surfboard. Because the resin would melt the Styrofoam he put a plywood veneer on both top and bottom, and balsa wood on the rails. Some of these boards had twin fins and channel bottoms. These Styrofoam balsa surfboards were called "sandwich boards" and could weigh as little as 25 pounds. He sold about 100 of these boards in 1949.
 With the radical new features and materials, Bob Simmons’ boards, which included the spoon nose, hydro-dynamic rails and thinner tails, allowed a broader range of people to surf because they were lighter, more maneuverable and easier to catch waves with. The era of the planks had ended.
Bob Simmons died while surfing a large swell at Windansea in San Diego, California on September 26, 1954. His contributions to surfing are still in use today.
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