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Revision as of 17:14, 26 February 2007
Tom Sims is a pioneer and world champion of snowboarding, originally from Haddonfield, New Jersey. In 1963, he created the "ski board," an early version of the snowboard, in the Haddonfield Middle School's shop room after failing to complete his intended project, a custom skateboard. He did not patent his invention. There is much dispute as to whether or not he is the inventor of the snowboard. Many industry publications, such as Transworld Snowboarding and various informational books, cite Jake Burton Carpenter as the inventor. Both Sims Snowboards and Burton Snowboards are very successful. In 2006 Sims Snowboards was bought out, and Tom Sims is no longer the owner. POWer magazine said that the buy out was "the end of Sims' run and now Burton was officialy on top."
In 1980-81 Tom Sims setup a design skunkworks in a rented barn located in the Santa Barbara, California suburb of Montecito. Two of the design prototypes were stolen, including a concave swallowtail model that would have surely been unsuccessful, as well as fiberglass model closer to the design released by Barfoot. These prototypes were much smaller than existing "snurfboards" and would be eventually be commerical snowboard designs.