Surfing News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Quiksilver Founder Alan Green Succumbs to Cancer Battle at 77

Originally posted on SURFER | By Jake Howard | Last updated Jan 15, 2025 1:02 PM ET

Alan Green, a transformational pioneer that changed the surf world as we know it, has passed away at the age of 77 years old. He gracefully kicked out on January 14, 2025, after a short fight with various forms of cancer.

Growing up in Victoria, Australia, in 1968, Green, along with cohorts Dough "Claw" Warbrick and Brian Singer, began a fledgling wetsuit company in Torquay they called Rip Curl. Ever the entrepreneur, a year later, with a $2,500 loan from his father, a 22-year-old Green started experimenting with boardshort designs, ostensibly launching the behemoth that would become Quiksilver from a small, rented vacation home in Torquay. Partnering with friend John Law, the first batch of boardies rolled out to the world in 1970/71.

"We sometimes get credited with designing the first 'technical' boardshort, but the truth is, we used snaps and velcro instead of flies because I'd bought a supply of them when I started making Rip Curl wetsuits," recalled Green in the book "The Mountain and the Wave: The Quiksilver Story."

"The yoke waist, which is higher at the back than the front, was the other difference," he continued. "They hugged your back and still hung low on your hips. They were distinctive, functional, comfortable boardshorts, and two-toned yokes made them different from the rest. Surfers seemed to like them."

"It was a creative soup back in '68," recalled Warbrick in the book. "Everyone in Torquay as trying to come up with something to sell. Mostly they were creative surfer types who just wanted to have some fun, but Brian Singer and Greeny and I wanted to go on with it. We had a vision the others didn't have."

Having an immediate impact in Australian waters, in the mid '70s Hawaii's Jeff Hakman was at Bells Beach and worked out a licensing deal for Quiksilver in the United States. Teaming up with Bob McKnight, they launched Quiksilver America in 1976. Propelled by an all-star list of team riders, including Mark Richards, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, Bruce Raymond, Terry Fitzgerald, Gerry Lopez and Michael Ho, by the end of the decade Quiksilver was the defacto performance boardshort.

The sky was the limit for Quiksilver in the 1980s. From the Echo Beach era in Newport, to launching the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, Hakman and McKnight, along with Harry Hodge, Brigitte Darrigrand and John Winship, continued to expand, launching Quiksilver Europe in 1984.

Then along came a kid from Florida named Kelly Slater. As legend has it, 18-year-old Slater inked his Quiksilver game-changing contract in 1990 on the cobblestones at Trestles. The star of "Bay Watch," ticking off world title after world title, Slater and Quik would take the sport to new heights over the next decade.

About this same time, McKnight and company also launched women's surfwear brand Roxy (named after both Green and McKnight's daughters). A massive success, it was another surfer from Florida, Lisa Andersen, that busted down the door for Roxy.

By 1998, Quiksilver had become the first surf brand to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

From humble beginnings in Torquay to a global surf superpower, it's hard to imagine Green conceived the size and scale of his creation when he started, but more than a half century later, his vision and legacy live on.

Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Green. He changed the game like no one else.

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: