Rick Stoner

Rick Stoner was born in 1937 in San Diego, California. Stoner grew up in Hermosa Beach, California. Rick first went to Hawaii in September, 1955 along with fellow surfers Bing Copeland, Sonny Vardeman, Mike Bright, and Steve Vorhees. After running out of money while living in Hawaii, Stoner and Copeland decided to sign up for a two year stint in the U.S. Coast Guard on board the cutter Bering Strait stationed in Honolulu. Following their discharge in late 1957, Rick and Bing returned to Southern California where they worked as lifeguards. However, the allure of riding waves in faraway places proved too hard to resist, so the pair soon found themselves on a 42-foot sailboat that was headed for the South Pacific. They sailed into the harbor at Auckland, New Zealand on November 27, 1958. Stoner and Copeland immediately befriended members of the Piha Surf Club and spent two months surfing and paddle-boarding with them. Rick and Bing decided to compensate the club members for their hospitality by making eight surfboards made out of Styrofoam and epoxy; they were the first foam surfboards ever built in New Zealand. Stoner and Copeland returned to California in February, 1959. After initially working again as lifeguards, Rick and Bing opened their own business called Bing and Rick Surfboards in Hermosa Beach in October, 1959. However, Stoner eventually decided to leave the business and went back to being a lifeguard instead (he worked for the Los Angeles County Lifeguards organization and ultimately achieved the rank of lieutenant in said organization). In 1961 Stoner started his own business called Rick Surfboards. Rick Surfboards launched two well-known signature model surfboards in 1966: The Dru Harrison Improvisor and the Barry Kanaiaupuni model. Rick Surfboards not only subsequently expanded their operations to both Hawaii and the East Coast, but also was the first name to export surfboards on a large scale to Peru. Stoner sold his business to the Hamilton brothers in 1974. Sadly, Rick's life was tragically cut short by a brain tumor in 1977.