Paul Neilsen

Surfer Paul Neilsen was born in 1951 in Queensland, Australia. The son of the first full-time lifeguard in the resort area Surfer's Paradise, Neilsen grew up on Queensland's Gold Coast and made his first disastrous attempt at surfing at age ten. Fortunately, Paul recovered from that incident and went on to become an accomplished regularfoot pro surfer. Neilsen not only won both the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach and Australian National Titles contests in 1971, but also won the $5,000 dollar first place prize at the 1972 Smirnoff Pro-Am contest in Hawaii. Paul subsequently was a finalist in both the 1972 Hang Ten Pro and 1976 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach contests. Moreover, Neilsen founded the surf shop retail business Brothers Neilsen Surfboards with his older brother Rick in 1971. The company proved to be an instant success, with twenty-seven Brothers Neilsen Surfboards outlets throughout Australia confirming the company's status as Australia's largest surf shop retailer in the year 2001. Alas, Brothers Neilsen Surfboards fell prey to a global financial crisis in the surf industry in the late 2000's and was forced to close shop in 2008. Paul was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 2004.