“Love you, Greeny. I’ll miss you forever.”
The world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater has led tributes to Alan Green, the man who kicked off the modern surf industry when he and John Law founded boardshort brand Quiksilver of the back of a $2500 loan from his daddy in 1969.
Slater, who was signed as by Quiksilver when he was eighteen and rode for the company until he was forty-two, posted on Instagram:
“Love you, Greeny. You were one of a kind and a great friend and mentor for so many. I’ll miss you forever.”
Alan Green, who was seventy-seven and had been in a helluva fight with cancer died, fittingly, at his home in Torquay, Victoria, right where it all began with Quiksilver, once “surfing’s biggest, richest, and most successful company”.
“It was a life well lived and one that will be remembered, along with the legend of the Quiksilver brand and the thousands of jobs he created both here and around the world over his incredible journey,” the noted Victorian surfer Rod Brooks said in a statement.
Quiksilver, meanwhile, has barely outlasted its founder.
From Warshaw’s EOS:
In 1986, Quiksilver USA became the first publicly traded surfing company. Quiksilver’s international sales in 2001 totaled more than $1 billion—a surfworld first. But despite continued strong gains throughout the early-mid-2000s the company was hit hard by the global recession: in 2009, Moody’s put Quiksilver on it’s “Bottom Rung” list of companies most likely to default on its debt, and at one point the company saw half its stock value disappear in a matter of months.
In 2013, Bob McKnight stepped down as company CEO and was replaced by former Disney executive Andy Mooney; in 2015, not long after Mooney left, Quiksilver filed for bankruptcy, as shares that year dropped 80%.
Quiksilver is currently owned by Authentic Brands Group (ABG). ABG acquired Boardriders, the parent company of Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, DC Shoes, Element, VonZipper, Honolua, and Surf Dive ‘n Ski.for $1.25 billion in 2023
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You couldn’t write any positives about Greeny hey, you haven’t changed Derek.
Was their ever a more influential surf brand combo than 90s Quik/Slater?
Maybe Quik/Reynolds on his coat tails..
RIP AG. Surf royalty
Occy/Bong
Occy/booger sugar
Occy/Sarge
Occy/dropping in on everyone
Occy/single ladies wanting kids everywhere
I gotta admit, that if I surfed with someone who dropped in on me and everyone else regularly then I’d probably hate them.
Maybe if it was a person at the level of Occy then it might be different, but I’ve despised every snake that I’ve ever surfed with. I guess that’s how those pros deal with 100 rippers out at their perfect home-break.
Maybe. But it kinda depends on who Stubbies sponsored in the 80s.
Rip Curl and Curren.
#straya
RIP Greeny.
Sad news – we are all ageing and these things are getting closer. Ahhh. A life well lived and one he and his family should be very proud of. RIP. Confession time – we ripped his logo off back in the mid 90’s and put it on a couple of surfboards we had made in the shed and sold them to unsuspecting Japanesse surfers when leaving Indo. He inadvertently semi-funded a few of my early trips there – so I will always be grateful.
Pruikshiver?
Seen a few out here in Hokkaido.
Greeny was the original founder of Quiksilver , with Brewster Everitt….John Law came quite a bit later……..Greeny was an innovator and very creative…very strong minded and a full on Family man…..keeps his family private….loyal husband and a great guy to have an argument with RIP and condolences to the family