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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