Tom Sims

Who was Tom Sims?

Tom Sims was an American athlete, inventor, and entrepreneur. Sims was World Snowboarding Champion, World Champion Skateboarder and founder of Sims Snowboards and Sims Skateboards. He lived in Santa Barbara, California from 1971 until his death.

In 1963, in his 7th-grade wood-shop class at Haddonfield Central School in New Jersey, he made what he called a "skiboard," combining his two favorite sports, skiing and skateboarding.

Sims was the primary snowboarding stunt double for "007" in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill, which helped popularize both the snowboard and its usage. Since 2006, the Sims Snowboards brand has been managed by Collective Licensing International, though Tom Sims was still very active in the company. Tom continued to be personally involved in the design and testing of the new snowboard and skateboard equipment being developed under the Sims brand until his death.

Sims is credited with many of the most important innovations in both snowboarding and skateboarding, including the first metal edged snowboard, the first snowboarding Half Pipe, the first freestyle snowboard, and the first pro-model snowboard.