Chuck Dent(1943-1980)

Surfboard manufacturer Chuck Dent was born in 1943 in Bellflower, California. Dent began surfing at age sixteen and started working as a salesman for Jack Haley Surfboards in Seal Beach, California in the early 1960's. After amassing a sizable customer base from his salesman job, Chuck opened up his own shop in Huntington Beach, California in 1964 with an all-star surf team that included Bill Hamilton, Mark Martinson, and Barry Kanaiaupuni. Moreover, Dent gained a considerable amount of local notoriety for his scathing and sarcastic outspoken opinions on both the surfing industry and the surfing scene in general. Chuck went on to briefly manage South Shore Surfboards in the wake of closing his shop in the mid-1970's. However, Dent eventually returned to Huntington Beach and opened the Chuck Dent Surf Center in 1978. Chuck died at age 36 from drug and alcohol-related heart failure in 1980. He was posthumously inducted into the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame in 1998.