Ron DiMenna, founder of the iconic franchise Ron Jon Surf Shop, has died at the age of 88.
“The entire Ron Jon family mourns this loss,” noted a statement released by the company. “On behalf of our Board of Directors, management team and employees, we extend our deepest sympathy to Ron’s wife, Lynne DiMenna.”
Ron started working at his father’s grocery store as a teenager and later joined the U.S. Marines. He founded the company that bares his name in 1959, opening his first surf shop two years later on Long Beach Island, N.J.. By 1963, he opened his second store, the now-famous location at Canaveral Pier in Cocoa Beach, FL. Though it began as little more than a shack, it has since become a 52,000-square-foot tourist attraction, regarded as the world’s largest surf shop and welcoming fans from across the globe.
Though largely regarded as a staple of East Coast surf culture, Ron Jon Surf Shop would expand nationwide reaching California and Mexico. Meanwhile, the company’s famous logo remains one of the most recognizable images in the sport.
“Ron was revolutionary,” said Jack A. Kirschenbaum, a close friend of DiMenna, remarked to Florida Today. “He turned surfing, which was a nomadic, fringe sport practiced by kids into a mainstream retail juggernaut. He saw what no one else saw. He will be sorely missed.”
Even as he created one of the most famous brands in surfing, DiMenna stayed largely out of the spotlight. He rarely made public appearances, and spent much of his personal time dedicated to Surfing’s Evolution & Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit that he founded with his wife, which focused on the protection of Florida’s beaches.
“Ron was known as a free spirit and his love for the beach and the sport of surfing endured throughout his life,” Michele Goodwin, president of Ron Jon Surf Shop, said in a statement. “He lived life on his own terms and created a retail empire that remains one of the most successful beach shopping destinations in the country.”
Watch a Short History of Ron Jon Surf Shop
