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Ron DiMenna, the founder of Ron Jon Surf Shop, died on Saturday, September 6, at 88 years old. The famous surf shop is the namesake of 13 different stores across the country, originally established by DiMenna in New Jersey in 1959.
DiMenna’s first store opened in Long Beach Island, New Jersey before expanding across the East Coast with stores in Cocoa Beach, Lake Buena Vista, Fort Myers, Key West, Panama City Beach, Clearwater Beach, and Pensacola Beach, Florida, Ocean City, Maryland, Orange Beach, Alabama, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He reportedly started it all after wanting to get a custom surfboard from California. His father suggested he instead get three boards, selling two of them at a profit and using that money to cover his own cost for the third. He then began selling surfboards out of his car in 1959 and opened the original Ron Jon Surf Shop in 1961. The company grew fast and DiMenna opened his second shop just two years later.
Ron Jon Surf Shop is one of the world’s largest surf retailers. The company credits that to its “broader vision,” which doesn’t just focus on selling equipment for surfers. Instead, they say, DiMenna strived to offer “active lifestyle apparel and gear that appealed to both surfers and those drawn to the surf culture.” They added that, “This inclusive approach helped propel surfing from a niche pastime to a multibillion-dollar lifestyle movement.”
“The entire Ron Jon family mourns this loss,” Michele Goodwin, President of Ron Jon Surf Shop, said in a statement from 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 was known as a free spirit, and his love for the beach and the sport of surfing endured throughout his life.”
Alongside his wife, Lynne, Ron founded Surfing’s Evolution & Preservation Foundation. The 501(c)3 charitable organization supports organizations with like-minded missions to protect the health of Florida’s beaches and address issues such as coastal pollution and beach ecology.
