Tom Sims (December 6, 1950 – September 12, 2012) was an American athlete, inventor, and entrepreneur. Sims was World Snowboarding Champion (1983), World Champion Skateboarder (1975), and founder of SIMS Snowboards and SIMS Skateboards. He lived in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

from 1971 until his death. In 1963, in his 7th-grade wood-shop class at Haddonfield Central School in his hometown of

Haddonfield, New Jersey :''Not the fictional Illinois town from the Halloween film series.'' Haddonfield is a borough located in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a total population of 11,593,

, he and John Murray made what they called a "skiboard," combining their two favorite sports, skiing and skateboarding. He attended

Haddonfield Memorial High School Haddonfield Memorial High School is a four-year comprehensive community public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grade from Haddonfield, in Camden County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary sch ...

, which honored him in 1998 for a lifetime achievement award. Sims was the primary snowboarding stunt double for "007" (

Roger Moore Sir Roger George Moore (14 October 192723 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 19 ...

) in the 1985 James Bond film ''

A View to a Kill ''A View to a Kill'' is a 1985 spy film and the fourteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and is the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted ...

'', which helped popularize both the snowboard and its usage. Since 2006, the SIMS Snowboards brand has been managed by Collective Licensing International, LLC, a unit of

Collective Brands Inc. Payless (formerly known as Payless ShoeSource Inc.) is an international discount footwear chain. Established in 1956 by cousins Louis and Shaol Pozez, Payless was a privately held company owned by Blum Capital, and Golden Gate Capital. In 1961, i ...

, 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 died on September 12, 2012 at a hospital near his home in Santa Barbara, California at the age of 61, from complications due to cardiac arrest.

References

External links

Sims Snowboards
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sims, Tom 1950 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American inventors American male snowboarders Haddonfield Memorial High School alumni People from Haddonfield, New Jersey People from Santa Barbara, California Snowboarding Sportspeople from Camden County, New Jersey