In 2008, This is Us profiled 86-year-old Jack O’Neill, inventor of the wetsuit and philanthropist who lives in Santa Cruz, California.

In the 1950s, Jack O’Neill opened his first surf shop in a garage across the Great Highway in San Francisco, a sand dune away from his favorite bodysurfing break, where he sold his first wetsuits and a few vests he made from gluing together pieces of closed cell foam.