Dick Catri

Born in New Jersey, Catri [pronounced CAH-tri] moved to Miami as a boy. Upon graduating from high school in 1957, he began working as a beach attendant where he met a stunt diver named Jack "Murph the Surf" Murphy. The California native introduced Catri to surfing in the winter of 1957, and together they experimented with building boards and took surfing adventures through Florida and California. Catri's three seasons in Hawaii was on his way to becoming a North Shore fixture, surfing everywhere from Pipe and Waimea to Makaha and working at Dick Brewer's factory. In the spring of 1964, Catri went back to Florida to quench the East Coast's thirst for surfing. As the East Coast rep for Dick Brewer's Surfboards Hawaii, Catri opened a shop in Satellite Beach and established a team of greats that included Gary Propper, Mike Tabeling, Bruce Valuzzi, Fletcher Sharpe and Mimi Munro, who soon ruled surfing contests along the Atlantic Seaboard.

When Hobie made him a generous offer in 1966, the team switched labels and continued trouncing the competition. Catri was not only captain and coach for the Hobie squad; he remained a competitor and attended several U.S. championships. He was also inducted into the 1966 International Hall of Fame, represented the United States at the 1968 World Contest in Puerto Rico and surfed in the 1967 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational.

Dick started Catri Surfboards and became Clark Foam's first East Coast distributor. More importantly, the '70s marked Catri's benchmark days as a contest promoter. Besides running the annual Easter Surfing Classic event he founded in 1965 with John Griffin (now a 36-year tradition known as the Cocoa Beach Easter Surfing Festival), the partners established the Sundek Classic and a new association, American Professional Surfing (APS). Over five years, the APS grew to become a 14-event tour with its own world tour stop, the $25,000 Florida Pro. It churned out East Coast talent like Matt Kechele and Charlie Kuhn before being eclipsed by the ASP in the early '80s.