Tom Sims is a pioneer and world champion of snowboarding, originally from Haddonfield, New Jersey. In 1963, he made what he called a the "skiboard," an early version of the snowboard, in the Haddonfield Middle School's shop room after failing to complete his intended project, a custom skateboard.[1] Sims was the snowboarding stunt double for "007"(Roger Moore)in the 1984 James Bond release, A View to a Kill. He did not patent his invention. There is much dispute as to whether or not he is the inventor of the snowboard. Many industry publications, such as Transworld Snowboarding and various informational books, . Both Sims Snowboards and Burton Snowboards are very successful. In 2006 Sims Snowboards was bought out, and Tom Sims is no longer the owner. POWer magazine said that the buy out was "the end of Sims' run and now Burton was officially on top."
In 1980-81 Tom Sims setup a design skunkworks in a rented barn located in the Santa Barbara,His friend Chuck Barfoot was the guy who actually built Tom's designs as well as building his own designs. they started selling their models as Sims SKiboards and Barfoot Snoboards in the first Sims advertisement in 1980, in 1981 Barfoot split from Sims and has been building snowboards under his name ever since..