Howard Head

Howard Head (July 31, 1914 – March 3, 1991) was an American businessman who invented the first commercially successful brand of aluminum laminate skis, the Head Standard. He founded the Head Ski Company in 1948 and by 1955, Head Skis were the top selling brand in Europe and North America. He became the chairman of the board of Head Ski Company in 1968 and sold it to AMF in 1971. He also invented the oversized tennis racket, and served as chairman of the board of Prince Sports. He was inducted into the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1979 and the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017.

Early life and education He was born July 31, 1914, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Dr. Joseph Head and Anne Wilkinson Head. He graduated in 1936 from Harvard College with a B.A. in engineering sciences. and worked to develop lighter and more flexible skis. He allegedly used $6,000 in earnings from poker and money borrowed from friends to enter the ski-making business with three part-time colleagues. He founded the Head Ski Company in 1948.

Head worked to develop skis based on technology common in the aircraft industry. The skis would be based on a metal sandwich design with two layers of lightweight aluminum attached to thin plywood walls with an interior of plastic honeycomb. Although these skis were very light, they all broke during trials. He asked skiing instructors in Stowe, Vermont, to test the skis and offer recommendations for improvements. Head substituted plywood for honeycomb plastic, covered the bottom of the ski with plastic to avoid ice accumulation, and added hard steel edges to the skis. This resulted in a ski that was as strong as wood skis but significantly lighter. It took three years and 40 trial versions of skis to come up with a final version that worked.

He found the existing tennis rackets twisted in a players hand during an off-center ball strike. He again set off to improve sporting equipment by designing a tennis racket that would be more controllable during an off center ball strike. In 1971, he became the chairman of the board of Prince Manufacturing, Inc. He was interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Personal life He married Anne Wales Christenson in 1939 and together they had one daughter. They divorced and Head remarried Martha Becker Fritzlen in 1984. and National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017. His papers and collection of sporting equipment was donated by his wife to the National Museum of American History in 1997.