Born: 23 August 1945, United States
Died: 16 October 2024
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
Patti McGee was the first female professional skateboarder, paid by Hobie/Vita Pak to travel across the U.S. and demonstrate the company’s skateboard. She was also the winner of the 1964 National Skateboard Championship for Women, where she impressed the judges with what would become her signature move: a rolling handstand. The same year, she set the world record for the fastest woman on a skateboard, reaching 47 mph during Dick Clark’s World Teen Fair 1964. McGee was featured on the cover of Life magazine May 14, 1965
In 1965, she told Skateboarder Magazine, “I saw my first skateboard about two years ago during Easter vacation when I was at the Hollywood Teen Fair. I had been asked by a sporting goods store to give away a skateboard every evening. One evening the kid who did the skateboard demonstrations didn’t show up and they asked me to take his place. So in front of 1,500 kids I did my first skateboard demonstration—it was just a kick turn, but skateboarding was new then and nobody else new many tricks then anyway.”
In 2010, McGee became the first woman inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame.