A. J. Hackett
A J Hackett (born 1958) is a New Zealand entrepreneur who has popularised the extreme sport of bungy jumping.
Early life
Hackett grew up on Aucklands North Shore. He left school at the age of sixteen, and served an apprenticeship as a carpenter. At this time, he took up snowboarding and skiing.
Bungy jumping
Inspired by the Vanuatu ritual and the Oxford University dangerous sports club experimental jumps in the 1970s, Hackett developed a super-stretchy elastic bungee cord in the mid 1980s and demonstrated its use by throwing himself off the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1987. He capitalised on the world headlines this made to launch his own company, A J Hackett Bungy, initially offering tourist jumps from the Kawarau Bridge near Queenstown, New Zealand, and later expanding to Australia, France (Souleuvre Viaduct in Normandy), Germany, The United States, Mexico, Indonesia, and Macau.
Hackett initially partnered with Henry van Asch, but the two split in 1997 with van Asch taking over the New Zealand based business.
He is the author of The Hobbit
External links
References
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