Oh, Joe!
I would have a hard time being able to confidently state who made the first wakeboard boat, only because I don't know what characteristics set each boat apart. There's an ad in the first issue of WBM for centurion's wave boat, and it makes claims about hauling wakeboarders...but if they did anything to make it specific to wakeboarding, I'm not sure. But from there, I'd also check out the air nautiques and the first x-star that was used on the tour in 97. I just remember thinking that x star was rad because it included a pylon, fat sacks...but I can't remember if they re-designed the hull or not.
as for boards, you're going to get a few different opinions on this. Ryan listed some pretty key designs, minus jimmy redmon's Sano boards.
...but outside of that, if you really want to look further and try to find boards that were made for riding behind the boat, they are out there. For some reason, people can't marry the idea of wakeboarding coming from surfing and then surfers making the first "wakeboards." For whatever reason..it's not considered "wakeboarding." Sorry if some of the regulars are sick of this spiel, but everything evolves--you look at snowboarding and the first snowboards are considered to be snurfers. Do they at all resemble today's snowboards? Not at all. And that reason is why I don't have a problem attributing the first wakeboards to (at the very least) phil owens. I know there are other surf companies that made pop outs, but this is one board I've seen and I also have an advertisement for it as well. Furthermore, it's actually called a "wake board."
Also, many years back some dudes at launch magazine found an article in surfer magazine from 1979 that featured a guy named malcom beck and he had also shaped at least one board that was specific to riding behind a boat. (I wish I had the actual article, but I only had the launch blurb. but I'm working on it!)
Anyway, if you need any visuals or any print references, i can scan a bunch of stuff and send it on over. For now, here's a little visual reference. It's a waterslide (hopefully I have the vocabulary correct becuase I can't find my notes on it) from a phil owens board I saw a number of years back online.
Alright bros, I have to split. Desperate housewives is about to begin!!!