Jake Burton Carpenter, 1954 - 2019

Burton founder Jake Burton Carpenter passed away peacefully on November 20, 2019 as a result of complications from recurring cancer. He was our founder, the soul of snowboarding, the one who gave us the sport we all love so much. A few months prior, Jake started to compile a timeline of the most important events of his life in his own words. We've shared it here.

JAKE BURTON: PERSONAL TIMELINE APRIL 29, 1954 Born in New York, New York, the youngest of four siblings.

1960s WINTER 1961 Went skiing for the first time with my family at Bromley Mountain in Vermont and was hooked on snow and the mountains. FEBRUARY 17, 1967 My older brother Corporal George Whitney Carpenter died while serving in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. He received the Silver Star Medal and the Purple Heart Medal. FALL 1968 Attended Brooks School in North Andover, Mass. This is the same school as my brother (school president/captain of the crew team/superstar) and father attended. Got expelled by the ‘Prune’ (same headmaster as my father and brother) after two years. I was the proverbial ‘underachiever’ and wise ass. I did LSD with my friends and stayed up all night roughly twice a week. DECEMBER 1968 Begged for a surfboard, but I received a desk instead for Christmas. I bought a Snurfer for $10 and spent a lot of time at the local sledding hill on Long Island with friends.

1970s

Jake Burton in the late 1970s.

FALL 1970 Started attending the Marvelwood School (known as a ‘second chance’ boarding school) which was in Cornwall, CT at the time. At this point in my life, I flipped a switch and became the consummate overachiever. I worked my ass off. I was on the ski team. My memories revolve around physical activities such as going up to Mohawk Mountain, Snurfing around campus or simply playing pick-up touch football or basketball. SEPTEMBER 21, 1971 My mother, Katherine ‘Kitty’ Carpenter died (leukemia) of a broken heart from losing her son. I was 17 and devastated. She was my last line of defense between me and my dad (who never hit me, but I never lived up to his expectations). My dad turned out to be the best single dad ever after my mom passed. JUNE 1972 Graduated from Marvelwood as the valedictorian of my class. During my last semester of high school, I moved back to New York for an independent study program (at project Head Start) and started a landscaping business on the side. The total investments of my landscaping business were an old family station wagon, two rakes and some garbage/leaf bags. FALL 1972 I started college at the University of Colorado Boulder. There were 30,000 students and I did not know one. I tried out for the CU ski team (reigning NCAA skiing champs), but I didn’t make the team, which was mostly very good Europeans. I was cut by Bill Marolt who went on to become my nemesis at the FIS. I sued him (one of two people I have sued in my life) on behalf of snowboarders pursuing a fair Olympic qualification system (without skier input) and won (deservedly so). This was the beginning of the end of my life as a skier. SPRING 1973 Left CU because I was lonely and sad, so I headed back east. I tried to pursue a career working with NY thoroughbred racehorses as a trainer but I quit the very day I saw a horse shocked in the nuts prior to a race. I was in it because I love animals. FALL 1973 Enrolled in night classes at NYU. I attended NYU for the next four years and went on to become captain of the NYU varsity swim team. JUNE 1977 I graduated from New York University and worked for a small investment banking firm in Manhattan owned by a friend of my sister, Victor Niederhoffer. DECEMBER 1977 I was working 12-14 hours a day and not loving it. I also (in the back of my mind) knew that surfing on snow could become a sport. So I bailed on my New York job, moved to Londonderry, Vermont and started ‘Burton Boards’ out of a barn in a house where I was the live-in caretaker and tending the two horses. By night, I bartended at the Birkenhaus Inn. By day, I built makeshift snowboard prototypes and tested them in the back hills of southern Vermont. 1978 I made prototypes from a furniture making angle (steam bent solid ash) to boat construction (fiberglass chop) to surfboard construction in Peter Mel’s dad’s (John Mel) factory, Freeline Design. They made surfboards during the day, and I moved in and made snowboards all night. John Mel became a good friend who let me use his factory every night and encouraged me. JANUARY 1979 I won the ‘Open’ Division at the National Snurfing Contest in Muskegon, Michigan. The prize money was $300.

1980s

Jake and Donna in 1989.

1981 I moved the factory from Londonderry, Vermont to Manchester, Vermont where I bought my first house with a barn. The barn was the factory, the living room was the store, the basement was the warehouse and the bedroom was the office. The phone rang around the clock with toll-free catalog inquiries. January 1, 1982 I met my future wife Donna at The Mill Tavern in Londonderry, Vermont just after midnight on New Year’s Eve (1981/1982). Donna attended Columbia University in NYC but she came to Vermont on weekends. We would hang out and she would help in the factory. MAY 21, 1983 During a torrential downpour, at the age of 29, I married 19-year-old Donna Gaston. The wedding ceremony was at Donna’s parents’ home in Greenwich, Conn with only 12 people present, but the reception had 400 guests. The weather was rain, thunder and lightning. And I was an emotional mess. The process brought up a lot of stuff from my past. We thought perhaps it was a mistake and we should return the wedding gifts. Obviously, it wasn’t a mistake. WINTER 1983 I took a run with Stratton’s ski patrol to see if I could talk them into allowing snowboarders on the chairlifts. Luckily, it was a nice soft day, and my crew and I looked like we could handle the boards. After that, Stratton Mountain became the first major resort to allow snowboarders on lifts. WINTER 1984 I accompanied my wife’s family on a ‘ski’ trip to Austria. When they skied, I snowboarded with them. I spent most of my evenings visiting ski factories, trying to find someone who would agree to produce snowboards with steel edges. Factories turned me down until I visited Keil Ski. Herr Keil and I connected immediately and went on to manufacture the first snowboards with ski construction, steel edges, a P-Tex base etc. 1985 Donna and I moved to Europe and created Burton’s European base in Innsbruck, Austria. Before we moved, I attended the intensive language program at Middlebury College in Vermont for six weeks so I could start learning German. We lived in a house in Igls (near Innsbruck). The house was the office. The garage was where I assembled the ski construction boards molded by Keil for the European market. I focused on product and manufacturing (in German with Herr Keil). Donna focused on building a European distribution network. MARCH 1985 We asked Hermann Kapferer in Innsbruck, Austria if he can help us find an office and assembly space with room for a store for Burton’s European operations. This was the beginning of Burton Europe. NOVEMBER 12, 1989 Our first child, George Burton Carpenter was born in Rutland, Vermont. (Good luck finding an anesthesiologist on the first day of hunting season in Vermont).

1990s

Burton Ride Day in 1992.

1992 I moved the Burton factory and head office from Southern Vermont to Northern Vermont (Burlington). We had just over 100 employees at the time. AUGUST 18, 1993 Our second son, Taylor Gaston Burton Carpenter was born in Burlington, Vermont. WINTER 1993 I helped teach George how to ski when he was 3. In the process, I almost killed both of us. It was the last time I skied. JANUARY 24, 1994 My leg was broken when a skier ran into me while I was night riding at Stowe, Vermont. The doctor said my leg looked like Reggie Jackson hit it with a baseball bat. JULY 24, 1996 Our third son, Timi Eaton Burton Carpenter was born. JANUARY 13, 1997 Sports Illustrated interviewed me for an article called ‘Chairman of the Board Jake Burton Took a Childhood Toy & Launched an International Craze’. 1998 I was in a commercial for American Express. 1999 Started riding 100 days a year.

2000-2009

Jake in Squamish, B.C., in 2003.

FEBRUARY 2002 I taught Katie Couric (the Today Show host) how to snowboard on national TV during the Olympics in Salt Lake City. And I was there to watch Burton riders Ross Powers & Kelly Clark win gold in the halfpipe events at the Olympics. JANUARY 20, 2003 Craig Kelly died near Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada in an avalanche which trapped 8 people and killed 6 others. The entire sport and industry mourned him. FEBURARY 23, 2003 Burton team rider Jeffrey Anderson died accidently when jokingly sliding down the rail of a staircase in Nagano, Japan. JULY 2003 Left the U.S. for a 10-month trip with my family to follow winter around the world and really dive into our business in the Southern Hemi, Asia and all over Europe. First stop was Quito, Ecuador. We snowboarded and surfed on six continents and had one of the best years of our lives. APRIL 2004 During the last leg of my 10-month trip, I attended the Arctic Challenge snowboard event in Tromso Norway. We all then took a 6 hour ferry ride to the Lofoten islands. There, I surfed with Terje in the morning, then hiked up a mountain and snowboarded down that same afternoon in Stamsund, Norway. It was the first time I surfed and snowboarded on the same day. FEBRUARY 2006 Headed to the Torino Olympics in Italy to watch Burton riders Shaun White and Hannah Teter win halfpipe gold in outerwear that Burton designed exclusively for the US Olympic Snowboard Team. MARCH 2006 Traveled with George, Terje, Dave Downing & DCP to the Caucausus mountains in Russia for a shoot. We were always protected by armed bodyguards and got dropped off by a huge military helicopter on sketchy snowpack at the top of a mountain. Terje pointed out a perfect line for George and me to take, and it was all good from there. FEBRUARY 14, 2007 Stayed at the Stone Hut in Stowe for the massive Valentine’s Day storm that dumped four feet of snow at Stowe in Vermont. MARCH 26, 2009 I told the company that due to the challenging global economic situation, we needed to reduce salaries from the top down and cut a percentage of North American staff. DECEMBER 31, 2009 Burton snowboarder and Olympic hopeful Kevin Pearce suffered a life threatening traumatic brain injury while training for the Vancouver Olympics.

2010-2019