Jake Burton

Jake Burton

Jake Burton is one of the most influential pioneers in the snowboard industry. Jake was born on April 29, 1954 in Stowe, Vermont. Jake's biggest inspiration in snowboarding came from his uncle, John Burton. John was the one who taught Jake how to surf, which led to Jake wanting to be able to surf the snow. Jake first took his thought of wanting to surf the snow to Birch Hill ski resort in New York at the age of only seven. Jake first started out sking, he attended college at the University of Colorado to try and make the ski team but never did so he moved home after the first year. Jake later enrolled at New York University to study economics, not business like most people would think.

Jake's business training was actually quite informal. He first ran his own landscaping business in high school out of his parent's station wagon. His next episode in the business industry came from when we worked for a park avenue firm that sold smaller companies to larger ones. Jake was able to get a lot out of this job because of his bosses dealing with lawsuits, Jake was given much responsibility.

Jake Burton didn't single handedly invent snowboarding, it's roots date all the way back to the 1920's, but was probably one of the first to see snowboarding for what it could be and where it could go. Jake first started Burton Snowboards in Londonderry, Vermont in 1977. His first go in the industry was nothing less than a rough one, within two years of starting Burton Snowboards, he was already $100,000 in debt. Jake got to the point where he couldn't even afford to keep his friends on his payroll, any snowboard that came out at this time was all done by Jake himself, he was no longer the entrepreneur, he was the grunt. Jake knew if he were to become successful that snowboarding would have to become a sport.

Snowboarding has been in the main stream of winter recreation sports for the past 10-15 years especially with the creation of ESPN Winter X Games. It was the 2002 Winter Olympics that put snowboarding on the map as a snow sport here to stay. Guess what kind of snowboard a good majority of the riders rode on, Burton. Burton is now the premiere snowboarding company, representing riders from all across the world, thanks to a guy from Vermont named Jake Burton.