Jake Burton Carpenter

Jake Burton Carpenter, occasionally also known as Jake Burton, was an American snowboarder, the founder of Burton Snowboards and one of the inventors of the modern snowboard. Born on April 29, 1954, he grew up in Cedarhurst, New York, and his hopes of racing for the University of Colorado at Boulder ski team ended after a serious automobile crash; he later graduated from New York University with a degree in economics. Working from a barn in Londonderry, Vermont, he improved on the Snurfer, and in 1979 he won the Open Division at the National Snurfing Contest in Muskegon, Michigan. Burton has been one of the world largest snowboard and snowboarding-equipment manufacturers since the late 1980s. He lived in Stowe, Vermont, was an inaugural inductee of the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and died on November 20, 2019, in Burlington, Vermont.