The Origin Story
In the mid-1970s, Jake Burton Carpenter quit his Manhattan investment banking job to follow an instinct that sliding on snow could become a sport. He moved to Londonderry, Vermont, and started building snowboards by hand in a barn. He had ridden the Snurfer, a toy sled, as a boy in the 1960s, and was convinced the concept could be developed into something steerable and serious.
He built over 100 prototypes, experimenting with different shapes, wood types, laminating materials, and binding designs. He worked nights as a bartender at Stratton Mountain’s ski resort and spent his days in the woodworking shop of a friend, Emo Henrich, who directed the Stratton Mountain ski school.
In 1977, Burton Snowboards became an official company. The early years were brutal. Jake once described going out with 38 snowboards to visit dealers in New York State and coming back with 40 because one dealer returned two he had already bought. The commercial snowboard market did not yet exist. Jake was building it from nothing.
His critical innovation was incorporating ski-like construction into the snowboard: steel edges, a P-Tex base, and bindings that enabled foot control and turning. This transformed the Snurfer from a sliding toy into a steerable board capable of carving turns like a ski or a surfboard. That engineering decision created modern snowboarding.
Building the Sport
In 1982, the Suicide Six ski area in Pomfret, Vermont became the first resort to allow snowboarders on its lifts. Stratton Mountain followed, then Jay Peak and Stowe. Jake had lobbied for access, and the gradual acceptance of snowboarders at ski resorts was as much a result of his persistence as any industry trend.
In 1985, the National Snowboarding Championships moved to Stratton Mountain and became the U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships, owned and operated by Burton. That event helped legitimise competitive snowboarding and gave the sport a flagship competition.
Burton established its European division in Innsbruck, Austria in 1985. Jake and his wife Donna moved to Austria to build the European business personally. By the late 1980s, Burton had grown from a one-man barn operation into the world’s leading snowboard manufacturer.
Jake’s Legacy
Jake Burton Carpenter died on November 20, 2019, in Burlington, Vermont, at the age of 65, from a recurrence of testicular cancer. He had previously survived a pulmonary embolism and Miller Fisher syndrome, a rare neurological condition. He was inducted into the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
He should be credited with building snowboarding into the billion-dollar industry it is today. Without Jake, snowboards might eventually have evolved into a sport, but the timeline, the culture, the commercial ecosystem, and the relationship between snowboarding and the ski resort industry would look entirely different. He was the sport’s most determined advocate and its sharpest businessman.
The Company Today
Burton remains privately held, owned by Donna Carpenter and the Carpenter family’s three sons. Donna met Jake at a New Year’s Eve party in Londonderry in 1981. They married in 1983. She became CEO in 2015 and continues to lead the company.
The numbers speak for themselves:
- Headquarters: Burlington, Vermont
- Employees: Over 950 globally, 600+ in the United States
- Market share: 40 to 45% of the global snowboard market (2013 estimate, when the total market was $236 million)
- Product range: Snowboards, bindings, boots, outerwear, accessories, and apparel across freeride, freestyle, park, and carving categories
- Price range: $300 to $1,500 for boards
Burton is the biggest brand in snowboarding and one of the few that remains family-owned in an industry increasingly dominated by corporate groups. Whitelines, the UK snowboard publication, describes them as the biggest brand in the industry, still privately owned by the Burton-Carpenter family.
The Products That Define Burton
The Custom: 29 Years and Counting
The Burton Custom has been in the lineup since 1996. It is the longest-running snowboard model in the industry and the benchmark for all-mountain riding. Mountain Weekly News scored the Custom Camber 87/100 and described it as a living legend that continues to define all-mountain excellence.
The current Custom uses the Super Fly II 700G Core (a mix of strong and light woods for pop and strength), Dualzone EGD (wood positioned against the grain at the edges for stronger edge hold), and a traditional camber profile with a directional twin shape. It is available in camber and Flying V profiles, plus a Custom X for aggressive riders and Custom Smalls for younger riders.
Whitelines calls the Custom an institution unto itself. Independent reviewers consistently place it in the top 10 of all-mountain boards tested. The reason it has lasted 29 years is simple: it works.
The AK Line: Professional Outerwear
The [ak] outerwear range is Burton’s technical flagship. The AK Swash uses Gore-Tex 2L construction with 60g PrimaLoft Silver insulation in the torso. The Inertia tested the Swash and described it as exceeding expectations, calling it their favourite all-around snowboard jacket for the season.
The AK Acamar sits at the top of the range at £840 with Gore-Tex Pro 3L construction, radio-compatible pockets, and mic-access zippers designed for mountain guides and professionals. Snow Magazine featured it in their best men’s ski jackets roundup for 2026.
The honest criticism: AK outerwear has seen consistent price increases. The 2025-26 Swash retails at $100 more than the 2019-20 model with no notable changes. Burton’s premium positioning means you are paying for the brand as well as the product.
Step On: The Binding That Changed Everything
The Step On binding system launched in 2017 after five years of research and development. It eliminates traditional straps by using three attachment points (two toe hooks and one heel cleat) that lock the boot directly into the binding.
Snowboarder Magazine’s critical review acknowledged that the system delivers a noticeably more secure connection than traditional straps. Riders reported feeling how much their boot normally moves within a conventional binding, even when ratcheted tight. The Step On eliminates that play.
The system has been refined across multiple generations with improved toe hooks for quieter, easier engagement and updated liners. It requires Step On-specific boots, which limits compatibility, but the performance argument is genuine.
The Channel System
Burton’s Channel mounting system replaced traditional four-hole disc patterns with a continuous channel that allows infinite stance width and angle adjustment. This is a practical innovation: instead of choosing from preset mounting positions, you can dial your stance to the exact width and angle you prefer. Most Burton boards now use the Channel exclusively, with adaptors available for non-Burton bindings.
The Athletes
Burton’s team roster for 2025/26 includes some of the most decorated riders in the sport:
Mark McMorris (Canada) became the most decorated winter athlete in X Games history at Aspen 2026, claiming his 25th medal and 14th gold. He won Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle, beating Marcus Kleveland and Red Gerard, with a run that included a backside triple cork 1440 and a frontside triple 1800.
Cam Melville Ives (New Zealand), Shuichiro Shigeno (Japan), Kaishu Hirano (Japan), Mari Fukada (Japan), Lu Yang (China), and Clemens Millauer (Austria) represent Burton at World Cup and Olympic level. Masanori Takeuchi (Japan) collaborated with Burton on the Family Tree Smooth Operator board for the 2026 season.
Burton represented Team USA at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics across multiple disciplines.
Sustainability
Burton became a B Corp certified company in 2019, joining the growing number of outdoor brands that submit to independent assessment of their social and environmental performance. They have since been recertified with improved scores.
Current sustainability targets include:
- 100% bluesign approved fabrics
- 100% organic or recycled cotton
- 100% responsibly sourced down
- 50% of global product warranty claims repaired (circular economy)
- Science Based Target Initiative carbon reduction goals for 2030
- Plastic-free retail packaging, designed from recycled material to be recycled or composted
These are corporate-level commitments, not product-by-product marketing claims. B Corp certification requires independent third-party assessment of the entire business, not just individual product lines.
The Honest Assessment
Burton makes the most complete range in snowboarding. Boards, bindings, boots, outerwear, accessories: no other brand covers every category at this depth. The Custom is the most trusted all-mountain board on the market. The AK outerwear uses genuine Gore-Tex. The Step On system is a genuine engineering innovation. The athlete roster includes the most decorated winter X Games athlete in history.
The criticisms are also real. Burton is involved in every part of snowboarding, which rubs some riders the wrong way. The AK pricing has increased faster than the product has evolved. The brand’s dominance can feel corporate in a sport that values independence. And at premium price points, you are paying for the Burton name as well as the product.
But that name was earned in a barn in Vermont by a man who built 100 prototypes, sold snowboards out of his car, and spent 40 years turning a toy into a global sport. The company he built is still privately owned by his family. The Custom is still the benchmark. The AK still uses Gore-Tex. The team still includes the best riders in the world.
That is the Burton argument. It is harder to dismiss than people think.