Jake Burton Carpenter

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Jake Burton Carpenter (born April 29, 1954 in New York City) is an American snowboarder and cofounder along with Nate Brott of Burton Snowboards. He grew up in Cedarhurst, New York.^[1]

[edit] Biography

His high school education began at the Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts.^[2] After graduating from The Marvelwood School in Cornwall, CT he enrolled at the University of Colorado in Boulder. An avid skier, Carpenter hoped to join the university's successful ski team, but his competitive skiing career was ended when his collarbone was broken in a car accident (and then twice more in the same year, including one skateboarding accident). After several years away from college he resumed his studies at New York University, graduating with a degree in economics. After college, Carpenter's interests returned to the slopes. Working from a barn in Londonderry, Vermont, he improved on the "Snurfer", a basic toy snowboard (which featured a rope to allow the rider some basic control over the board). He began selling his more advanced snowboards, made from bentwood laminate and featuring a rigid binding that holds the board firmly to the wearer's boot, in 1979, more than a dozen years after Tom Sims' first snowboards were made. Carpenter continues to run the Burton company, which has grown into one of the world's largest snowboard, and snowboarding-equipment manufacturers.