Who Owns Burton?

Jake Burton Carpenter was a 23-year-old Manhattan investment firm employee who quit in 1977 to build snowboards in a barn in Londonderry, Vermont. He had ridden the Snurfer, a crude toy predecessor, and believed a real sport could grow around a better board. His first prototypes sold poorly and the early years nearly broke him; he made boards in the barn, sold them from the living room, warehoused in the basement, and worked from the bedroom.

The breakthrough was cultural as much as technical. Through the 1980s Burton pushed ski resorts to allow snowboarding, sponsored riders who became the sport's first stars, and iterated board design fast. In 1981 Jake met Donna Gaston at a New Year's Eve party; they married a year later and she became integral to building the company, later running its European operation.

Burton moved to Burlington, Vermont, opened offices in Austria and Japan, and by the 1990s was the largest snowboard company in the world as the sport boomed into the Olympics in 1998. The brand's rider roster, which over the decades has included icons like Craig Kelly, Terje Haakonsen, Shaun White, and Chloe Kim, anchored its credibility.

Expansion beyond boards followed: boots, bindings, outerwear, helmets and goggles under the anon label, and apparel lines. The company stayed private through every boom, resisting sale offers. In 2019, Jake Carpenter died of cancer, and Donna Carpenter became owner and chair. That same year Burton converted to a Vermont Benefit Corporation and became the first snowboard company to earn B Corporation certification.

In the 2020s Burton has managed a business squeezed by unpredictable snowfall and, in 2025, by steep US tariffs on its mostly Asian supply chain, an issue on which the company testified publicly. It continues to invest in Vermont: roughly 350 employees at the Burlington campus, its Craigs R&D facility, and a flagship store downtown.