Burton Snowboards - Leading Snowboard Brand

Burton Snowboards develops Boots, Bindings, Clothing and Accessories.

Most snowboarders are familiar with the Burton brand but not everyone knows the history of Burton Snowboards. Burton Snowboards claims to be "a rider driven company solely dedicated to creating the best snowboarding equipment on the planet." They have not failed to reach that incredible goal.

Jake Burton was born in New York City in 1954 and spent most of his youth as a skier at Birch Hill in NY. Many snowboarders fail to realize that their sport wouldn't exist the way they know it without following in the ski industry's footsteps. Jake's first Burton snowboards even resembled the shape and style of a large ski.

The first snowboarding pioneers were actually on a board called a Snurfer that was allegedly invented in Michigan. Jake traveled to compete, and win, on the grassroots Snurfer circuit. In 1977 Jake moved to Vermont and began making Burton snowboards in Londonerry. The company started in his home, a Vermont farm-house, like many great companies do.

Jake learned from the Europeans about new technology advances in skiing, like P-tex bases and metal edges, and brought those back with him to Vermont where he started building a new sport, snowboarding. He was able to get ski resorts to host "snowboard competitions" and this helped to make it seem like an actual sport. Americans have an innate hunger for competition and that is what really helped Jake get Burton Snowboards off the ground.

Today snowboarding markets are on every continent and Burton Snowboards has offices in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Snowboarding made its Olympic debut in 1998 at Nagano Japan, just two decades after the sport's conception! Burton Snowboards now consists of Burton, RED (Riding Enhancement Devices or R.E.D.), Anon Optics, Gravis Footwear and Analog Snowboard Clothing.

In August of 2004 Burton negotiated a deal to acquire the extremely popular FourStar Distribution brands: FourSquare Outerwear, Forum Snowboards, Jeenyus Snowboards and Special Blend snowboard clothing.

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