Derry takes its place in history of snowboarding Dedication of Burton Snowboards historic marker draws Olympians, former employees and fans

By Cara Philbin
©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Friends, family and fans of the late Jake Burton Carpenter gathered at Williams Park on Main Street in Londonderry last Tuesday to unveil a state historical marker honoring his legacy of revolutionizing winter sports through the perfection of the modern snowboard. (Click any image to launch gallery.)

It is the first historical marker in Londonderry. Carpenter died in November 2019, 42 years after he and a handful of friends set up shop on Main Street to develop prototypes of the world’s first Burton snowboard.

Through many prototypes, they finally created a design of laminated maple for the marketplace, and laid the foundation for a sport that grew into a thriving global industry. By 1998, snowboarding had been formally recognized by the International Olympic Committee and featured in that year’s winter games. Snowboarding events now rank among the most popular Olympic attractions.

The Burton brand has also grown into one the most recognizable names in outdoor sports. Still privately owned, Burton operates an estimated annual revenue of approximately $250 million with less than one thousand employees, indications of a healthy, small to mid-size company.

But Carpenter and his early team built far more than just a company. They carved an entire lifestyle from “a piece of wood with a strap on it,” according to Jake’s widow, Donna Carpenter, who addressed the crowd. She was joined by five-time Olympian and three-time medalist Kelly Clark, Bronze and Gold medal winner Ross Powers, halfpipe innovator Lyle Blaisdell, early Burton employees Mimi and Mark Wright and others, including ski industry photographer Hubert Schreibl.

Jake and Donna met about four years after he built his first prototype, she told The Telegraph. It was a New Year’s Eve and both were at the Mill Tavern, just next door to where the marker now stands. Jake, Donna remembers, was wearing high top sneakers. They married in 1983, had three children and were together until his death. She remains the owner and chairwoman of Burton Snowboards, now headquartered in Burlington, with 950 employees worldwide, 600 of whom are U.S. based.

Breathing life into the nascent sport wasn’t easy, Carpenter recalls, adding that Jake used to jokingly refer to the company as “their first baby.”  She adds, “Just like a baby, Burton gave us a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of joy.”

Early Burton employee Mark Wright also remembers their startup years as somewhat grueling. “It was an interesting start,” Wright said. “We were building this idea entirely from scratch. We didn’t even know if we were going to get a paycheck … eventually, we did.”

Even so, it had been one thing to collaborate with a small team on product development, a process that took years. They then had to persuade people to ride this thing down a mountain. “It took a lot of guys and persistence on Jake’s part to get people out there on the hills to try it,” Wright said. “It was hard to get the word out there and get people to take it seriously.”

They also needed support and infrastructure from ski resorts, many of which responded to Carpenter’s lobbying with skepticism. He did, however, win over some key decision-makers.

One day, former Stratton snowcat operator Lyle Blaisdell received a phone call from a Stratton Mountain manager named Paul Johnston. “He said he needed me to build something out of snow up at Stratton,” Blaisdell said. “So I got up there, and he explained what he was trying to achieve. He said he needed me to make a halfpipe and I said what’s a halfpipe? And he said it’s half a pipe. And I said holy cow.”

Blaisdell wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the sport. Years prior, he and Carpenter — both in the mid-20s —  had met on the soccer field. When Carpenter and his friends began showing up at Stratton with snowboards, Blaisdell gave them rides up the mountain in the snowcat. “I knew then this sport was going to take off because it was just a beautiful thing to see,” he said.

Still, building a halfpipe on snow was pretty uncharted territory. “The first operator could not figure it out, so he sent me up,” said Blaisdell. “I laid out two horizontal lines and had a snowcat take out the middle. Then I got inside the pipe and started carving the transition into the bank.” Blaisdell then brought in “a skateboarder from California named Brian Bushey” to test the transitions “because I had no idea.”

“The first one threw him out because I laid it back too far,” he said. “The second tossed him back in the pipe because I laid that one too close. Finally, we got it right, and it was history from there.”
In 2016, the town discussed the possibility of a sculpture to honor Carpenter and the birthplace of snowboarding, but that proved to be a steep hill to climb. See article: Londonderry sets eyes on sculpture to snowboard maker Burton.

Blaisdell said he remembers kids “lining up just waiting for it to be done. Nobody knew what a halfpipe was, and the ones I was building were tall, back then — 10 to 15 feet. They ended up holding the World Cup at Stratton.”

Blaisdell was disappointed “when some engineering company came along with a ‘zog’ (essentially a pipe shaping tool) and a pipe dragon and put me out of business with 20 feet pipes,” but said the fact that it even got to that point is a testament to a community effort to put snowboarding on the map.

Donna Carpenter agrees. “You have to have grit, determination, and a strong community to succeed, and that’s what Londonderry gave Jake,” she said. “Mark this as the birthplace of something special.”