Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards and one of the true snowboarding pioneers, died on Nov. 20 at the age of 65 of complications from a relapse of testicular cancer. Jake was instrumental in making snowboarding a major sports activity, an important business and an Olympic discipline. He founded Burton Snowboards in a barn in Vermont in 1977, turning it into the leader in the sector together with his wife, Donna Carpenter, who made a memorable speech at the recent European Outdoor Summit in Switzerland. She and John Lacy, the former president of Burton, became joint chief executives of the company in October a year ago. With Jake Burton Carpenter, snowboarding loses another pioneer. Sherman Poppen died this year in August at the age of 89. In 1965, he invented the “Snurfer,” which inspired Burton to develop his snowboards. Tom Sims, who also started producing snowboards in 1977, passed away in 2012.

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