You might say that The Burton Corp. is to snowboarding what Google Inc. is to Internet searches. Company founder Jake Burton Carpenter may not have been the first person to ever strap a surfer-style board to both feet and careen down a mountain, but he started a company that almost single-handedly commercialized snowboarding and transformed the winter sports industry.
Founded in 1977, the privately owned Burlington, Vt.-based Burton has about 900 employees. Besides snowboards, its products include Channel Islands surfboards, Anon Optics snow goggles, Gravis Footwear and apparel line Analog. Its revenues totaled about $700 million, according to published accounts in 2011. Vice president and general counsel Jaimesen Heins declined to detail financial information about the company.
