For their efforts in pioneering snowboarding, the Carpenters were inducted into the U.S.

and eventually entered the Europe and Japanese markets, selling a vast array of snow sports gear. Together, they expanded Burton's presence in the U.S.

Ironically enough, she said her first experience snowboarding was 'awful.' They married in 1983. It was this passion that helped him start a relationship with his future wife, Donna Gaston, in 1982. He visited the slopes 100 days a year and snowboarded on six different continents. By 1984, Burton Snowboards had become a major brand, with sales reaching $1 million.Д¬arpenter never let his business ruin his passion for snowboarding. In 1983, he persuaded the Stratton Mountain ski resort in Vermont to open its slopes to snowboarders. 'And I focused not about my own material needs or accomplishments or whatever I just thought about the sport.'ДЄs time continued, Carpenter's influence on the snow sports world grew.

'After a couple of years, it became much more important to me that I was right about the decision that there was a sport there,' Carpenter told Storењњorps. 'He created bindings that attach you to the board so you can actually carve and control the board much better,' Vermont ski shop worker Fischer Van Golden said.Д¬arpenter's initial goal was to use the company as a get-rich-quick scheme, but he later turned his attention to nurturing the sport. There, he started turning existing designs into the snowboards that have been used by global superstars such as Shaun White and Ayumu Hirano. 'I just always had this attachment to snow, to me it meant no school.'ДЄfter graduating from college and jumping from job to job, Carpenter moved to Vermont in 1977 and started Burton Boards out of a barn where he was working. 'My dad sort of figured it might be something fun for a family to do when I was around seven or eight and he would take the whole family,' Carpenter told NPR's How I Built This. His attachment to snow stemmed from childhood ski trips with his family, which allowed him to escape school, where he said he was the 'proverbial 'underachiever' and wise ass.' During the mid-1900's, snowboards looked more like long sleds, with a light weight and nylon straps. Burton Carpenter is an associate of the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame.Jake Burton Carpenter, whose snowboard business and promotional efforts transformed the sport into a global sensation, died Wednesday at 65 from complications from cancer.Д¬arpenter, the founder of the iconic Burton Snowboards company, was born in 1954 - when snowboarding was radically different from what's seen today. Carpenter also got two other sons, George and Taylor. Carpenter now resides in Stowe, Vermont, where he lives together with his own wife, Donna and his son, Timi.

Carpenter continues to run the Burton firm, which has grown into among the planet вЂs biggest snowboard and snowboarding-equipment makers. From the late 70вЂ™s, he joined a tiny cadre of manufacturing companies whoвЂ™d started selling snowboards with layout characteristics including a bentwood laminate center along with a stiff binding which held the board strongly to the wearerвЂ™s boot. After school, CarpenterвЂ™s interests returned to the inclines. After several years far from school he resumed his studies at New York University, graduating with a diploma in economics. An enthusiastic skier, Carpenter expected to join the universityвЂ™s ski team yet, his competitive skiing career finished in an auto crash. CarpenterвЂ™s high school instruction started in Brooks School North Andover, Massachusetts.

Timi carpenter