03/14/2026
"Thanks Tom"
In 1963, NJ high school students Tom Sims
created the first snowboard in his shop class in Haddonfield.
Twenty years later, he was the world snowboard champion, and owner of the Sims skateboard and snowboard companies.
Jake (Burton) Carpenter spent a lot of money trying to bankrupt Tom by trying to buy the first snowboard patent after Jake's company, "Burton Snowboards", began a campaign to try to patent everything about the sport, despite the fact that Tom had built the first snowboard.
In the 1980s, we early riders came out with a slogan against Burton's corporate tactics:
"You can't Patent fun" .
When you're out there "shredding" in another corporate "Day for Jake", remember that Tom Sims invented the snowboard in 1963, over a decade before "Jake" had ever heard of the sport.
In "Jakes" own words:
" I then thought, “Well, s**t man, I can start a snowboarding company and I can get rich.” It really was a get-rich-quick scheme. I did a business plan and figured if I could make fifty boards a day I could make $100,000 a year, so that was my mission.":
https://www.snowboarder.com/news/a-paper-trail-the-jake-burton-carpenter-interview
.. Mission accomplished, "Jake". You got rich ...by ripping off the real soul of the sport, and by ripping off Tom Sims.
REAL OGs remember.
Corporate sheep and posers "Ride for Jake"
OGs, especially JERSEY OGs, always THANK TOM
