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It Only Looks Easy

"We make every single product that you need to go snowboarding," says Potdevin when I reach him by phone in Vail, where he has just come out of the backcountry, boarding, as usual, with his boss. "And we're grabbing market share in all categories." Potdevin can imagine similar stores worldwide. Next up is Tokyo.

Jake himself is at a good place now--things just happen. He needn't concern himself with cost or contracts or dealing with the agents of his riders. Instead, he rides his board, critiques the product, and pats backs, acting as a sort of creative guru whose joie de vivre filters down to the company's lowest levels. While Potdevin makes the trains run on time, Jake's strolling between cars, reupholstering the seats in leopard print and adding tofu and champagne to the dining car.

"My role allows him to do what he loves to do," says Potdevin. "He is focused on product and marketing and making sure we stay in touch with the market. The way we work allows him to do what he wants, when he wants. We have one shareholder who's very passionate about the sport."

Burton Snowboards is Jake Burton, from the quirky insouciance of its marketing to the casual cool of its Burlington, Vermont, headquarters. You know the building by the rusty section of chairlift dangling over its front lot, just as you know it from the skateboard ramp out back. You also know it by the dogs. I was wrapping up a phone call just outside the entrance when the front door swung open to reveal a black lab that strolled out to the yard, lifted its leg, and yellowed a patch of snow. I can't say for sure that this dog opened the door itself, but I most certainly didn't see a person on the other side. Inside the building are more dogs, as well as humans in hooded sweatshirts who I can only assume are their owners, also known as employees of Burton Snowboards. (There is, however, no sense of pairing off, of dogs following particular humans; the people do their thing and so do the dogs, and presumably they meet up at the end of the day so that the latter can catch a ride home to the flannel L.L.Bean bed.)

The company has been here, in this small industrial park, since 1992, when the operation moved up from Manchester, a few hours south. There was a time when all Burton boards were made here, in this one-story building with the stone fireplace in the lobby. On the walls around the reception desk hang the boards of Burton, one for each year, starting with the 1977 fiberglass prototype handshaped by Jake in a Londonderry barn. That board has a pointy nose and a fin, was used free-standing--no bindings--and was steered with a rope attached via a hole in the front. In other words, it was a pretty direct rip-off of the Snurfer, the first commercial snowboard, made by Brunswick. Jake has always said the Snurfer was his inspiration.

Behind the reception desk is a retail shop, open to the public six days a week. Past that, one hall leads toward the Syndicate, Burton's in-house design department, responsible for websites, printed collateral, and the catalog, a fat, glossy, perfect-bound beauty that is sometimes referred to as "the Bible." (It is expensive to produce and not actually intended for autograph seekers.) The other hall turns left and passes a room that houses customer service--step one for young employees, all of whom are experienced riders who know the products. "These are hard-core riders," says Matt Johnson, a marketing assistant who joined the company out of college and wears what seems to be the de facto company uniform: jeans, a hoodie, and a beanie. "So if a kid calls up he gets a real rider who knows his shit." Across the hall is marketing, which connects to "The Goods," an airy room with clusters of cubes that house various staffers of the sub-brands such as R.E.D. and Anon. Beyond that, through a set of glass doors, is the top-secret R&D lab, where future products are being built and tested. (Matt won't let me in there, even though, like all visitors to the HQ, I have signed a nondisclosure agreement.) And then, at the end, the adjoining offices of Laurent Potdevin and Jake Burton.

The first thing you notice about Jake's office is that it's sort of a mess--there are piles of boots, stacks of boards, racks of jackets, and an entire wall of Gravis shoes, a Burton brand. "The thing people ask," says Jake's assistant, Harriet Davis, "is where's the desk?" That's because there is no desk. Instead Burton has three couches and two chairs that surround a huge coffee table covered in caps and beanies, including one with built-in headphones. (Merging electronics and outerwear is yet another huge initiative at Burton; called Audex, it is a partnership with Motorola.)

"Eighty," as this building is known, is one of two main outposts of Burton in Burlington. The other is BMC, the Burton Manufacturing Center, a long, low-slung building that looks like it used to be a giant Foodland. This is Burton's last U.S.-based factory, but likely its most important one anywhere. For one, it's where the highest of high-end stock is made, including pro models for sponsored riders, the top-of-the-line $900 Vapor boards, and the new line of custom boards known as Series 13, which kids can design on a separate Series 13 website. More important, it ties the giant company back to the place that gave rise to it nearly 30 years ago. Without this factory, Burton could no longer say its boards are still made in Vermont.