Words by Pat Bridges
Jake wasn’t the first person to ever step on a snowboard, nor the first to found a snowboarding company, but in my opinion he was the first to define himself as a snowboarder, and this distinction would serve as his true north, guiding his process for the rest of his days. Jake’s nonconformist leanings spawned long before 1977, the year he launched his namesake company, but the anti-establishment ideals were cemented by the cynical atmosphere he encountered as he set out to advocate for resort acceptance in the 1980s. Akin to a modern day Johnny Appleseed, sowing the seeds of a new sport one slope at a time, Jake routinely encountered skepticism and condescension, yet remained undeterred … More