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Dave Schriber's Goodbye To Burton Letter: January 2, 2004

Hi,

I think this is "All Burton #10."

Over the years, I've kept count. I wanted to distance myself from daily senders who were trying to sell snow tires, find a roommate, get the rightful owner to clean up their dog's shit, locate a lost stapler, or return a lost Med-Alert bracelet.

But I've got something to say: I'm leaving Burton.

2004 will be 12 years with the company, 20 years selling snowboards (8 of those years as a retailer).

In 1992 when I was interviewing for the position of Marketing Coordinator (when Marketing consisted of 3 people), I got to interview with Jake. I told Jake that as a retailer I had experience with dozens of companies yet there was only one for which I truly wanted to work: Burton.

Burton was the one company in all of action sports that had consistent, dominant market share and credibility in both hardgoods and softgoods. The skateboard world revolts if a company has 10% of the market. Skate deck companies don't dominate clothes and vice versa. And so on through all of sports. To this day, you can say Burton is big, corporate, dominant, and consistent, but you have to admit it's authentic, credible, and the maker of the best shit.

Burton also had the wherewithal to have taste, or as I've heard Jake call it, couth. Burton was the innovator of fine art on equipment (far more so than skate deck companies). It has set a standard for graphic design, with partners like JDK, for all consumer products and marketing. It hasn't let the logo become more important than the people or the product. Some have said kids can't appreciate this level of sophistication, but Burton has seldom underestimated youth.

And Burton has seldom underestimated the riders. Long before it became trendy to own "professional grade" products (tools, trucks, gas ranges), professional was what Burton made. Craig Kelly put a very fine point on this, and the riders since have held up their end of the bargain with the support of open-mined (and thick-skinned) product managers. Burton really is The Process.

Bringing that heritage to footwear was a natural progression and a challenge I inherited wholeheartedly, 20 months ago, when I moved down the street to Gravis. Coming home from the Winter Sales Meeting in Keystone last week, I knew that we had cracked the code of lifestyle footwear for action sports. The Fall 2004 Gravis line is sick. I can't wait to see it in stores. Even as a verbose marketer, I can't find the words to express how rad the new shit is. The Gravis crew has found their stride.

So why bail this great company? It's very, very personal and I won't bore you now with the details. My kids now spend half their lives a 5-hour drive away, and my life will change to address this. I have no idea what specifically this means, but it felt like a betrayal to stay on here while I searched for the answer.

I have a lot of writing to do and it won't be in the form of emails, I promise. 7:30 chairs on weekdays are now fair game; look for my tracks. It's the first winter in ten when you don't have to compete with Jake to get firsties in Goat woods.

I've had an incredible experience and worked with amazing people, Jake and Donna being two of them. The company is in good hands and the brands have never been healthier. Burton is everything it was when I started. What's different now is that the world knows it. This is huge, and you gotta realize it's only the beginning.

Peace.

Back to the Bag o' Crapola

 


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