2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of Endeavor Snowboards and a year committed to the future. This Canadian snowboard company has continued to grow their brand and make their mark on snowboarding. Big steps have been taken for Endeavor in the past year. They’ve grown their office space to build the Archtype Snowboard Lab and continue to set their sights on the future of Endeavor. On my way back from Whistler, I cruised through Vancouver to stop into their office space and check out the lab that I’ve been hearing about.
Located near the shipping docks and industrial offices, Endeavor stands out among the crowd of business places with their artwork giving away the building. I met up with Max Jenke for the late afternoon tour of Endeavor.
A couple brands are inside the Endeavor Design Inc and the offices feature a showroom and photography studio for Scott Serfas. Scott just displayed his work at the Pro Photographer Showdown in Whistler during Telus Festival.
The showroom for Airhole and Endeavor snowboards, bindings and luggage is right when you walk into the building.
To start our tour, Max put his espresso skills to the test and created hot chocolates for his kids and coffees for us during the tour. Personalized eco friendly Endeavor cups were on hand to sip out of and Max did a fine job as a barista.
Past the showroom is the office space for the Endeavor employees. In a midst of brick, wood and mortar comes the creative and business work from Endeavor. Each person has their own work space and conveniently located near the espresso stand.
Just below the office space in the downstairs portion is the Archetype Snowboard Lab created by Endeavor. It’s a fully operational snowboard factory/lab that can create, innovate and build to life, snowboard ideas ready to shred before they head to the snowboard factory for mass production of Endeavor.
The CNC department for making cores come to life. Endeavor uses a range of wood cores from poplar to phantom to negative core profiling on their snowboards.
Inside the lab, you can play around with materials and topsheets then take them to the snow to determine the best fit.
When it comes to building shapes and designs, a snowboard press is everything. It can determine camber vs zero camber vs reverse camber vs multi camber. The best part is creating a snowboard in the pressing department and being able to ride it later on.
Also located downstairs is the Scott Serfas studio and office space. Located on the wall are just a fraction of the snowboard covers he has shot over his career. To the right of this photo, he has a studio space for capturing any photos indoors.
A huge thanks to Max for mentioning the tour this weekend and coming in on the weekend with his family to show me around. It was really great to see the Endeavor location and get a feel for the work they do.
Katie
April 23, 2012 at 12:05 pmCool photos. That space looks like the perfect place to create a) snowboards but also b) anything!
Frank
April 23, 2012 at 12:16 pmwow
that is really a nice clean factory… very nice design… Canadian Brand 😉 ( I am from Montreal and went in Whistler too) 😉
Frank
April 24, 2012 at 6:48 pmok I read after that in BC (Archetype) it is the R&D design and test… that mass production is Oversea (Asia) that is why it is so clean and slick
renfrew
April 26, 2012 at 5:26 pmoh yeh, dont be fooled. mass production in China lets Endeavor swag out on a flash office. I demo’d 2 of their boards before, both snapped. ridiculous.
R. Dow
May 8, 2012 at 10:00 amAgain thanks so much for Shayboarder.com to come check out the new offices always great to see you.
@ renfrew i would love to know what demo you claim to have snapped boards? I have worked at most of the demos in the past 2 years and have not seen one board break. If we see a problem we fix it asap so this information would help greatly. Since we moved our production over seas we have seen our over all warranty drop to under 1% in returns globally.
The new “flash” office and lab as you put it is to help with new technologies for the future of our brand. The lab is helping with testing and developing new ideas and helping them come to market faster than ever. I have been in the industry over 24 years and still get exited developing new snowboard designs. With this lab we are investing in our future.
Frank
May 10, 2012 at 4:00 pmHi R.Dow,
Nice job done with the Lab R&D facility!
I been now reading more about your company, and I have to say that Endeavor looks pretty up to date in terms of the technology (in only 10 years for 2013), very surprise, was not familiar at all to your brand (seems not too much distribution in Quebec Province) but seems interesting for the future, I will be curious to try one! As an advance freerider, I will be curious to test, Next Series or B.O.D. Series… for 2013
R. Dow
May 17, 2012 at 1:07 pmGood day Frank,
Thanks for the post. The BOD is a personal favourite because i worked on that board for almost 2 years so…lol. The idea was to bring reverse features and camber benefits into one board. It was also just picked by snowboarder as a “platinum pick”.
We are working on getting more store fronts in Quebec and next year we should have a better presence. Anyways have a great day and hope you get to try some boards.