NCMTA – Reviving the North Carolina Marine Trade Association?

There are a growing number of NC marine business owners, primarily affiliated with marinas, boatyards, and marine construction firms, who have requested that we re-establish the NC Marine Trade Association. The reasons are varied, but have regional components. These include property taxes imposed on transient boats, lack of ICW and inlet dredging, fuel taxes applied in NC but not in VA or SC, loss of public boating services through marina conversion to private condos, FERC re-licensing & the resulting effects on lake marinas, new invigorated stormwater and boat washdown concerns, increasing water quality restraints, and the lack of regulatory consistency & common-sense rulings, etc. The list grows monthly.

The problem is basic and legal: a functional association should be able to lobby and our NC Marine Trades Services is a state program that works to grow the marine industry in jobs and tax base, but we can’t lobby and we have very limited financial resources. We can continue to support the marketing, education, regulatory, training, and job growth functions of a trade association, but we can’t lobby and we have to have funding for our services.

And, we have not addressed boat builders and boating product/manufacturing businesses, as these provide the majority of jobs in the marine sector. The NCMM (NC Manufacturing Association) has a lobby function and several of the boat builders and product companies are members, but not the majority of the smaller businesses. Boat building issues are fairly non-regional, but are often divided between fiberglass and cold-molded construction. Two other sectors provide thousands of jobs in the state and have their own set of issues: boat dealers and marine product manufacturers.

We need to hear more from interested business owners. We have had suggested regions similar to those on our NCwaterways site, basically southern, central and northern coast, piedmont and western. We want to help, but this has to be led by owners of the core marine businesses. We need your input. Email or fax me, providing your business name, owner’s name and county along with contact info. We won’t release a list or commit you to anything more than talking to others from your region that express a similar interest. Contact Mike Bradley at Mbradley@SBTDC.org or fax at (252) 728-6988.

Joan Maxwell – 2nd Consecutive Year NC Boat Company President Wins Award

Joan Maxwell, president of Regulator Marine, Inc. was presented with the 2003 Darlene Briggs Woman of the Year Award last month at the Marine Retailers Association of America (MRAA) annual convention held in Las Vegas. The 2002 recipient of the Darlene Briggs award was Kris Carroll, president of Grady-White Boats, Inc. And in the same month, the Soundings Trade Only cover article featured NC’s Winchester Powerboats, Inc. president, Tiffany Dowell, as the only African-American female president and CEO of a U.S. Boat manufacturing operations. Thanks to each of you. It isn’t likely another state will top this set of honors in the near future.

Dredging Problems and Process Survey for ALL Marinas

Sponsored by NMMA/MOAA and conducted by the Lighthouse Consulting Group, the survey is to determine specific problems and possible solutions for marinas involved in the dredging process. Participate in the survey at link below. Questions? Contact Forsyth Kineon of Lighthouse at fkineon@lighthousecg.com. We have a link from the Business Assistance Tab at www.NCwaterways.com.

Survey Link

http://www.surveymonkey.com/Users/30164326/Surveys/61828338429/85F15368-BF6A-4903-9E97-ECC52903BF81.asp?U=61828338429 

Boat-Related Education and Training Information Updated

Our NCwaterways website has an education and industry training page found under the Business Assistance Tab. 2004 should begin a new training trend as a number of community colleges expand boat building and marine trades training courses. The schools also have a strong drive to help existing businesses train and re-train employees. Find national and statewide training including ABYC, ABBRA, EMarine Online, NMMA and others.

NC – New Boatbuilders, New Product Companies, New Concerns, New Opportunities

There most likely will be a sizable handful of new-to-the-state boat builders hiring several hundred to over 1,000 NC employees in 2004/5. This is music to the ears of developers and politicians, yet a pain-in-the-neck for existing boat builders that may lose trained employees to any of these new businesses that land in their area.

It is easy to get caught on both sides of this issue, since our program’s efforts have been focused on providing business growth assistance to existing NC marine businesses at the same time recruiting out-of-state businesses that need trained manpower the day they start production. The end result of this dilemma will hopefully be somewhere in the middle of making business owners mad and glad. The draw of NC is that there is a critical mass of boat building resources and boating demand well served by our state’s central east coast location.  The benefit of quality NC boating products and construction materials is an added win for the state and the builders. These same draws also bring in experienced employees that weren’t here and would never be coming here if the state weren’t energized with quality builders. The problem comes in when the supply of qualified employees gets strained and existing area companies vie for cost-effective, quality workers. 

The long-term solutions to these concerns tend to serve boatbuilders better than most manufacturers. The solutions lie in better and more cost-effective employee production through the use of training, technologies that improve the environment of the workplace and deliver production efficiencies, and conditions that “bond” the employee to the employer, to the boat being produced, and to the quality of the boat-buyer’s experience of owning the company’s boat. And, for 2004 on, there is an increasing degree of optimism regarding the efforts being made at the NC community college level to plan for and train or re-train an effective new boat industry workforce. This will take involvement and commitment by the builder, but the resources are getting in place to tailor training to meet competitive production requirements. Stay tuned or contact us for more information.

Intracoastal Waterway Action Alert Issues by AIWA

The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Association (AIWA) has issued the following notice: a portion of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in North Carolina is experiencing severe shoaling and commercial traffic is being restricted to navigating only during high tides.  The Corps of Engineers does not have money in their budget to do emergency dredging to open up the waterway. Go to www.atlintracoastal.org for information on how to respond.

Albemarle Boats Wins CSI Award

Edenton’s Albemarle Boats was featured in the recent December issues NMMA’s Inter/port publication as one of the Customer Satisfaction Index Award winners for 2003. Albemarle won in the Sterndrive Cuddy Express and Inboard Fishing Express categories. Each company that wins the award “achieved and maintained an independently-measured standard of excellence of 90 percent or higher in customer satisfaction over the past year”. For more information on the program, go to www.nmmacsi.com

NC OSHA and Workplace Safety Help

The following suggestion hasn’t been our typical advise. We want you to consider calling NC OSHA and asking for a confidential review of your business. The reason is our understanding that many small boatbuilders and marine business with over 10 employees are a short step from being “in compliance” but an expensive step from being just “out of compliance”. This NC agency has become quite “boat savvy” in the past year and has demonstrated a willingness to help without overzealous or business-threatening expectations (there are exceptions, but rare ones). The safety and health services through the Consultative Services Bureau, and the educational and engineering assistance through the Education, Training, and Technical Assistance Bureau are free. The consultation records are separate and confidential from compliance. There are some experienced consultants there that know their way around boatbuilding. If you have Internet, view information at hwww.nclabor.com/osha/consult/bcs1.htm for the basics. Then find a blocked ID phone and call John Bogner at 919-807-2905 for consultative services or Les Kafel at 919-807-2890 for employee education and training assistance. Ask enough questions to satisfy your concerns so that you are comfortable. The request form is found at this site: www.nclabor.com/osha/consult/request2.pdf.

NC Business-to-Business Buying Growing for Boat Building Industry

Bottom line: NC boatbuilders are buying more boat construction products and materials from NC businesses. Contact with business owners indicate that in-state buying of components, materials, and accessories is growing – and the in-state business owners like the idea. Over 90% of the 120 NC boatbuilders are family owned and operated, and the buying decision made for the company incorporate quality, cost, availability and growing personal relationships with the seller. The growth and expansion of the entire NC industry reflects this trend.

ABYC Willing to Bring Training to NC Business Sector in 2004

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