Big boat builder takes southern town by storm

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: Navassa, which has a small population and one of North Carolina's lowest per capita incomes, is now attracting big businesses and developers who have discovered it has many acres of undeveloped riverfront space. One of those is Brunswick Corp., the world's biggest pleasure boat builder, which sailed in last summer amid a dipping boating market and promised to give area residents lots of decent-paying jobs.

WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS
August 11, 2007
Boat work begins at Navassa plant
U.S. Marine still has job openings
By Ana Ribeiro

Navassa | Workers wear white overalls in the stifling heat. One man plugs a cord into his astronaut-like suit so a fan can blow air into it.

Soon, people will be cooling off on the water somewhere, enjoying the fruit of the workers' sweat: Maxum and Bayliner cruisers.

Production has just started in Navassa for U.S. Marine, the boating division of Chicago-based Brunswick Corp. By the end of the year, it plans to hire almost 100 more workers here - building toward a total of 850 by 2011.

The company is the world's biggest builder of recreational boats, making, besides these cruisers, brands that include Boston Whaler, Albemarle, Cabo Yachts and Hatteras Yachts.

It employs more than 27,000 people worldwide.

Navassa Mayor Eulis Willis has welcomed the new employer, and the state has offered it tax incentives for the creation of new jobs. The corporation bought the 60-acre property on the Cape Fear River for $29 million, said company spokesman Dan Kubera.

The plant was formerly owned by KCS International, the parent company of Rampage Yachts. U.S. Marine is keeping on Rampage's more than 200 employees.

"The main thing is the people," Adam Garthaus, the local U.S. Marine director of operations, said of what he describes as the plant's biggest selling point: a trained, skilled work force.

Garthaus used to be Rampage's director of operations, and when given a choice, joined the newcomer. For one thing, U.S. Marine offers better health benefits, he said.

Another thing is job security.

"They're a large corporation," Garthaus said. "I know even in the rough times, there's going to be work."

U.S. Marine has felt the pull of the boating industry's downward cycle this year: It sold about $1.4 billion in boats during the first half of the year, down 6 percent from the same period last year.

But boating division employees haven't been greatly affected; the company laid off 90 out of the nearly 14,000 total, said company spokesman Dan Kubera.

That number could increase a bit as the company moves production from its site in Salisbury, Md., to Navassa.

"Unfortunately, this move will eliminate 180 production and support positions in a phased shutdown at Salisbury, expected to be completed in 2008," Dustan McCoy, Brunswick Corp.'s chief executive officer, said in a press release last month.

The company currently employs about 1,700 people at several plants in North Carolina, and plans to add 95 in Navassa by December, Garthaus said.

It may end up bringing some employees from Salisbury, too, he and Kubera said.

The Navassa plant, which is newer and has trained workers and equipment already in place, will enable the company to increase productivity, Kubera said.

"It's the characteristics of the plant alone that caught our eye," he said, adding that it provides easy access to deep water and to the company's target market for large yachts on the East Coast.

U.S. Marine began production at the plant on July 23, after giving Rampage's former workers three weeks to learn about brands they were not familiar with, Garthaus said.

Kubera called the way employees adapted to the company's demands and philosophy "amazing."

They finished their first cruiser hours earlier than expected.

All that despite the goggles, masks and the heat of the buzzing plant, and through six phases involving coating, painting, laying fiberglass and wood and immaculate details before sending the luxury cruisers on to the assembly line.

The process takes several weeks for each boat, with 18 cruisers being built at the same time, Garthaus said.

It "obviously demands a high level of precision, but it is also a good measure of craftsmanship," Kubera wrote in an e-mail.

"Boat-building is an art; it is not simply tightening a bolt to a widget."

At its Navassa plant, U.S. Marine is building 25-foot Maxum and 32-foot Bayliner cruisers. It plans to begin production of Meridian Yachts of up to 65 feet in 2010, Garthaus said.

It has a contract with KCS International to keep building Rampage Yachts until June as the company looks for another site, Garthaus said.

For former Rampage employee Brian Morris, the move is mostly positive. Like Garthaus, he said he likes the health benefits U.S. Marine offers; but just as he was getting the hang of his job handling the boats' electricity and plumbing, the newcomer moved him over to build dashboards.

"I liked what I was doing," said Morris, who lives in nearby Leland.

But he said he likes the way U.S. Marine breaks things down into smaller tasks and has a good proportion of employees per production line.

"This is a lot quicker," he said of production now.

As for his new task, Morris said he'll give it time.