Business Spotlight: North American Marine Industries Inc.

Owner: Vicki Shaffer

Founded: 1995

Address: 3658 W. State Highway 86, Lampe, MO 65681

Phone: (417) 779-6074

Fax: (417) 779-4878

Web site: www.namidocks.com

E-Mail: info@namidocks.com

Products/Services: Design, manufacture and sell boat docks, boat lifts and wave attenuation systems

2007 Revenues: nearly $7 million

Employees: 30

Vicki and John Shaffer comfortably nestled into North American Marine Industries Inc. when they bought the Lampe boat dock manufacturer in November 2002.

“John had run businesses before (and) I had a lot of experience in manufacturing,” says Vicki Shaffer.

Shaffer moved from her director of continuous improvement post at Miracle Recreation Equipment Co. in Monett, and within a year, she had recruited both her sons, Roger and Mike Jones, to form a family business. Roger Jones’ background was in information technology, and Mike Jones held a degree in finance and economics.

At the time the Shaffers bought the business from Michael Fitzpatrick, who founded it in 1995 as White River Barge Co. Ltd., NAMI employed 10 and pulled in $2 million in sales. Residential customers along Table Rock Lake generated 90 percent of those sales, according to Mike Jones.

The new leadership’s first priority was to install a network of computers.

“We hired a contract draftsman,” says Shaffer, who has a degree in computer information systems. “That was my first initiative – to get drawings on the computer.”

The next step was to standardize parts and increase inventory.

“We bought a break press to punch 20 holes instead of one,” Shaffer recalls. “It increased production by 50 percent with just this one tool.”

The company also switched to JobBoss software from QuickBooks. “That was not manufacturing software,” Shaffer says. “(With JobBoss), we can track real-time job costing.”

The Shaffers enlarged their engineering and manufacturing departments and hired a project coordinator to oversee workflow.

With internal improvements in place, John Shaffer began looking outside the local residential market. Focusing on the marina market, he picked up new commercial customers by attending boat and marina shows in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Texas, and advertising in trade publications.

Commercial sales climbed. “We’ve grown 25 percent every year,” says Jones.

A devastating blow, however, lurked around the corner.

John Shaffer and stepson Roger Jones died in a plane crash in 2005.

The surviving mother and son immediately decided that giving up was not an option. “We both had too much invested,” Vicki Shaffer recalls.

The first step was reassessing the company’s management structure. Shaffer took on the role of CEO, and Mike Jones picked the president duties.

“Some people would find it easy to sell the business. Mike stepped up and took the reins and continued a high standard of customer service and quality,” says customer Pat Cox, a co-owner of Starboard Marinas Inc. in Branson. “Mike is all in the details.”

Jones continued pushing NAMI’s national presence by hiring an outside sales representative in 2006. Now, the company has three outside commercial sales reps covering 16 states. Bob Harty represents Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi; Jim Helderle oversees Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina; and Roger Squires handles Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Jones says that with the April 2007 addition of Squires, who has more than 30 years of sales experience with two competitors, HydroHoist and ShoreMaster, he expects company sales to grow by another third.

During the past six years, marina dock sales have grown to represent 67 percent of NAMI’s business.

“I think they offer the same or better quality than the national (companies) with … local support and service,” says Cox, who’s hired NAMI to build large commercial boat docks for custom houseboats. “They require sophisticated engineering construction. We’ve done a couple million dollars with (NAMI).”

Residential customers primarily living along Table Rock, Beaver and Bull Shoals lakes make up a remainder of the company’s revenues, which totaled nearly $7 million in 2007.

A fourth sales representative, Austin Cross, works in-house to handle all the residential business at the NAMI manufacturing headquarters, 3658 W. State Highway 86 in Lampe.

About 79 percent of the company’s sales is from building boat docks, another 11 percent comes from manufacturing boat lifts, and 10 percent of business comes from repairs and refloating boat docks. The company’s product lines are NAMI Docks, Bottoms Up boat-lift systems and Wave Lock shoreline protection systems.

The company employs a work force of 30 employees who design, fabricate and manufacture. NAMI uses another 45 subcontractors to install the boat docks and lifts.

Jones says the company has $21 million outstanding in bids this year, and he hopes to win a third of those.

“We’re where we want to be distributionwise,” he says. “We’re almost not the new kid on the block anymore.”

Shaffer says she doesn’t forget what the family business had to endure.

“It was tough,” she recalls. “It’s been a long haul.”[[In-content Ad]]