Highs and Lows from 2013: Randy Davis
Under owner Randy Davis, Nordic Boats has developed many new models including the 24 SX catamaran.
In the nearly 10 years since Randy Davis took over as owner of Nordic Boats, he has seen the Lake Havasu City, Ariz., business build everything from a 43-foot offshore catamaran to a 21-foot ski race boat. He’s also seen the company take a major hit due to the economic downturn and a flood of deck boats—Nordic’s most popular line—entering the market after a builder went out of business. While scaling back was a given, Davis, who also runs a successful framing business in Southern California, continued to tool up new boats, which seems to have given Nordic a competitive advantage as 2013 was the company’s best in several years.
Click image for caption and to enlargeHighs: The fact that we’ve sold almost 70 boats this year is something to be happy about, but I think the best part about 2013 was the promotion of Thane Tiemer, who has been our tooler for several years, to general manager of Nordic Boats. He has done a great job in the position. He knows how to talk with the customers and he knows how to build boats. He’s also built a lot of the competition’s boats so he brings that knowledge to the table as well. Winning our 11th Catalina Ski Race was another high as Todd Haig tied Chuck Stearns’ all-time record (read the story).
Low: For the bad, to be honest, even though we’ve been doing OK, I keep in contact with some of the other manufacturers and it’s hard to see so many of the West Coast builders struggling. Competition is a good thing so you don’t want to see other companies not doing well or hear rumors of them going out of business. The other thing is that I hate seeing accidents happening at poker runs. Poker runs are a big part of our industry. Maybe it’s time we rethink how they are started—I’d hate to see any events cancelled.
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The Complete Highs and Lows from 2013
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