Culver-based Seaswirl is rebounding in the boat industry following the bankruptcy of its parent company, Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC), last year.

Acquired by Minneapolis-based Genmar Industries, Seaswirl was infused with the capital it needed to improve its product line and increase its market share.

OMC, once the largest outboard manufacturer in the world, took a blow financially when the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring boat manufacturers to build cleaner engines. Pumping huge amounts of money into research and development, the company went broke. Subsequently, its 17 subsidiaries were sold, with Seaswirl the first of them to be acquired.

Seaswirl has since then been able to rehire all 230 employees it laid off for several months while it courted corporate suitors. The company has now fought its way back to the top 10 list of boat manufacturers in the country, and is preparing to further increase its market share by introducing a line of runabouts.

The runabout market – smaller sport boats – once saturated, could again be profitable for Seaswirl since the exodus of several manufacturers in that area.

Curt Olson, president and general manager of Seaswirl, is seeing the company through the development of its next phase of models that will help propel the company’s growth an estimated 5 percent to 7 percent annually.

Curt, what is your history at Seaswirl? How long have you been at the company?

My personal history at Seaswirl is I started here in May of 1988.

I came in as the financial controller, the CFO, and in 1993 was changed to the vice president and general manager. So myself and one other man, by the name of Bob Troutman, who is vice president of sales and marketing, share the responsibilities. And then we report to our parent company, which is Genmar Holdings Incorporated.

Where were you prior to coming to Seaswirl?

Prior to coming here I was the CFO at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. And prior to that I worked for the CPA firm Nelson, Trimble, Douglas and Everton in Central Oregon.

It has been more than a year since Minneapolis-based Genmar Industries purchased Seaswirl’s parent company, Outboard Marine Corporation. How did this move change Seaswirl’s market, if at all? Have you fully returned to pre-Genmar employment levels?

First of all, they didn’t buy all of Outboard Marine Corporation. They only bought the boat business, which is half of OMC. Outboard Marine Corporation had boats and it had motors. Genmar purchased the boat operation, and Bombardia out of Canada purchased the engine operations. From our market standpoint, it didn’t change at all. Genmar has given us much more support than Outboard Marine Corporation ever did, and what that has allowed us to do is introduce 14 new models in the last two years.

When you say more support, what do you mean by that?

They gave us more monetary support allowing us to develop new products.

And that’s 14 models since Genmar acquired this part of the company. Prior to that, what were you producing?

Two to three (new) models a year.

That’s prolific.

That is huge. By doing that, we’re allowed to remain competitive. Everybody wants new things. By making the changes and coming out with new models, it allows you to grow your market share.

So do you see Seaswirl coming out with that many new models on a year-to-year basis, or was that just a catch up time?

That was a catch up time. Now you’ll probably see us come out with four to five new models a year. What we’re about ready to do is get back into the recreational runabout market – those are the small sport boats that you see on inland lakes and waterways such as Round Butte. They’re the smaller, family runabouts versus our current saltwater fishing line. We should release that line about Oct. 1. We’ll have eight models this year and more to come in the future years.

And this is the first time you’ve produced inland boats?

No, we’ve produced them in the past, but we got out of that arena for about four or five years.

Why so?

The competitiveness. Several years ago we saw that there were too many runabout competitors, and nobody was making any money. So we walked away from that and focused on the Stripers, or the fishing boat line. Now a lot of people have gone out of business, so we’ll come back with the runabout and the competition won’t be as stiff as it used to be.

Which lines went out of business?

There have been a lot of them over the years. Most people in Central Oregon aren’t going to know their names. In the boat business, most brands are regional, and you only know the brands that come to your market. We, on the other hand, are an international company, and we try to compete in all markets in all geographic locations.

What are some of the new models customers can look forward to, in terms of both your saltwater and inland boats?

In the saltwater line we have six new models. We’re one of the few companies in the world that produces a saltwater version of the fishing boat with a sterndrive. Most people only go with outboards. So we’re coming out with new sterndrive models, which is usually more popular in the northern climates. Southern climates usually go for an outboard fishing boat, northern climates for a sterndrive. So we’ve come out with a new stern drive line, and also new this year will be a 25-foot boat with a 10.5-foot beam, that will retail for $110,000.

What is the price range for most of your products?

Most of our products go in the $15,000 to $50,000 price range.

So this is top of the line.

It’s a lot larger with more benefits. It has an air conditioning unit, a generator, refrigerators. They’ll sleep up to six people in beds. It has a 250-gallon fuel tank, really designed for people who want to go off shore a little farther and spend the weekends on the boat.

That’s a pretty pricey product. Is there demand out there for these kinds of high-end boats now?

During the tight times, we find that (wealthier) people continue to have the money to buy the products. When times are tight in the smaller boat segment, we’re still selling the bigger stuff. Our boats are not cheap. We’re not an entry-level boat line. We’re mid to upper scale and our prices reflect that. You can find several brands that are less expensive than ours, but we have a lot of quality features they don’t have – the engineering design as well as the materials.

For example, some brands use a thin vinyl, we use a thicker 30-ounce vinyl. Some brands use a thin carpet, we use a 24-ounce carpet. Some brands put on thin gel goat, we put on 18 (milliliters) of gel coat. There are just a lot of things, over 49 years, that the company has continued to do. Our success story is a higher quality product at a competitive price. That has always been our niche.

Which are your strongest markets by region?

Our strongest region is the East Coast. Over 70 percent of our product goes to the East Coast of the United States. We then go to Southern California, the Bay area, Seattle and then Oregon.

We’re very strong from Boston to Miami, and that makes sense because that’s where most of the Americans live.

I don’t know the true breakdown, but we’ve always heard you have something like 40 million in the West, 40 million in the central part and 220 million on the eastern seaboard. That’s why more of the volume goes back there.

Do you see those markets changing over the next five years?

The fishing boat market will probably stay mixed that way – with 70 percent to the East Coast. However, when we get back into the runabouts, they will be more of a West Coast and Midwest boat. So what we hope to do is maintain two different product lines, one targeting the coastal regions, and one targeting the inland lakes and waterways.

The boating industry has generally struggled to maintain its foothold in the recreation arena, yet Seaswirl continues to do well. Why?

I think we focus on what the customer wants. We try to stay with our quality features and benefits, and we don’t worry so much about price. We seem to hang around year in and year out.

At maximum capacity, what is your facility’s daily output?

Our daily output right now is 10 boats a day. Capacity is 20 a day. We’re very fortunate that the owners prior to OMC acquired enough land and buildings to allow us to grow well into the future.

How many independent dealers sell your boats?

Right now we have 85 for the saltwater market, and we’ll add another 40 for the freshwater market, the sport boats, giving us a total of 125.

What are your expectations for the company’s growth over the next five years?

We’re looking at somewhere between 5 and 7 percent growth on an annual basis. The runabouts will give us a quick jump, but that will probably just be a one-year leap. We’ll probably have 25 percent this following year as we add the sport boats, and then from there on out, it will be 5 to 7 percent a year.