Olympic Boat Center is sort of a Puget Sound institution. Even non-boaters know the jingle: “We’ll make a boat nut out of you!” Heck, the URL is www.boatnut.com.
But alas…the economy, the price of fuel, and “consumer confidence” are conspiring to make it a VERY difficult year for boat builders and dealers.
According to The Seattle Times, “The parent company of Redmond-based Olympic Boat Centers, a seller of boats and yachts including Bayliner, Maxum, Meridian and Trophy, filed for bankruptcy protection along with several affiliates.”
You can read the whole story in the Seattle Times. It bums me out, and I’m not even a customer.
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COME ON PEOPLE, LETS GET THIS TOGETHER AND WORK HARD TO TURN THIS AROUND THATS WHATS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW NO ONE WANTS TO WORK HARD ENOUGH TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THAT AMERICAN SPIRIT.. WE SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT THATS ALL ABOUT… DON’T GIVE UP… WORK HARDER…!!!!
AND MOST OF ALL LETS NOT OUTSORCE IT SO THAT THE CEO’S CAN GENERATE MORE MONEY FOR THEMSELFS… THE MONEY COEO’S MAKE IS REDICULOUS… AND AS YOU CAN SEE THATS WHAT HAPPENS TO COMPANYIES. PAY THE BILLS PAY THE CEO LAST AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.
Brunswick owns a big chunk of their stock. While cutting our (Brunswik employees) pay, CEO Dusty McCoy will be making ~5 million and he gave himself $500,00 in stock options a month before they told us about our salries.
OBC CEO has been paid over 500,000 a year for the last four years he has worked there. ridiculous if you ask me. just a fraction of that would have helped the company stay affloat….oh ya and by pulling his head out of his a$$
Exactly The Head Honchos only care about themselves, the employees are the ones that do all the work while the big wigs took all the advantages, they didn’t even spring for Company employee parties for the little peeon’s that gave them what they HAD!!!!
It was going to happen sooner or later and it laster longer than I thought. You can’t treat your employees and screw over customers the way OBC did as well see the upper management hide their head in the sand or elsewhere if you know what I mean and do nothing to save this company. This did not happen over night it took years to screw this company up. This was a super company before 2000 and see the largest selling boat dealer in the world go belly-up is a unbelievable and the only one to blame is the boss OBC’s CEO!
FYI
We bought our Bayliner in 2004 from OBC Surrey BC. The sales guy (Craig) did an outstanding job for us in every way. However the service dept and the managements lack of hiring enough qualified service people to staff it was a disgrace. Way over priced, 8 week waiting period to get service. We were told this past summer we had to wait up to 8 weeks to get our boat back in (even though we hadn’t used it) after they botched a repair. Wrote many letters to management complaining about the service dept. Never had a response, reply or apology. The guys they hired were typically entry level and inexperienced for the most part I’m sure because they could hire them cheap.
Mercruiser extended warranty virtually useless as you have to take it to a “Mercruiser Approved Dealer” (like OBC) and most other repair shops do a much better job with less cost and a much shorter waiting period for service but might not be Mercruiser Approved Service. So you can’t take your boat to them without fear of blowing your warranty.
With out a doubt, senior management in so many companies are seriously out of touch with reality as far as their salaries and business health are concerned.
Just like the CEO’s of the big three car companies showing up for bail out meetings in their private jets the other day, the CEO of OBC’s should take a serious WALK OF SHAME.
Maybe we as a world community should start a data base of past greedy CEO’s so in the future companies looking to hire can avoid these jerks!
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