Mr. Fountain: I started back in 1978 when I developed my first boat. I started with my own money. By the late 1980s, I took the company public and invested more money and kept expanding our product lines. We've experienced growth from 1978 through continued research, design and development, to more than 30 models of sports boats, fish boats and cruisers. So we've really expanded not only the number of boats, but the kinds of boats we build. We started with high-performance sports boats and we now build not only high-performance sports boats, of which we are the largest in the world, but we are now building fishing boats. We continue to carve our niche in the fish boat industry. We're building boats from 23 to 38 feet. We have two new cruisers with a 38-foot wide beam. The 38-foot wide beam fish boat is taking off and doing quite well among tournament fishermen. The 38-foot sport cruiser is a wider and longer and bigger boat than what we've been building, but it still goes fast like our high-performance sports boats. We've been selling more of both types of boats. They're like everyday cruisers for people who want to stay on their boats more, use them more as a home, but they still want to go fast. We also have a 48-foot wide beam cruiser that will be 12 feet wide, coming out in the very near future.
TWST: Were you a racer yourself at one time?
Mr. Fountain: Yes, just briefly. I graduated from the University of
North Carolina Business School in 1962, Law School in 1965 and started
out my career as a high-powered life insurance salesman with a law
degree and did estate planning for my customers. I invested in apartment
complexes and shopping centers, and was building boats on the side as a
hobby and had been doing so since 1954, when I raced my first boat at
age 14. I borrowed against my apartments and shopping centers to be able
to start this company in a small way in 1978 when I designed the first
boats. In 1979, we were building boat orders. By 1983 or 1984, we were
building our own facility. And that's when my money began to run out. I
learned on the front end that most banks don't like to loan money to
anybody who really needs it. Since I needed it, I took the company
public in 1987.
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