Of the many good reporters and editors I’ve known or had the privilege of working with over the years, Beth is on the short list of those who has the right stuff to make it in a daily, fast-paced news environment. A former reporter for newspapers and the Associated Press, she was perfectly suited for writing stories for the daily Trade Only Today e-newsletter and Web reporting in general, where news cycles continue to get shorter and shorter.

Beth could produce a short, concise breaking piece on a complex subject in minutes. She was, as my friends in Maine might still say, “wicked fast.”

And Beth was the right person to be churning out daily dispatches during the topsy-turvy days of the Great Recession, when it was important to report on industry events in as close to real time as possible. She thrived in that environment.

You hate to lose good people, but you’re also happy to see them get new opportunities to grow. Beth is moving on to new pastures after 6-1/2 years working for Trade Only, where she wrote Web and print stories in addition to launching and maintaining our social media initiatives.

She came to us with little marine industry knowledge but learned on the job — and learned quickly, which she attributes in large part to the helpfulness of people she worked with in the industry, whom she says she found “very welcoming.”

Since Beth has interviewed hundreds of business leaders in the process of reporting hundreds of stories over the last several years, I thought it would be interesting to get her views on the challenges the industry faces.

Here’s what Beth, the new online editor for the National Business Aviation Association, had to say:

“I think most of the industry’s biggest challenges are largely beyond its control; the economy and changing demographics come to mind immediately. But there are things the industry can do to try and combat those things, such as look at ways to lower the cost of entry into boating and promote that.”

She continued: “It’s important that the industry, as a whole, understands that the next generation of customers doesn’t communicate in the same way as the previous generation. Young people don’t call each other on the phone; they text, email, IM, etc. I’ve heard a lot of people say, well, these aren’t the people we’re trying to reach anyway — and that may be true today, but it won’t be tomorrow and in the future. Also, I recently interviewed someone who made a comment about how a certain minority group may like boating, but they have no money. We need to do away with any stereotypes like this and reach out to everyone!”

Beth will continue to contribute to Trade Only.

Longtime Trade Only freelance journalist Reagan Haynes has joined our team as a full-time associate editor. A journalism graduate of the State University of New York at New Paltz, Reagan also has both AP and daily newspaper experience in addition to writing numerous stories for Trade Only.

He preferred to focus his stories on the fish, tactics, other anglers. Comfortable with his accomplishments, Coleman didn’t feel the need to toot his own horn. When he did refer to himself, he often did so in the third person or in a self-deprecating way.

“I don’t think he used the words I, me or mine,” says Peter Shea of Gloucester, Mass., a friend with whom Coleman fished off New England in the summer and fall and off Key West in the winter, where both men spent their winters.

Given his aversion to braggadocio, I will fly a flag for Tim Coleman, who died last Thursday, May 3, in Weekapaug, R.I., doing what he loved to do best this time of year: scouting the salt ponds and outer beaches for spring striped bass. He was 65, and he passed away, literally, with his fishing boots on.

With his passing, our industry lost a strong, reasoned voice for sound fisheries management and sensible conservation. Thousands of readers lost an advocate and authentic storyteller for fishing in the Northeast. And for those of us fortunate to know him, we lost a good friend.

“A gentle soul is probably the best way to describe him,” says Pat Abate, a tackle shop owner and noted New England angler.

Abate met Coleman in 1974, when the writer was attending college in Rhode Island and working as the founding editor of what would become the New England edition of the weekly fishing newspaper The Fisherman, where he turned out hundreds of stories and fishing reports for the next 27 years. “He was unique. Easygoing guy. Very high morals. He wasn’t motivated by money, just enough to get by,” he says.

Tim Coleman was something of a throwback. He didn’t own a cell phone. Didn’t have an answering machine. Took photographs with a film camera. He was the last correspondent for either Soundings or Trade Only who still sent us prints.

For almost a decade, he wrote a monthly fishing column for Soundings. And each month he and I would spend half an hour or more on the phone going over column ideas and talking fishing and life.

A native of Philadelphia, a Vietnam veteran and a journalism graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Tim eventually made his home in the little corner of southwestern Rhode Island where I hail from. We became friends and often fished the same stretch of beach and waters, sometimes together, sometimes our paths crossing in the night.

He was one of those guys you could just depend on. And he fished the “right way,” ignoring the latest fads, trends and angling geegaws. He didn’t give a hoot about labels or brands. “Status meant nothing to him,” says Abate, the owner of Rivers End tackle shop in Old Saybrook, Conn.

“The words that come to mind,” Shea says, pausing for a moment, “he was shy, understated, taciturn, steady. A good man, and a Christian man. The written word was his primary communication tool. He was just a good guy with good friends.”

And, Shea notes, “He thought like a fish. He really did.” Although he practiced catch-and-release, Coleman also enjoyed putting fish in the box and donated many pounds of fillets to soup kitchens and individuals in need.

Shea plans to have Coleman’s initials, TTC, carved into the port quarter of his 35-foot Mitchell Cove when he splashes the boat shortly. That was Coleman’s spot on their frequent cod trips, where the friendly banter and teasing flowed as smoothly as the fish that came over the rail.

“He’ll be riding with us, for sure,” says Shea, who made the lifelong bachelor part of his extended family of children and grandchildren. TTC stands for “Tarpon Tim Coleman,” the latest in a litany of nicknames Shea bestowed on Coleman and a reference to the angler’s most recent piscatorial passion — night fishing the bridges of the lower Keys in the winter for tarpon. The striper sharpie from New England called tarpon his “newest frontier.”

A surf fisherman at heart, Coleman also was a passionate wreck hunter who teamed up with research academics with side-scan sonar to find long-forgotten sunken vessels. Coleman provided the intelligence, often in the form of Loran or GPS numbers he got from the “hang” logs of dragger captains he befriended. He liked the research, the history, the search for the proverbial needle in the briny haystack — and especially the large cod, haddock and pollock the fishermen would crank up when they finally located a virgin wreck.

In his long career with The Fisherman and later as a freelancer, Tim wrote literally thousands of articles and columns and seven or eight books. He never missed a deadline with us in almost 10 years. Nor did we ever write a correction about something he wrote. Timmy was a careful reporter and writer who knew his fishing cold.

“I don’t think he kept a diary, but he had a very good mental recognition of things,” Abate says. “He was very observant and had a very good memory. It’s not what he had but what he did with what he had.”

He fished simply and effectively, usually carrying a half-dozen or fewer lures. At night he often fished for striped bass with an unpainted jig head with a black plastic worm threaded over the hook. Tim Coleman was searching for the essence.

“He was absolutely a minimalist,” Abate says.

In the 1980s Coleman often could be found fishing off Block Island, R.I., the site of what Abate has called the “last great buffalo hunt” for very large striped bass. Tim’s largest was a 67-pounder — a fish of a lifetime for a man who was happiest when he was in or on the water, gazing seaward, fishing rod in hand.

Donations in remembrance of Coleman can be made to the Tim Coleman Memorial Scholarship, University of Rhode Island Foundation, 79 Upper College Road, Kingston, RI 02881.

“How long can we expect this to last?” asked Ip, the U.S. economics editor of the weekly news publication.

Despite being three years into an “extremely subpar recovery,” the slow process of deleveraging and working through all the debt we’ve accumulated will probably continue until about 2015, Ip predicted. I’m not sure that really surprised anyone.

But despite the starts and stops of the last several years — Greek and European debt woes, Libya, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the domestic debt-ceiling debate — Ip said he is feeling more optimistic this year about the economy for a variety of reasons.

What could derail the recovery?

“Oil,” Ip told the legislative conference, “has an uncanny ability to knock the American economy over.” And the soft patch that our economy encountered last year came in part from oil supply fears stemming from the Arab Spring, the revolution in Libya, the return of $4-a-gallon gasoline.

Although four-bucks-a-gallon gas is back, Ip said the rate of increase this year is not as great as it was several years ago, when gas went from $2 and change to $4. In the interim, we’ve all gotten more used to higher gas prices. Therefore, the shock to one’s wallet — and the economy — is less, too, said Ip, author of “The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World” (Wiley, 2010).

High prices at the pump will remain irritating and a source of election rhetoric, but Ip said that if we make it through this year without a shooting war with Iran, oil prices should not be a significant factor. They won’t rattle the economy.

Other factors play into this, as well:

• Domestic oil consumption is down.
• Domestic energy production is up.
• Fuel economy of autos continues to improve.
• Folks are driving less.

Demand from China and India likely will keep crude prices from tumbling. But, the business journalist predicted, “The price will probably trend higher over the next couple of years but not significantly higher.”

The good news is that Ip does not see the economy stalling out this summer. He said the stock market is not showing signs of a prolonged slowdown, and the housing market is so depressed it can’t weaken any further to drive us back into recession. The banking system has “repaired” itself and is in more of a mood to lend again, Ip noted.

Ip did tell me yesterday in an e-mail that he is looking for signs that the recent rise in unemployment insurance claims might be signaling another slowdown, but he hasn’t seen those signals yet.

Our new normal: smaller, leaner, cautious and — hopefully — smarter.

We’ve been criticized for being too negative in our coverage, for reporting on the industry not so much through rose-colored glasses, but with a glass-is-half-empty perspective. That was especially true in the fall and early winter of 2008, when the economy pulled a Thelma and Louise and went over a cliff. Little did we know then just how far down the bottom was.

So it gave me pause when Brian Sheehan of Fortress Marine Anchors wrote to say that he thought our coverage of the Miami International Boat Show this year went “way over the top with its giddiness.” The sales and marketing manager for the lightweight aluminum anchor maker, Sheehan took exception to our description of the foot traffic at the convention center being “steady and brisk” throughout the show, especially given the fact that overall attendance was down about 3 percent this year.

Fair point.

“I know that the industry is starved for good news, and no one wants to read more doom and gloom, so a bit of a positive spin might be nice. But I would prefer we keep it realistic,” Sheehan wrote.

Although sales of boats may be improving, Sheehan said he did not hear similar positive reports from accessory exhibitors, some of whom were down significantly.

I wrote Sheehan back, saying that although it’s been my impression from recent reports that things are improving, the recovery remains “inconsistent and choppy” — an assessment Sheehan agreed with — for a host of reasons, from geography to product and price to target audience, and so on. Some are feeling sunshine; others are still trying to get out of the rain. It all depends.

I spoke earlier this month with a dealer at the Palm Beach International Boat Show who sold five Ranger Tugs in Miami — a 21, a 27, two 29s and a new 31 — and was coming off his best year in 2011 in almost 20 years. A new Ranger dealer, he also sells EdgeWater, Parker and Yamaha.

Conversely, I talked with a couple of small builders in Maine in March who were anything but excited about the current level of demand. In their words you could hear the weariness and fatigue from holding on for so long.

Our senior reporter, Chris Landry, spent two days at the Suncoast Boat Show in Sarasota, Fla., last week, where he interviewed more than a dozen builders and dealers. He said he was surprised by how upbeat most were regarding the re-emerging consumer.

“These were the buzzwords they were using: credible and qualified,” Landry told me. “You’ve got to put it in perspective,” he noted. “We’re coming off some bad times.”

Keeping things even-handed and in perspective is what we strive for in our reports. And with that in mind, the last word today goes to Brian Sheehan, who writes:

“I simply think it would be best to stay factual with the industry news, and while it is good to hear success stories, I think they should be balanced and not the only ones being reported. With $4-per-gallon gas and very heated upcoming fall elections, I think we need to strap ourselves in for a bumpy ride over the summer.”

We talked about his long career with the company — Eisenberg has been with West Marine in a variety of senior executive roles for about 36 years — his pending retirement, the state of marine retailing today and a host of other topics. The interview will appear in my “Letter from the Editor” column in the May issue of Soundings Trade Only.

It’s been almost 4-1/2 years since Eisenberg rejoined West Marine full time in December 2007 as CEO and president and put the big retailer back on a course to profitability. Today, the company — with 311 stores and about 4,200 employees — is solidly profitable and debt-free.

Of his departure, Eisenberg said, “The company is doing well. It seems like a good time. There’s really no drama to it.” He will stay on as an adviser. Eisenberg’s focus now is on helping West Marine through this latest transition, rather than on his future plans.

One thing we discussed was the importance placed on hiring and training, two areas in which West Marine invests a good deal of time, effort and money.

From personal experience, I can attest that one key to a satisfied customer experience in a marine retail environment is to be able to talk to someone who knows something about boats, rather than receiving as a response to your question a look that suggests you’re speaking a dead language.

“We spend an enormous amount of money on product training, e-learning,” said Eisenberg, 59, a longtime sailor. “It’s a technical environment. Everything about it is technical — always has been, always will be.”

And consider that the 25,000-square-foot store in Old Saybrook has almost 20,000 products.

The premium placed on product knowledge is one of the reasons West Marine looks to hire what executive vice president Bruce Edwards calls “super-active boaters.”

“There’s nothing that ever replaces that kind of knowledge,” said Edwards, who at 49 remains an active 505 racing sailor. “We encourage our associates to be on the water as much as possible.”

West Marine estimates that the 40-plus employees, or “associates,” in its flagship Connecticut store collectively have more than 740 years on the water covering more than 160,000 nautical miles.

Reflecting on his tenure with West Marine, Eisenberg said, “The best thing is the progress we have made and are making because progress is positive. I care about progress with our relationships, products, with financials, our customers and our world.”

Eisenberg remembers when he was a young sailor working in a boating supply store in Santa Cruz, Calif., where he met West Marine founder Randy Repass in the early 1970s.

Funny thing, he recalled. West Marine carries some of the same pieces of sailing hardware today that he sold almost four decades ago — in some instances, even the part numbers are the same. “It’s unbelievable,” Eisenberg said.

The more things change …

Manufacturing in March expanded for the 32nd consecutive month and added 37,000 of the 120,000 jobs the United States gained, according to the paper. Caterpillar, Ford Motor, NCR and other companies are moving some of their operations back to domestic shores, according to the WSJ report.

The newspaper quotes Neil Dutta, U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, on three signs that America’s “manufacturing renaissance” might just be getting started:

• The cost benefits of producing in China and elsewhere have gotten smaller. Wages in emerging markets are rising rapidly, even though they are still much lower than here. Too, increasing oil prices have made shipping more costly. Both factors are broadening the range of goods that U.S. factories can produce more competitively, the newspaper reports.

• The weakening U.S. dollar has helped products “Made in the U.S.A.” to become attractive once again to overseas buyers.

• And lastly, the WSJ points out that energy production is soaring in this country and that domestic natural gas prices have plummeted. Those factors are benefiting domestic producers that use a lot of natural gas, from fabricated steel to machinery, chemicals and transportation equipment.

Regarding domestic manufacturing, the WSJ quotes Kristina Hooper, head of portfolio strategies at Allianz Global Investors, as saying, “It’s time to stop looking in the rearview mirror and start looking ahead.”

What about boats and marine components?

In the upcoming May issue of Trade Only, Reagan Haynes reports extensively on the trend to move manufacturing back to the United States from offshore locations, including China. The homeward bound movement is known as “reshoring,” and Reagan cites a report issued last month by the Boston Consulting Group that examines when it makes sense to keep operations in China and when it makes sense to bring them home. Click here to read: “Made in America, Again: U.S. Manufacturing Nears the Tipping Point — Which industries, Why and How Much?”

Reagan’s in-depth story examines the issues, questions, and the pluses and minuses surrounding reshoring and its effects on the recreational marine industry.

On a related topic: A couple of weeks ago I addressed the need for more educational programs aimed at kids “who think with their hands” and don’t fit into mainstream school programs. Click here for the story.

A recent report on manufacturing by two professors from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business addressed some of the structural issues affecting education in this country, which the authors say was our “ace in the hole” for nearly a century.

The co-authors of the study, “Manufacturing’s Wake-Up Call,” argue that America’s preoccupation with college preparation has marginalized vocational education and industrial arts programs. Schools must recover their vocational training roles, the study says, and become better at vocational guidance so that young people realize the many career paths in manufacturing.

“If you talk about manufacturing long enough, all roads eventually lead to education,” says Michigan Ross professor and report co-author Wally Hopp, associate dean of faculty and research and Alessi Professor of Operations and Management Science. “A huge determinant of how many manufacturing jobs remain in the U.S. will be our ability to create a skilled work force.”

The study says the “reputation” of manufacturing among students and graduates lags that of other industries. “Modern plants are exciting, technical places to work, but the perception has not caught up with reality,” professor Roman Kapuscinski notes.

The study found that despite the recent uptick in U.S. manufacturing, a very large portion of the sector “hangs on a knife edge” and could either stay in this country or go elsewhere. The authors cite several key factors that they say will determine whether U.S. manufacturing continues to rebound or spirals into permanent decline: U.S. education policy, working training, the tax code, the regulatory environment, and our relationship with Mexico.

“U.S. manufacturing has declined, but we are not structurally out of the game,” Hopp says in a statement. “Manufacturing is still here, it’s big, and it’s helping us out right now. Manufacturing matters; that’s why this is an inflection point. We have almost 40 percent of the sector sitting on the bubble. It could stay here, or it could go somewhere else.”

Q: What does the word “boat” stand for?

A: Break Out Another Thousand.

At the Recreational Boating Leadership Workshop in Chicago yesterday, NMMA president Thom Dammrich provided a different interpretation of the acronym.

BOAT: Best Of All Times.

The two acronyms nicely frame the chasm between selling a commodity (the boat) and selling the experience (boating).

Dammrich’s remarks came at the end of a presentation on affordability, which was the topic that a group of seven of us had been brainstorming and discussing for several hours. We presented our findings to the larger body. MarineMax chairman, CEO and president William McGill Jr., a member our small breakout group, helped put an exclamation mark on what we had been wrestling with.

“I don’t sell boats,” McGill said. “I sell a lifestyle. Boating changes people’s lives. It’s important to understand that the reason why people boat is in the emotional part of the brain. It’s hard to articulate. But that is boating.”

Dammrich agreed. “We have to sell the ‘ing’ and not just the ‘thing,’ ” he said, referring to the experience of being on the water rather than the product itself. “We have to sell the value and the lifestyle.”

Could it be that some in the industry have more of an issue with affordability than do consumers themselves? It’s possible.

Rising costs are a concern, but our small group came to the conclusion that that was something best addressed by individual manufacturers and not easily or practically within the scope of an industrywide initiative. The marketplace will reward builders that can best control, maintain or even pull costs out of their boats, where appropriate. Those that can’t probably won’t see the same results.

There are a fair number of relatively inexpensive entry-level new boats on the market today. And the relative success that aluminum pontoons and other small aluminum and fiberglass boats have enjoyed of late suggests that if you build it, they will come. Pontoons offer affordability, economy, simplicity and fun. There is a broader lesson there.

Making boating more affordable was one of six key issues or areas identified as priorities last December by the Recreational Boating Stakeholders Growth Summit, and it needs to be addressed during the next three years to help the industry grow and move toward its overall 2021 vision of success.

Yesterday in Chicago, 40-some industry representatives from more than a dozen categories broke into six groups to flesh out the half-dozen key areas identified last year and develop possible action plans for the highest-priority initiatives.

I went into our discussion on affordability thinking we’d be talking a good bit about dollars and cents and entry-level product. I was pleasantly surprised to be part of a broad discussion that kept coming back not specifically to the boat or the cost but to the experience — the ‘ing’, if you will.

An avid water skier, McGill said on more than one occasion: “Boating changes people’s lives.”

That’s a powerful message. (Click here for my Soundings column on the power of the boating experience.) The consensus of our group was that we had to work toward getting consumers to believe that boating can improve their lives and to understand clearly the affordability issues around boating.

We also concluded that there was a perception (or misperception) on the part of many would-be boaters regarding the actual cost of owning and maintaining a boat, something that certainly is within the purview of an industry task force to address. Like the five other groups, we came up with a number of possible joint actions.

I don’t think any of us around the table had our heads in the sand on the issue of cost. We all recognize that there are plenty of boats that are more complicated than they need to be and that it’s not difficult to find boats that are overpowered and overcontented and aren’t affordable by any measure.

The buyer will vote with his wallet. But rather than just sell price, we were of the camp that espoused emphasizing value and focusing on what the boat can do for you — how it can change lives, bring families together, provide an unmatched sense of freedom and independence and a ton more.

I’ll end with the quote that Dammrich used to open the workshop, one that I think accurately captures all of our businesses:

“The boating industry is like an ecosystem. Anything that affects any one of us will eventually affect all of us, both negatively and positively.”

Look for more on the Recreational Boating Leadership Workshop in the next issue of Soundings Trade Only.

It’s not the kind of thing you can easily quantify with hard numbers, but when you hear it often enough in conversations with builders and dealers, as I did over two days last week, you give it appropriate credence.

Exhibit No. 1 in the hunt for qualified buyers was a conversation at the Cherubini Yachts display, where a well-dressed “local” woman who knew something about boats stood beside me admiring a varnished mahogany runabout and a nifty sport cruiser with a small cabin and a hardtop.

“Stunning,” she said. “Breathtaking.”

To her male companion standing in one of the boats, she advised in a clear tone: “It’s either this or the Maserati.”

I don’t think she was kidding. Speaking to me, she added in a quieter voice, “We’re teaching him the difference between a Viking and a Wellcraft.”

In the spirit of the conversation, I suggested the Viking. She looked at me and said, deadpan, “I want the Rybovich.”

Touché.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The feeling I came away from Palm Beach with is that things are improving. More people told me they were doing well, that business was getting better. Keep in mind, “doing well” is a relative term, especially compared to halcyon days or to 2009 or 2010.

This recovery has been slow and choppy, with some boat categories and builders doing better than others, just as some industries are stronger than others. A rising tide lifts all boats — just not to the same degree and with the same timing.

I spoke with two builders at the show — SeaVee Boats and Sabre Yachts — which produce very different boats at the higher-end of their respective markets and are seeing a turn. Both are benefiting from having new product and catering to a buyer who has weathered the economic storm fully intact.

“It’s definitely better,” said Ariel Pared, the president and head of sales and marketing for SeaVee, which builds sportfishing boats to 43 feet. “We had a record year last year. The economy is coming back.”

But Pared is also realistic. “If we had single-digit growth for the next couple of years I’d be happy,” he said. “I don’t need double-digit.”

At the end of second day of the show, Pared had sold a 32 and a 39, and he said Palm Beach typically produces more sales after the show than other venues. It was a good start. “Nice,” said Pared. “And we’ve got quite a few people sitting down and talking.”

SeaVee has long done a good job of taking market share through new, innovative product and by staying close to its customers. The Miami builder is planning to introduce a new 43-foot fisharound — a cross between a walkaround express and a center console, with a 13-foot, 4-inch beam — at Miami next February.

“It’s a hardcore tournament fishboat,” said Pared. The tooling and engineering represent a seven-figure investment, but that’s sometimes what it takes to “excite” a still-cautious market and pull early adapters off their perches. The new boat, he said, blends luxury and comfort into a serious fishing machine.

“I really think we’re on an upswing,” said Pared, who has hired back 20-some workers in the last 14 months for a total work force of nearly 120. “And it’s not just our industry. It’s luxury items, [and] it’s confidence. I think we’re at an exciting time.”

Like SeaVee, Sabre Yachts — and Back Cove Yachts, too — is finding good traction in a luxury segment of the market with its lineup of new product. “This year is 50 percent better than last year and 100 percent better than two years ago,” said Bentley Collins, vice president of sales and marketing for the Maine-based builder. “This year people are much more inclined to be decisive.”

While he declined to give specific numbers, Collins reported that “this will be a record sales year for Sabre and Back Cove powerboats. This is our best year ever.” The reasons for the uptick: new product, interest in larger boats, pent-up demand and a “ton more” confidence on the part of consumers, Collins said.

As of day two of the show, Collins had sold a 30-foot Back Cove and a 48-foot Sabre. “We do really well here” said Collins, referring to active snowbird boaters with homes in the Palm Beach area and the Northeast. “These are highly qualified customers. Boating is big part of Palm Beach and Martin County. It’s a big part of the lifestyle here. This is boating country.”

And a lot of the people who come to the Palm Beach show, he noted, don’t want the “hassle” of attending either the Lauderdale or Miami events.

I don’t know if the woman with Maseratis and Rybos on her mind bought that day or the next — or whether she’s still narrowing her many options. But I can tell you one thing: She wasn’t kicking tires, not in West Palm.

We could use a good infusion of young workers in our ranks.

Helping to encourage the passage of young people into the world of marine trades is one of the missions of Phin Sprague, founder of the Maine Boatbuilders Show and the owner of Portland Yacht Services, a full-service yard in Portland, Maine.

To that end, Sprague held what he labeled an “experiment” at the show last Saturday — a marine troubleshooting competition in which six two-person teams of students from three area high school vocational programs diagnosed and repaired three simple systems: bilge pumps, nav lights and horns.

The kids got a real boost out of the contest, says Sprague, who hopes it will eventually grow to include troubleshooting actual boats.

“We think these young people can become the backbone of our industry,” Sprague wrote in one of his newsletters distributed at the show. “They will be our stars.”

Sprague is a champion of young kids who don’t easily fit into mainstream high school and college programs. These young people are intelligent, typically mechanically or technically inclined and, as Sprague says, “They think with their hands.”

“The regular schools are passing on these kids because they think differently,” he told me. “They’re very smart. People learn differently. People are not all wired the same. Sometimes very smart people don’t get along in regular classes.”

The marine industry (among a host of others) needs intelligent, young, motivated workers, and Sprague says school districts need to do a better job of supporting vocational programs that better match students to their abilities, much like apprentice programs once did.

“Where are we going to get the next generation?” Sprague asks. “We know the answer. It’s just that they’re cutting these programs. Everyone wants sexy programs. We want solid programs.” By that, he means those that emphasize hands-on training.

“A young kid who feels good about himself has something to lose,” says Sprague, who is 63. “A kid who doesn’t feel good about himself has nothing to lose. If you can get them fired up about something when they’re young, it can carry them their whole lives.”

“We’re all getting old,” adds Jason Curtis, 42, the operations manager at the Portland boatyard. “There’s a huge gap. We’re all 40-plus, with no young ones coming in.”

At Sprague’s boatyard, both of his 20-something-year-old workers came out of the recreational/marine repair program at the Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATH), which Sprague says needs to be supported and continued. He also praised the Marine Mechanics Institute program in Orlando, Fla., where they got additional training after high school.

Another PATH graduate in his 20s who worked at the yard and also went through The Landing School (an accredited post-secondary marine school) is now an engineer on a 115-foot schooner. “After that, hopefully he’ll be a star here,” Sprague says. “We have to get these kids out to sea for a while, too. It’s only half the job if they have the knowledge and not the experience.”

While the majority of us were turning gray, boats and their systems have been growing in sophistication and complexity, requiring a work force with ever more training and specialization. “Things are getting more and more technical,” Sprague says. “Anybody who is working on a boat needs to know the approved way of doing things. The whole world of boats is changing. There’s more computing power in a boat now than they used to get to the moon.”

As Curtis notes, “You can’t go near the new outboards without a laptop.”

“Things are happening fast,” Sprague adds. “These kids are smart. They don’t think the way other kids do, but that’s a good thing. Otherwise they’d all be writing history papers. Instead they’re going to be making history.”

And just last week, Raymond was in Japan for the first time, working shoulder to shoulder with a group of resilient fishermen to put the final touches on the boats and to take part in an emotional ceremony when they launched the new fleet.

It has been something of a blur for the small builder from Maine, a feel-good story, to be certain, but more important an experience that changed lives on both sides of the world.

“These people are up against it,” says Raymond, surprised by the extent of the devastation and amount of debris remaining in Kesennuma, Japan. “It hits you deeply when you see what’s going on. It’s just unbelievable.”

Click play to view footage of Raymond’s work.

The boats were contracted by Operation Blessing International, a non-profit humanitarian organization based in Virginia Beach, Va., and sponsored by the SAP Solidarity Fund. The arrangement turned out to be one of those proverbial win/wins. The fishermen in Japan received 20 strong, light outboard skiffs that are enabling them to once again work their inshore waters, and Raymond was able to hire back workers at his small shop.

Along the way, lives are being altered for the better. “You gain a respect for their culture, and they gain a respect for ours,” says Raymond, 53, a self-described “problem solver” and former motorcycle racer who proved to be an unlikely but effective international ambassador.

“They took a small Maine boatbuilder and dropped him on the world stage,” says Raymond, still shaking his head at the events of the last several months.

What did Raymond know about small panga-style Japanese fishing boats before this project? Not a whole lot, but, he notes, “I learned quickly.” The shape is pretty basic: The hulls are narrow, the bottoms pretty flat. “A pretty easy design,” Raymond says. “Simple is better.”

The lightweight 19-foot fiberglass/composite boats are powered by 9.9-hp Yamaha 4-strokes, which push the little planing hulls surprisingly well.

Raymond worked through a liaison in Japan to get advice from the fishermen who will use the boats he was building in faraway Maine. “How can we improve the design?” he asked them.

The builder used the feedback to modify in small ways the traditional Japanese panga so it reflected the changes that have occurred in their seaweed, oyster and net fisheries. That meant adding a little more freeboard and altering the shape of the bottom slightly.

“We didn’t try and reinvent the wheel,” Raymond says. “And they loved the boat because it better fits their fisheries now.”

Someone suggested that Raymond simply build a traditional Down East skiff for the Japanese fishermen, but the builder didn’t think that was the best idea. “I wanted to make sure they were happy,” he says. “They’re not different than my customers over here.”

And he’s proud of the fact that he didn’t skimp or cut corners. Raymond says General Marine’s ability to build boats efficiently enabled him to produce a robust craft by using more material in the layout and going with heavier rub rails, beefier stringers and better hardware.

“The goal has to be building the best boat we could at a price point … and still make enough to eat.” Raymond says. He could have built them cheaper and put more money into his pocket, but that wouldn’t have felt right, he says.

“I have a moral compass,” Raymond continues, “and no matter what, I go back to that. I go back to what I think is right. We stuck to our guns, and everything came together in the end. We went the extra mile, and they absolutely love the boats.”

Working with a subcontractor, General Marine was able to design the hull, build the tooling and produce the small-boat fleet in about two months.

The contract didn’t call for Raymond to fly to Japan. He did that on his dime and his time. But seeing the widespread destruction firsthand and helping the fishermen finish the boats by fastening the seats in place had a significant effect on the builder. He worked side by side in the cold for 10 to 12 hours a day with the Japanese watermen; one of the fishermen was 75 years old.

“I couldn’t get a 20-year-old to do what he did,” says Raymond. “By the end of the day, my arms hurt so bad they were shaking.”

He was moved by the fishermen who embraced him just before he left, showing what the translator told him was an unusual amount of public emotion.

“It’s not like we saved the world,” Raymond says, “but it was a mission that went right.” True, he might not have saved the world, but these simple boats, built with a good bit of pride and Raymond’s presence at the water’s edge in Hikado, meant an awful lot to a group of fishermen who had lost so much.

Click play for an NBC News report featuring Raymond on the anniversary of the earthquake.

“I felt an obligation to go,” he says. “I wanted to make sure it ended right. It’s something that changed me.” The experience touched Raymond in ways that he has trouble putting into words. He says he would like to return to Japan soon with his wife and 18-year-old daughter.

“You have only so many days on this earth,” the boatbuilder says.