Business View Magazine - March 2016

86 Business View Magazine - April 2016 Business View Magazine - April 2016 87 parts side with its infinitely broad market – meaning the entire planet,” he continues. “We can’t readily sell a new ski boat to California or Alaska, but we can cer- tainly sell a set of spark plugs with no problem and get it there within two days. Having that much reach and having that much potential for future growth – it really doesn’t have a cap. I can set theoretical caps, easily, on the boat dealership side, but there is no limit to the internet side – we’ve seen that with all kinds of very successful internet companies.” deAndrade says that he would also like to see the parts division of the business grow in order to help bring that money back into the local economy. “We are in a remote location,” he explains. “We’re in the third poorest county of our state. It’s amazing we even sell these luxury speed boats out of here. There’s not much industry in our area, so if we can be successful and expand – I’m not putting any limit on what the fu- ture may hold and how many people we can employ,” he adds, hopefully. Adapting its business model when necessary has set White Lake Marine firmly on its future course. “I don’t think my father ever imagined we wouldn’t just be sell- ing or servicing boats, but we’d have an international website, shipping parts all over the world,” deAndrade says. “I don’t think that was ever envisioned at any time prior to us actually doing it. It’s different from our core business, but it’s related; it complements it. It let us use a skill set that we had in our core business and expand that to a totally new marketplace.” Sixty years of integrity-based customer service wed- ded to a survivor’s ability to change course when the currents of the marketplace turned upstream, is how White Lake Marine survived the Great Recession -and came out even strong on the other side. But David deAndrade is modest about taking more than just a small share of the credit. “We’ve been blessed enough to stay in business and be successful,” is all he has left to say. PREFERRED VENDORS SeaDek - Founded in 2004, SeaDek is the industry leader in custom and stock marine non-skid products. Made in the USA from UV-protected, non-absorbent foam, SeaDek features an innovative, textured micro- dot surface for enhanced non-slip characteristics. SeaDek can be tailored to fit a wide variety of applica- tions on just about any type of boat, including: sports & commercial fishing boats, flats boats, sailboats, ski boats, commercial marine craft, house boats, per- sonal water craft, towboats, and more. Additional applications for SeaDek include: swim platforms and cockpit pads, step kits, helm station pads, poling plat- forms, coaming bolsters/pads, footwells, gunnels, and trailers. Easy to install and customizable, SeaDek is available in a variety of sizes, thicknesses and colors. - www.seadek.com