Interview: NMMA president Thom Dammrich

MB: What’s your background and how long have you been with the NMMA?

TD: I’ve been with the NMMA for just over 11 years. my background was with association management, I managed an association in the banking industry, in the electronics manufacturing industry and now, for the past 11 years, in the boating industry.

MB: How did the US boating industry fare in 2009?

TD: If your business was serving the existing boater, 2009 was not that bad a year. Accessories sales were only down five per cent. A lot of people in that sector were reporting increased sales because we have such a large installed base of boaters – 17 million boats in use. It’s really the new boat sales and new boat manufacture that got hit hard, and as I mentioned in my speech, new boat sales have dropped 50 per cent in the past two years and in 2009 boat production dropped 70 per cent. To me it’s been quite remarkable that so many businesses have been able to hang on in such adverse conditions. They cut costs below levels they ever thought was humanly possible. I talked to one boat builder and he said “Tom, I’ve got my break even point so low,” he said, “a year ago if you had told me I had to bring my break even point to this level I would have told you it would have been impossible”. But when you’re faced with survival you do the impossible.

MB: How is 2010 shaping up for he industry?

TD: Boat sales are still declining but they’re declining at a slower rate. And that’s going to bottom out sometime in 2010. We are hoping that at retail level we will sell the same amount of boats as last year. We’re running a little bit behind that at the moment, but we’re heading right into the main selling season at the moment in the states. But the main thing is that it is a much different consumer. They are coming to boat shows ready to buy and with a much greater willingness to spend money. We see it in the data when pay roll earnings are up and savings are down so spending has increased. And boating will get its fair share.

MB: Can you tell us about the Discover Boating initiative?

TD: The boating industry has been talking about doing something like Discover Boating for 30 years, but could never get it together. About six years ago we convened a group of industry leaders and basically we just took it step by step and said: “Here’s the situation, we’re in downward trend, and if we don’t do something to change it it will continue downward”. Did everyone agree we’re in a downward trend? Yes. Did everyone agree we should do something about it? Yes. And so little-by-little we got people to agree on a strategy and a plan that involved basically our goal of reaching out to non-boaters and getting people participating in boating. On the assumption that getting more people articulating willed to more sales. Because if you’ve never been on a boat you’re not going to by a boat. So first of all we have to get you on a boat to get you to enjoy boating, to create your own dream of boat ownership and that can take three, four, five years. So we pitched this as long term effort, to increase boating participation which would lead to increases in boating sales. Unfortunately three years into it we get hit with the worst economic downturn since the great depression. And all of a sudden everyone has way too much inventory out there in the field and decision was made to let the manufacturers use that money to reduce inventories and get the industry back on track, and then we’d go back to promoting. So we reached a point were now it’s really a cry from the industry to start promoting and start getting people in boats again, and we’ve begun planning to get that under way.

MB: I guess it goes without saying that Australia would benefit from a similar program?

TD: I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world that wouldn’t benefit from such a program. There’s no place in the world where boating is more popular than the state of Florida. And yet there’s a lot of people in Florida that don’t own a boat. So there’s opportunity everywhere. Actually, I thought Australia was right on the cusp of starting its own Grow Boating program and we shared everything we did and everything we had, with them, and unfortunately for whatever reason it didn’t get going. But the opportunity still exists there and some of the people involved are still around and still interested and I say never say never.

MB: I noted, in your speech, you mentioned the strength of the sub-30 foot boat market in the US?

TD: Yes, we’re seeing more strengths in boats under 30 feet than we are in boats above 30 feet. It’s interesting because I spoke to a boat manufacturer here yesterday who wants to start exporting to the export market, he doesn’t currently, and I looked at his product line and it was all 28 feet and under and I thought these guy is perfectly positioned to the heart of the US market.

MB: How important is the relationship and promotion of fishing and boating together?

TD: We promote all the activities that people use their boat for, so we promote cruising, fishing, watersports, sailing, anything that people can do with a boat we promote. I think we found that by promoting the activities is actually more affective than promoting boating. Because I hate to say this, but for most people the boat is a tool. It’s a tool they use to fish, it’s a tool they use to cruise and a tool they use to waterski. As opposed to when you talk to most people who boat and they don’t think of themselves as boaters, unless they’re cruisers. They think of themselves as whatever they do with the boat, like water-skiers, so we promote the activities a lot.

I actually sit on the board of the National Sport Fishing Association and we have a group in the US called the Recreational Fishing and Boating Foundation, which is actually funded with federal dollars – about 14 million dollars year. And its purpose is to promote fishing and boating. The way it does that is by concentrating on fishing from a boat. So it doesn’t spend a lot of effort promoting fishing from a dock, but fishing from a boat. So there’s a lot of recognition that most people buy their first boat to go fishing and while half the boats are used primarily for fishing, 70 per cent are used for fishing at some point. So it’s a major activity.

MB: Thanks for your time, Thom.

TD: Thanks