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| Beyond the docks:
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FERGUS FALLS, Minn. - In 1972, Dennis Tuel built an aluminum boat lift, loaded it onto his pickup and drove 40,000 miles looking for customers. "I wound up with orders for 300. The first year we were only able to build 180 and we were on our way," Tuel said. Thus, ShoreMaster Inc. was launched in Carlos, seven miles north of Alexandria. Last year, the marine products company posted nearly $52 million in sales, after expanding into dock and marina production and being purchased in 2002 by Fergus Falls-based Otter Tail Corp., said ShoreMaster President Erik Ahlgren, Tuel's son-in-law. Tuel initially built aluminum snowmobile trailers. So was everybody else, he said. "We needed something different, so I originated the aluminum boat lift." In the early 1980s, the company expanded from building boat lifts to designing and installing docks and commercial marinas throughout the United States and Canada, Ahlgren said. ShoreMaster moved in 1985 from Carlos to Fergus Falls. The city had launched Project 500, an initiative to produce 500 jobs in 500 days, Ahlgren said. ShoreMaster recently began work on its largest project, a $12 million, 1,700-slip marina for the city of Long Beach, Calif.
The two-year project involves replacing 23-year-old wooden docks with floating, concrete docks, Ahlgren said. ShoreMaster has opened a production plant and distribution center in nearby Adelanto, Calif., to facilitate construction of the project, he said. "Commercially, I think we've got a lot of potential growth in the coastal market," said Dennis Tuel Jr., ShoreMaster's senior vice president and engineering manager. ShoreMaster is looking at similar expansion on the East Coast, he said. What began as a four-person operation now employs about 300 people. The company has about 275 distributors in the United States and Canada, said the younger Tuel, who remembers working with his father in the 1970s. At that time, he didn't envision the company expanding to its current size, Tuel Jr. said. "We've always had goals for expansion and growth," he said. "The Otter Tail purchase enabled us to grow a little bit more quickly by doing expansions and acquisitions." "We saw a company and a platform that had a lot of growth opportunity," said Chuck Hoge, vice president of operations for Otter Tail Corp. "We were able to provide the capital for growth."
Growing pains ShoreMaster production is split evenly between residential lake and commercial projects, Ahlgren said. Because of rising market demand, the company expanded from a five-acre site to its new 18-acre complex. "We were socked in, in that building," Ahlgren said. "We had two closets that were being used as offices. We had a person that was officing in our conference room." And there was insufficient room to store finished goods outside the plant he said. ShoreMaster moved in November from its former 45,000-square-foot production facility to a new 97,000-square-foot plant, both on the north side of Fergus Falls. Last year, ShoreMaster and sister company Galva-Foam Marine Industries of Camdenton, Mo., used 3.6 million pounds of aluminum and more than 3.5 million pounds of plastic to produce boat lifts, docks, and molded plastics products for residential and commercial markets, Ahlgren said.
Workers at the new plant cut and weld spans of aluminum into varied-length dock support sections and boat lift components. The company built more than 4,700 boat lifts last year, Ahlgren said. Other workers assemble dock tops using IPE wood, a durable, long-lasting hardwood imported from Brazil, Tuel Jr. said.
Nearby, a robotic welder, nicknamed Hal, assembles 4-foot by 10-foot sections called unidocks. Five thousand unidocks were produced last year, Ahlgren said. In an adjacent building, a rotomoulder transforms tiny white beads of Styrofoam into plastic components used for waterfront products such as floating docks, slides, rafts, and shore ports for parking personal watercraft. The company also makes plastic products for other companies. Concrete breakwater sections designed to prevent waves from disrupting and damaging marinas are also assembled there, Ahlgren said. Each cement breakwater section measures 6 3/4 feet tall, 8 feet wide by 50 feet long and weighs 47,000 pounds, he said. Galva-Foam, purchased in 2002, builds floating docks and lifts for southern U.S. markets, Ahlgren said. The Fergus Falls plant primarily builds stationary and rolling docks and lifts for the northern part of the country, he said. In January, the company purchased Shoreline of Pine River, Minn., a producer of wheel-assist motors for winch and cable boat lifts, Hoge said. Shoreline also makes lake rakes and flag poles, and distributes solar lighting, Ahlgren said. Adding other products, like those produced at Shoreline, "is a win for us and our distributors," Hoge said. For 25 years, ShoreMaster has produced commercial boat marinas and breakwaters for use all over the country. Its first floating breakwater was built and installed in 1997 on Jordan Lake in Raleigh, N.C., Ahlgren said. Later that year, a floating breakwater was installed at Sturgeon Bay, Wis. ShoreMaster is now building a marina with 100 slips and docks at Pittsburg, Calif., near San Francisco. The Long Beach project will be the company's largest and give ShoreMaster a lot of exposure, Tuel Jr., said. "Everybody's looking at this job out there," he said. "It's a really important project for us." In addition to 1,700 boat slips, the project will include 30 piers, the first two of which are now being built, he said. "We're not there just to do the Long Beach project," he said. "We're there to continue on and do other projects." Readers can reach Forum Business Editor Craig McEwen at (701) 241-5502 |
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