Tag Archives: Grow Boating

Grow Boating, Inc. announced Monday that the Marine Leadership Alliance has donated $10,000 to the national Discover Boating campaign, helping to fund the industry’s common goal of growing recreational boating. The gift is in honor and memory of two industry leaders who passed away earlier this year, Ed Atchley and Jim Lane. As dedicated professionals with long careers in boat ...

Discover Boating launched in 2005 with a mission to formulate and execute initiatives that promote the boating lifestyle, and evidence suggests those efforts are working. In 2015, Discover Boating moved 2.9 million site visitors from its website to manufacturer websites. There were 5.3 million site visits to Discover Boating that year, 75 percent of which were new visitors. “Let’s say ...

Richard M. Strickler, a strong marine industry advocate largely credited with driving the Grow Boating Campaign, died on Apr. 14, in Franklin, Tenn. He was 71. Strickler retired as executive vice president of the marine division of GE Commercial Finance's Distribution Finance Unit in 2005. Strickler was a 32-year company veteran and a recognized industry financing leader, spending most of ...

Boating has always been considered a classically middle-class activity, perfect for families looking to add recreation to their lifestyle. The industry continues to aim for these middle-class buyers, but the pool has unfortunately gotten smaller. According to a new report from Pew Research Center, the percentage of adults living in middle-income households has fallen every decade since the 1970s. While ...

SEATTLE – The Northwest Marine Trade Association (NMTA) announced a grant program for non-profits seeking assistance in promoting boating in the region. The grants are being awarded through the NMTA’s Grow Boating program, whose mission is to increase the number of boaters and encourage current boaters to boat more often. Since 2003, NMTA has spent more than $1 million to ...

In most conversations surrounding efforts to grow boating, industry stakeholders tend to list all of the things the marine industry is competing with for families’ time: kids sporting activities, rigorous academic demands, etc. However, our biggest competitor may be employees' hesitance to take a day away from the office. Project: Time Off is an organization that highlights the underuse of paid ...

Discover Boating recently held a webinar to announce its 2015 marketing campaign, which will offer new strategies and build upon its 2014 successes. At the center of the campaign is the Stories of Discovery, which were a huge success last year with close to nine million views across the Internet. “We know that everyone has a boating story, so we ...

MINNEAPOLIS — Grow Boating Inc. has transferred ownership of the Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program to the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas. As full owner of the MICD Program, MRAA is responsible for every aspect of managing, operating, marketing and promoting the program for dealers, including conducting dealer certification reviews and consultations. The MICD Program was originally created as ...

In the April issue of Boating Industry magazine, I wrote a column sharing my thoughts about the Grow Boating Initiative. In the past few months, I’ve heard from a handful of industry executives who are concerned about certain aspects of the program.

Following a recommendation from the Grow Boating Funding Task Force to the board of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, assessments for Grow Boating will be fully restored, effective Jan 1. The assessments had been temporarily reduced by 85 percent this past July as a new marketing strategy and analysis of the impact of the recession on consumers was developed. In ...