THE BOATING BUSINESS NEWSPAPER VOL. XLIV, NO. 2 AUGUST 2006

SOUTH FLA. TRIES TO FILL JOBS P. 40

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INSIDE: A soon-to-be-published book chronicles how one family, the Kettenburgs, influenced San Diego yachting. The eldest surviving family member died this spring. P. 42

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Happy 50th

Singapore-based Grand Banks has had ups and downs during its 50-year history. Freelance writer Reagan Haynes tells how this boat, Spray, served as the prototype for the company’s distinctive yacht lines. P. 38

LED lights way
for Iowa firm’s
dazzling sales
Innovative Lighting gambled
on new market and won big
By Melanie Winters / Associate Editor

An expanding market for LED technology has allowed Innovative Lighting to soar beyond the imagination of its founder.

In the last five years the number of employees jumped off the charts; the company started out with eight and now employs 110.

“Not in my dreams did I think we’d have over 100 employees, ever,” said Jerry Handsaker, owner and president of the Roland, Iowa-based company.

The former 3,600-square-foot plant looked like a closet compared to today’s 38,000 square-foot building, and another 18,000-square-foot expansion is in the works.

Annual sales swelled from $700,000 to an estimated

See Innovative, Page 36

Fire could spell end for Canada’s Abbott Boats

With its molds and tooling gone, the builder faces a daunting task if it elects to start over

By JoAnn W. Goddard / Associate Editor were gutted before firefighters could bring the blaze he was old enough to push a wheelbarrow, fears the ^{j.Goddard@tradeonlytoday.com}under control. Several boats also were lost, including business is not recoverable. Insurance claims will be

The last chapter might have been written for a Cana- the family’s sailboat Surprise, an Abbott 33. The cause filed and buildings can be rebuilt. But without molds and dian boatbuilder. of the fire is unknown, although officials have said it tooling, it is a daunting task to start building boats again.

Abbott Boats, a distinguished family business, went was the result of external forces. The financial loss has “The patterns and unique equipment that comes up in smoke as a fire swept through the boatbuilding not yet been determined. with being in business for so many years are gone,” shop, destroying two buildings and its contents — in- Friends and family members have sifted through the says Abbott, 52.

cluding irreplaceable molds, patterns and tools. debris, hoping to find salvageable items. A few memen- “If my brother and I do get back into it, we’ll start

“We lost basically 100 percent of everything,” said Bill tos have been cleaned and set aside. The woodshop small like my father did, and take one step at a time,” Abbott Jr., who runs the company with his brother, Larry. burned, but the family might be able to save some of the he added.

The fire began at the yard in Sarnia, Ontario, around teak and mahogany that was stored there, said Abbott. Bill Abbott Sr. started the company in 1946, following 7: 15 p.m. June 17. The lamination and assembly shops But Abbott, who has been working at the yard since