Author: MRAA

Gary Briggs named MRAA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient

The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas named Gary Briggs of Wayzata Marine as its 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Recognizing Briggs at the MRAA Opening Awards Ceremony at its annual conference last month, MRAA celebrated his numerous accomplishments in the marine industry over the last 51 years. Briggs opened a start-up selling and servicing […]

Volvo Penta named first MRAA, Dealer Week Strategic Partner

Volvo Penta, other Strategic Partners, will participate in dialog to help set MRAA initiatives and priorities. Volvo Penta has signed on as the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas’ first Strategic Partner, the highest level of MRAA Partner Membership and support for Dealer Week, MRAA’s Annual Conference & Expo.   Celebrating its 43rd annual conference […]

Recreation Leaders Meet with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Highlight Recreation Opportunities

Recreation Leaders, including MRAA’s Board President Joe Hoffmaster, met with Secretary Sonny Perdue, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment Jim Hubbard and other key officials in order to highlight recreation opportunities for 2019. The group noted the importance of national forests to many recreational activities, and highlighted the world-class experiences provided to anglers […]

How the Shutdown is Hurting Recreational Boating and the Outdoor Economy

In a recent Op-Ed published by The Hill, Outdoor Recreation Roundtable’s Executive Director Jessica Wahl described the impact that the partial government shutdown is having on the outdoor recreation community. The outdoor recreation community is unified in its message to Congress and the administration to end this shutdown immediately so federal workers, small businesses, rural […]

Busting a Few Myths

In my last blog, I wrote about the premise of Brad Staat’s book, Never Stop Learning. Because the knowledge we need to successfully run our businesses keeps changing, he argues, we need to keep learning. We now operate in a learning economy, not a knowledge economy. If we need to be continuously learning, then it’s […]

Priority One’s Growing Equipment Finance Division Increases Staff

Priority One Financial Services, Inc., the industry’s oldest and largest F&I outsourcing provider, adds Kristopher Dobrowski and Mark Schiller to its equipment finance division. This division is dedicated to helping both dealers’ and their customers with their commercial finance and leasing needs. These include financing of dealership equipment (service trucks, forklifts, repair lifts), heavy marina […]

MRAA Announces 2018 Great Dealerships To Work For

The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas named the marine industry’s innaugural Great Dealerships to Work For, recognizing 20 boat dealers at an awards program last month and through a publication released today. The 20 dealerships qualified for recognition through the results of the Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program’s annual Employee Satisfaction Survey. This survey, […]

Marine Retailing in a Learning Economy

Educate. [ej-oo-keyt] verb. to provide with information in order to develop mentally, morally, or aesthetically especially by instruction for a particular calling or practice in a particular area for a particular purpose. When we were kids, we thought we had it figured out. First, you go to school to get educated. Then, you graduate and […]

BoatPAC Holds Fourth Consecutive Event at MDCE

BoatPAC held a reception during the Marine Dealers Conference and Expo in Orlando, Florida on Monday, December 10th, raising almost $5000. BoatPAC is the federal political action committee of NMMA and the MRAA, which supports the election of candidates to the U.S. Congress who are strong advocates for recreational boating. MRAA and NMMA thanks the […]