// PROFILES IN LEADERSHIP
BI: What major achievements gave you the greatest satisfaction? KC: We innovated so many firsts in the industry. My teams gave me the strength to go against the odds and take chances because they believed in me and I in turn believed in them.
Like when we did the first ever hull side dive door in 1994, or when we started painting outboard engines white to match the boats, against the push-back from the engine manufacturers. Or when we told them we were doing bigger boats and needed 35-inch shaft lower units or larger outboard engines and they told us there was no market for it. We created our own 35-inch lower units with Bob Latham … I teamed up with the Davis family to create and debut the largest outboards in the world at 557 hp at the Miami International Boat Show in 2011 at the Intrepid booth. And now … painted engines, 35-inch shafts, and a whole new generation of large outboards exist because of it.
A customer had a wife who got seasick easily and told me“ Happy wife, happy life,” so we were first to do a gyro in an outboard boat by putting the smallest Seakeeper at the time onboard.
Another customer asked me to create a proper head compartment in a center console so his wife would allow him to buy the fishing boat he wanted instead of a cabin cruiser … we were first to create a head inside of the console of a center console boat.
There was the customer who had horrible wind / current behind his house and couldn’ t dock well … and asked if we could put a bow thruster in his boat.
The most recent was the high / low helm sole which allows the shorter helmsperson to raise the sole four inches for better visibility. We were also first to do backrests on the aft side of forward seating in a center console and then took it up a level by electrically actuating them.
I never put patents on any of it. I liked the back pressure of knowing that everyone was copying the last thing we did. I used to tell my team,“ While they are copying that, we’ ll be releasing this. Let them keep chasing us! When they’ re not chasing is when we need to worry.”
People tell me all the time that I’ m one of the best designers / builders in the world and while the team and I must figure out how to do it, the customers are the true designers. Too often, builders think they know more than their customers; they don’ t listen.
BI: How do you listen to customers? KC: When we go to boat shows, it’ s up to my sales team to sell boats. For me, it’ s an opportunity to mine data from my customers. What did they like that we did? What didn’ t they like? What do they wish we had done? How do they use their boat? I take the data back to help plan future design. It’ s also a combination of build and design sessions, plant tours, and social media correspondence. You just learn so much by asking the right questions … and listening!
Clinton’ s perfect day at the helm includes rigorous testing of a new model and putting it through the paces.
BI: Speaking of social media, you’ ve built a powerful presence … 5000 friends on Facebook, 350k Instagram and 14k LinkedIn followers. Both your custom t-shirt posts and educational videos generate buzz. What’ s the story? KC: The t-shirt thing was never something I thought would become a“ thing,” but it really grew arms and legs. It all started during the pandemic. The news was so depressing throughout the world … in the beginning, our industry was devastated when we couldn’ t get materials, engines, etc. Employees were scared. All this negativity was driving me crazy, so I bought a few t-shirts with positive sayings and started posting pictures online and wore them with a big smile and told people to have a great day and a great week.
I got such positive and upbeat responses with people thanking me for doing it, which made me feel compelled to keep doing it. After several months, I figured that the novelty had worn off, so I stopped … and had a bunch of posts on my social media pages and DM’ s like,“ We all need our inspirational quote for this week- where is it?”
Most of my videos are unplanned. For Saturday posts, I often had no idea what I was going to talk about and just walked around the factory until I found something I thought people might find interesting. During the week I might do a short post about something cool we’ d just finished and wanted to share it with those who love boats, too.
BI: To wrap things up, what’ s one word that best describes you? KC: Tenacious.
Wanda Kenton Smith runs Kenton Smith Marketing and is a veteran journalist, business writer and former editor of both consumer sports and marine trade magazines.
30 may 2025 www. boatingindustry. com