Executive Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Service, Suzuki Marine USA

Cerka’ s impressive leadership skills, bold initiatives and track record of success in growing Suzuki Marine USA’ s sales, market share and industry-wide reputation earned him a promotion in early 2026 to Executive Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Service.

“ When the company started experiencing some challenges with processes and service, I did a really good job at building up sales, as well as getting all the processes in place for marketing. Because of that, I was also given the chance to take over service. Then, I was given the EVP title,” Cerka says.“ When you look at Suzuki marine, it’ s not about sales, service and marketing. Everything is all in one. It doesn’ t matter if we’ re selling something; we’ re also servicing something. These assets should be together at all times.”

Cerka’ s promotion has only made him more dedicated to increasing Suzuki Marine USA’ s growth in terms of sales, share, boat building partnerships and national dealer network. This can be seen with a range of new service and training-oriented programs he has started, one of them being year-round training.

To Cerka, training is not a one-time event. It’ s an ongoing commitment to quality, consistency and dealer readiness. The new Suzuki Marine University Program was launched to educate and train a new level of expert Suzuki technicians by providing an aggressive schedule of classes for dealers at centralized locations in the Northwest, Midwest, Northeast and Southern U. S., along with classes in the purpose-built Training Center at Suzuki Marine’ s Tampa, Fla. headquarters.

Another program Cerka pushed is the Suzuki Ultimate Rigging Installer Program, which sets clear standards for installing, inspecting and delivering Suzuki outboards to the customer. This program confirms that participating boat builders understand Suzuki requirements, use approved procedures and proper steps to ensure optimum performance, reliability and customer satisfaction.

Cerka also increased Suzuki Marine’ s warranty. When a Suzuki outboard is properly installed by a trained authorized dealer or boat builder, it completes a process that is at the heart of the Suzuki-backed ownership experience. Proper installation and rigging optimizes boat performance, helps reduce service issues and gives customers added confidence. This empowers Suzuki Marine to offer the strongest standard factory warranty in the industry for new Suzuki motors— up to seven years of worry-free boating.

As a bold new approach to troubleshooting, Cerka helped implement T. R. A. C., which stands for Test, Review, Analyze and Correct. This new approach to solving technical issues for customers helps solve problems quicker and more effectively. Suzuki’ s dedicated Techline is ready when the issue isn’ t corrected, or one hour passes without making progress towards solving the issue.

Under Cerka’ s direction, this increased focus on service training, execution and customer satisfaction is seeing a positive impact.

“ Across the board, we are taking training to new levels. Our approach is to find every way we can improve and do a better job of taking care of the customer all day, every day,” Cerka says.“ Today more than ever, the ownership experience depends largely on how a company supports its products and helps its customers. We are empowering our dealers and OEM partners in this area through problem-solving, training and education. It’ s not enough to make the best motors – we want to be the best company to work with.”

In April 2026, Cerka announced a partnership with Fuel 1 Direct, a national retailer of Purfuel sustainable marine fuel, fuel delivery and portable fueling systems to help Suzuki Marine dealers offer sustainable fuels to their customers. Through this program, Fuel 1 Direct provides free, fully branded portable fueling stations to participating dealer locations. With zero capital investment, Suzuki Marine dealers can be a trusted fuel source for customers while enjoying solid profits and extra recurring income. This partnership is a great business opportunity for dealers, allowing them to provide customers with more sustainable, ethanol-free fuel that’ s better for their boats and for the environment.

Cerka’ s Suzuki Service Growth Support Plan is creating a culture where service is a shared responsibility and the key driver of customer satisfaction. By creating clear expectations, standardized processes and defined certification pathways, he is aligning dealers and Suzuki teams around delivering consistent, high-quality customer experiences. Suzuki’ s focus on training is also making dealer service departments better, more efficient and more profitable, all while enhancing customer experience and loyalty.

The numbers support this success: 74 % of customer relations issues are resolved on first contact, returned or denied warranty claims dropped by 10 %, direct calls to Suzuki Techline increased 10 % year-over-year, and the number of factory trained dealer service technicians is growing rapidly.

“ All I want is for the customer to have a great experience buying our product so this way they’ ll come back and buy something else,” Cerka says.“ No matter what, there are going to be issues and hiccups, but it’ s how you take care of those issues and hiccups that matters. At the end of the day, our customer is the most important thing we have in this industry.”

A positive customer experience advances the entire industry. Satisfied boaters use their boats more often, equip and accessorize their boats, and of course, buy new boats. They share their positive boating experiences with friends and families, acting as ambassadors for the lifestyle and helping create a new generation of passionate boaters.

Cerka has continued a“ youth movement” at Suzuki Marine, bringing in dozens of young people to fill new positions at the growing Tampa headquarters and its Panama City, Fla. U. S. Technical Center. Many of these recent new hires have already been promoted, demonstrating a culture that rewards energy and fresh thinking.

Earning an Executive Vice President position at the relatively young age of 45, Cerka strikes a perfect balance— garnering the respect of company veterans while also providing motivation for younger members of the team.

“ Whenever I hire someone, I try to get people to look further than just tomorrow,” Cerka explains.“ We recently hired a few new graphic designers that are young, which helps us because they know the newest things and have an eye for design. They compliment Suzuki and take our ideas to the next level.”

Through Cerka’ s strong leadership, Suzuki Marine has managed to grow in the key areas of the business— sales, market share, boat building partners, size and quality of dealer network— despite facing unprecedented economic challenges and market headwinds.

Like all industry manufacturers, Suzuki Marine has had to deal with changing tariffs, economic uncertainty, inflation and other issues. Fortunately, Cerka has helped keep the company afloat and come out stronger.

Cerka is also responsible for Suzuki Marine’ s growing and highly successful partnership with the NFL’ s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Through this exclusive partnership, the company promotes the Suzuki brand and the fun boating lifestyle to a diverse new audience— many of whom are not yet boaters.

Everywhere they look at Raymond James Stadium, visitors from across the nation and around the world see exciting images of Suzuki outboards in action and families enjoying the thrill of boating.

“ During Covid, we had all the business we could get. But I was thinking about different ways in which we could get more exposure to help grow our brand outside of the marine industry,” Cerka explains.“ It was the perfect storm because they’ re in Tampa, so they also thought this could be a cool adventure.”

After Cerka proposed a partnership, the Buccaneers were on board with having Suzuki Marine be an official sponsor for the team. Once the partnership began gaining some ROI, that’ s when the company became the gate sponsor.

“ One of the gates at the football field is actually a Suzuki Marine gate,” Cerka says.“ It’ s so cool.”

While many industry executives would be happy with increasing sales, a growing dealer body and earning more boat building partners, Cerka is focused on where to take the company years from now. This focus has led to the bold initiatives in training and improving dealer, builder and customer support across the board.

“ We know we have the best outboard motors in the world,” Cerka notes.“ We want to make Suzuki Marine USA the best company to do business with, and the best possible longterm partner in the ownership experience.”