Commentary: New Horizons

If you read “The Top 10 Biggest Stories Of 2024, Part II” all the way to bottom yesterday, you know that Jason Johnson—my longtime partner in speedontheonthewater.com—is cutting back his role in the daily news website and its associated editorial products including our weekly newsletter and annual Year In Review print issue. Our shared goal is for you not to notice his departure, at least as it applies to what you’ve come to expect from speedonthewater.com.

Jason Johnson (right) joined Matt Trulio when speedonthewater.com was in its infancy.

No one wants speedonthewater.com to continue thriving more than Johnson. It has been his labor of love as well as mine. Speedonthewater.com is something he can point to and say, “I was integral to creating that—from scratch.” It is part of his fabric and always will be.

How am I going to replace my longtime friend, who turned out to be the best partner in speedonthewater.com I could have hoped for and is one of the very few true professionals in high-performance-boating media How do I replace a guy who for 12 of the past 15 years has been my editorial touchstone?

Simple answer: I can’t. While I have always handled a majority of the writing load for speedonthewater.com, Johnson does back-of-house things you never see and I can’t fully explain. Those duties will be subbed out as needed, but the work will require more than person. Johnson is that good, that much of a pro.

But what I can’t possibly replace is our shared editorial vision. We arrive at ideas together and execute different elements of them together. And when we agree that one idea or another isn’t worth doing—as we have more times than I can remember in the last 12 years—we kill it quickly and move on. Things have moved quickly at speedonthewater.com because it is not managed by committee. We make decisions together and act on them quickly.

I will miss that collaboration more than you can possibly imagine.

Flanked by DCB Performance Marine owners-group members Tony Chiaramonte and Jeff Johnston, Johnson was—like Chiaramonte—inducted into the Bob Morgan Memorial Lake of the Ozarks Shootout Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy/copyright George Denny.

While Johnson’s day-to-day role will fade in the next few months, he has agreed to consult with me on various projects in 2025 and beyond. That is why he’s announced he’s stepping back rather than leaving for good. Johnson’s daughters, Colbie and Morgan, need more of him now and, not that he needed it, I have encouraged him to do exactly that.

Now is the time for the Johnson girls to have their dad’s complete attention.

Jason Johnson didn’t just blaze trails with speedonthewater.com. Photo by Matt Trulio.

Plus, any consulting role with me is a good gig. You don’t make much money, but you do get to have some fun creating and not deal with the day-to-day stuff of running any business.

A dozen years ago, Jason Johnson asked if he could be my partner in speedonthewater.com. I didn’t have to consider my answer because I knew I was blessed to be asked the question. If I have one strong asset in my professional life, it is attracting amazing talent. Johnson is living proof of that.

Last, thank you, Jason for seeing the possibilities for speedonthewater.com as a daily source of go-fast boating news and so much more. When most people were saying it couldn’t be done, you wanted in.

We built this thing together.