Nor-Tech At 35—The Schou/Margård Interview, Part I

As part of its annual dealer meeting five years ago, Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats threw a party to celebrate the opening of its new facility in Cape Coral, Fla. Mixed in among the dealers, vendors, longtime clients and local dignitaries were two or three media types, including me.

Though I’ve missed just one Nor-Tech meeting since then, I had not returned to the Cape Coral factory until two days ago. The occasion was an interview with Trond Schou, who co-founded the company with friend and fellow Norwegian, Nils Johnsen, and Nor-Tech’s chief operating officer, Henrik Margård.

The site for the author’s interview this week, Nor-Tech’s 55,000-square-foot Cape Coral facility opened five years. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Just a month ago, Schou and I chatted briefly at two parties during the Miami International Boat Show, starting with Nor-Tech’s opening-day soiree in the Miami Beach Convention Center. Two nights later, we met again during the third annual Florida Powerboat Club/Speed On The Water Miami Boat Show Bash at the Sagamore Hotel. For the second year in a row, Nor-Tech was the presenting sponsor for the party.

But those were social gatherings. Neither was the time or place for a sit-down interview.

Our conversation in Cape Coral this week began with our current injuries—his being a broken arm from a skiing accident in Switzerland, mine a torn meniscus in my right knee from riding an electric dirt bike like an idiot. This is known as an “organ recital” among folks of our vintage, and we laughed as we teased each other about our bumps and bruises.

Then the fun with Schou and Margård began.

Our last installment of the “Nor-Tech At 35” article series went back to your company’s first center console in 2010. So let’s focus on Nor-Tech now. What’s exciting?

Schou: Nor-Tech is getting to the next level of our company with bringing the catamaran line back, but in our way. Everyone is doing twin-outboard catamarans. We’re doing quads. Not doing what everyone else is doing has kind been our M.O. all these years. I call it ‘building the next mousetrap’ of what people are going to be buying. We also have a couple of other models in line that we’re not going to talk about.

You have to renew yourself on a constant basis in this business. Over the years, we have done a lot of different models, probably more than most companies.

Nor-Tech is reviving its catamaran series with outboard engine power.

You opened the Cape Coral plant five years ago, but you still have other facilities. How does it break down?

Schou: We have activities everywhere (laughs). This building is 55,000 square feet. We have another 35,000-square-foot building down the street in this industrial park. We have a smaller facility in North Fort Myers where we build the 340 Sport center consoles. The 392 and 452 fish boats are built in Jacksonville. All lamination is done in North Fort Myers. We have three paint booths, two locations where we paint and, of course, all our painting subcontractors.

It’s a lot of paint (laughs again). We roll two boats a week out of here. So it’s a lot of paintwork to do.

How are current sales?

Schou: It’s going surprisingly well. I think that right before the election people were holding back a little bit, but I am not sure that affected sales with our customers, especially in my age group. When you get to my age, it’s this weird yardstick and you know you have only so many inches left on the yardstick (laughs). So why wait to do something fun?

It’s all about quality of life, especially when you’re older. Quality of life, not money, is the biggest asset.

Your concern for “quality of life” extends beyond Nor-Tech’s walls and into your local community with your company’s ongoing philanthropic efforts. What makes you and your team so diligent and consistent when it comes to supporting local charities?

Schou: I think it is important to give back when you can, and Henrik has been a big promoter in that regard for this company. We have a selection of programs we like to help.

You know, not everybody has this great life in Florida. There are a lot of poor people here.

Margård: To build on what Trond was saying, we have some phenomenal well-known philanthropic partners like our dealers, Mercury Marine and Mercury Racing, and JL Audio and Lumishore—both now under the Garmin roof. But we also have almost 50 local vendors we deal with, so it’s not just our employees and their families helping out. It’s 40-plus businesses in this county, several of which are right here in this industrial park.

Schou (left) and Margård believe in giving back to their local community, particularly though charities serving children.

Schou: Our thing is helping charities for children—that’s what we’ve fallen in love with. Through Blessings In A Backpack, we learned there are 40,000 kids in Lee County in need of nutrition, a basic necessity of life. The Children’s Advocacy Center Of Southwest Florida tells us one in six kids is abused at some level, from not having food to the worst things you can imagine. That really hits home when you have kids of your own.

Margård: The cool part is that when Trond gave us the blessing to start this, we reached out to all of our partners and they were overwhelmingly positive and wanted to help. But they didn’t know where to start. So us having all these charities gives us a platform to help them get going.

Your dealers and vendors have been strong partners in your charitable effort. What about your customers? Have they gotten involved?

Margård: Absolutely. One of our clients, for example, had a boat on order and told us to please take his $20,000 slot-deposit and use it for our charities. He has since bought a boat so it wasn’t an ‘out.’ We’ve had clients come in and literally take thousands of dollars out their pockets and tell us to put it toward our next charity event. So yeah, that’s happening.

And from the stories we’ve published during the years, we can see you keep it local so the money raised can make the greatest impact.

Schou: Yes, and we try to choose charities where 99 percent of the money that comes in goes to the needy, not the ones where 90 percent goes to administration and 10 percent goes to the needy. That’s why we have the charity system we do.

Margård: Every Christmas, we do a toy drive and our kids go with us. They need to understand that not everybody has what they do. That’s been a good lesson for our own kids.

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Source: https://www.speedonthewater.com/nor-tech-at-35-the-schou-margard-interview-part-i/