Jarrett Bay Boating & Fishing Forum

[crunchyfish0]

Many of the 200 Hatteras Yachts employees getting off work Friday afternoon had just finished their first full week since a July 1 furlough nearly shut down the plant that was once New Bern’s largest employer.

“We have called back all of the hourly people who were on temporary furlough and are in the early stages of looking like we’re a real business again,” said Bill Naumann, Hatteras Yachts chairman, who returned from retirement with the company in November 2008 to help keep the luxury yacht company afloat.

“They started to work on Monday and are back working full time,” he said. “We celebrated with a little ice cream social. The people who are back here are very pleased to be working again and we are delighted to have them back.”

“But for me it was bittersweet,” he said. “We have not been able to recall the people on indefinite furlough and it is agonizing for me to know they are still out there.”

The company, which once employed about 1,400 people at the New Bern plant, has been trimming for several years, with major organizational changes in 2008 including layoffs and another layoff in January 2009 that cut 330 jobs.

The June 2 announcement of a summer shut-down with furloughs for all except key management and maintenance staff was to affect about 300 employees and placed about 90 on “indefinite furlough.”

All of the layoffs that were initially planned did not materialize, and the plant was in slow-down but not completely closed.

“So far our business has not sufficiently firmed up for us to open our arms and bring them back. There is a long way to go and the marketplace is still shaky,” Naumann said.

“Things are a lot better than they were a week ago. We have sufficient work to keep them busy for the foreseeable future,” he said.

The company is building some boats again but is also now refitting older Hatteras models and some employees called back are working on that. Others are working on development and tooling for some new products the company plans to introduce at the 2010 Miami Boat Show.

“It’s a small step forward, not a giant leap,” he said. “We are still in a mode that will insure our survival – extremely and rightfully cautious. We don’t want to disrupt an appreciation for the fact that things in our market are still not strong. We’re in a vicious cycle right now.”

“We’ve had several of the largest boat companies in the world go bankrupt in the last nine months and Genmar, who used to be our owner, is still in bankruptcy,” said Naumann. “The real concern from an industry standpoint is the survival of the dealer system. Dealers are falling off the earth. Floor planning is difficult to come by and most dealers who have that are overstocked.”

With the boats stocked by dealers going out of business being repossessed by lenders, he said, there is excess inventory priced low and holding the overall market down.

Hatteras was established in 1959 in North Carolina and acquired by Brunswick Corporation in 2001. It continues to produce two brands in New Bern and in Adelanto, Calif., Cabot and Hatteras Yachts sport fishing and motor yachts between 50 and 100 feet long.

from enctoday.com

[Partyboat123]

Hi, you have written the informations just like a novel & in a nice way. I like your writing style actually.