Doug Skidmore
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San Diego Business Journal Brad Graves, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 Hobie Cat Co. President Doug Skidmore is working to integrate Hobie Cat Europe into the U.S. operation.
HOBIE CAT CO.
President: Doug Skidmore.
Revenue: Undisclosed.
No. of local employees: 200.
Investors: A group led by Richard Rogers of St. Louis.
Headquarters: Oceanside.
Year founded: 1968.
Company description: Boat builder.
Key factor for success: Skidmore offers one word: innovation. “We’re not copying anybody,” he said.
Seeking to expand into markets more quickly and boost its worldwide brand, Hobie Cat Co. is combining two businesses that had operated separately for 23 years, company officials said.
The U.S. boat builder said recently that it had acquired Hobie Cat Europe.
Oceanside-based Hobie Cat is privately held and did not announce terms of the deal.
The situation between the two companies had become, in the words of a company statement, “complicated.” Hobie Cat President Doug Skidmore said the two companies each had the Hobie name and distribution rights, and there were claims of one company “poaching” in the other’s territory.
Integrating the two companies will take some work, Skidmore said, but he said that unification will ultimately produce benefits.
The deal involves the boat businesses only, and not the separate Hobie surfboard, stand-up paddleboard, apparel and sunglasses businesses.
The Hobie Cat name has long been associated with twin-hull sailboats. Today, catamarans are only part of the story.
‘Water Sport Company’
“Essentially we’ve changed from a sailboat company to more of a water sport company,” Skidmore said.
Today Hobie Cat makes and markets kayaks, including models optimized for fishing.
For 15 years it has offered its patented MirageDrive system, where the boater presses on pedals to move a pair of flippers on the bottom of the hull. The flippers propel the boat in the same way a penguin’s flippers propel the animal.
Meanwhile, the catamaran line has gone in new directions. Hobie Cat’s Island model has a central hull, smaller “floats” on either side, MirageDrive flippers and a sail.
Hobie Cat Co. employs 250 people worldwide and has a 180,000-square-foot factory in Oceanside. It does 90 percent of its labor in the United States, Skidmore said.
Skidmore said since the most recent ownership group took over in 1995, sales have grown by a factor of 18. Sales are in the tens of millions of dollars.
Hobie Cat’s name recognition is far bigger than the company’s size. “We’re probably one the best known small companies around,” Skidmore said.
Surfer Hobie Alter founded the Hobie Cat Co. in 1968. Coleman Co. — the people behind the camping lantern — bought the firm in 1975.
The company split up in 1989, with U.S.-based Hobie Cat Co. going to one private ownership group and Hobie Cat Europe going to another. At the time, one of the buyers wanted to work in North and South America, but did not want to oversee worldwide operations, Skidmore explained.
There is also Hobie Cat Australasia, which has been part of the Oceanside company for 12 years.
Catching On
Fishing kayaks are now the fastest-growing segment of the business, Skidmore reported. “You can’t effectively hold a paddle and a fishing rod at the same time,” he said, so the pedal powered MirageDrive is a big plus.
“Kayak fishing is growing much more mainstream,” he added.
Skidmore, who has been company president since 1996, offered little when asked what Hobie Cat planned to do next.
“We don’t have a lack of things to work on, to think about,” he said. “There are plenty of opportunities.”
Bailey Busch, manager of Fast Lane Sailing & Kayaking on Ingraham Street near Mission Bay, called Hobie “an Apple-like brand in kayaking world.” Though it’s a little more expensive than its counterparts, people want the product, Busch said.
Skidmore said the recession has not hurt Hobie Cat as badly as it has hurt other marine manufacturers. “We went into the recession late and came out early,” he said, adding that the company is growing.
“We’re in an interesting spot,” Skidmore said. When times are good, he said, people with fewer resources “reach up” to buy Hobie boats. When times are bad, he said, people with more resources reach down.
Though the system is 15 years old, the MirageDrive flipper system still turns heads, said Busch, the Mission Bay retailer — particularly when people see how fast the mechanism can propel the small boats.
“It literally does sit there and sell itself on the beach.”
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