Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS May 2009
What is Going on at The Hinckley Company?
shrink it down to the size that is appropriate,” priorities and people are really starting to
continued Bennett. “If in fact we do that, this value some of the things that really are of true
is what is going to be affected in terms of value and one of them is time on the water.”
employment. Worse case scenario. Unfortu- When the news stories came out, the
nately, the next thing you know people are Hinckley Company had a back-log, which will
walking around saying gee Hinckley is clos- take them into February of next year. They
ing their doors. That couldn’t have been have nine boats under construction at their
further from the truth. In fact somebody else Trenton facility and they sold three more boat
says we might not build boats up there, well the following week after the news stories.
that got transferred into we might not build With the stock market rising over the last
boats or we might go build boats somewhere few weeks and finally the media reporting
else. All of that was just wrong. We might go positive events in the economy, things are
back to building boats in Southwest Harbor looking better. There has always been fluc-
like we did for the first 70 years of the com- tuations in the boat business and that will
pany. We used to build eight or ten boats here continue to happen so long as there are
a year. Who knows what is going to happen. downturns in the economy. Any company in
One of the things a lot of people don’t under- times like this, no matter how big or small, has
stand is we are a very different business. Less to re-adjust to survive. Following World War
than half of our revenue comes from new boat II the Hinckley Company was making
Phil Bennett in his office at the Hinckley Company.
building. We have eight service yards in the wooden chocks for airplanes and paint brush
MANSET – “More Lay Off at Hinckley,” obviously being very careful at this time to United States and we have six sales offices handles to stay in operation. Those that can
Hinckley Has No More Boats to Build,” and make sure that we keep the size of the com- pretty much involved in selling brokerage adapt survive. The Hinckley Company is
“Hinckley to Close Doors.” What sells news- pany appropriate for what we saw down the boats. The brokerage business didn’t actu- fortunate in that it has service and brokerage,
papers, headlines that grab potential readers line in terms of the boat business ahead. We ally slow down like the new boat business.” because these operations can carry the com-
and they might not even be close to the truth. had to say it looks like we are going to be Fourth quarter sales for last year and the pany. I learned along time ago, new boat
In mid-April newspapers along the coast of shrinking back a little bit, we obviously let first two months of this year were not very construction was just swapping a dollar for a
Maine were declaring major trouble for the people know that.” good. Bennett said that he has been seeing dollar. People think there is a lot of money to
Hinckley Company saying that lay-offs were Due to the employee size of the Hinckley positive signs at the boat shows, adding, be made building boats and that is not the
immanent and in fact they might close down Company, they are mandated by law to inform “People are saying yeah times are tough but case. In fact it is a dangerous business with
parts of their operation. Not long after this them if there is going to be a significant my life is a finite timeline and I don’t know numerous pitfalls, which makes it very easy
news appeared I was in talking with Phil number of lay-offs. So, in the allotted time when the end is coming. I may have less for one to fail.
Bennett, head of the brokerage department at frame, they issued a letter to the employees money, but I’ve still got enough to enjoy my A true success story has to be the
Hinckley, and he had a much different story. who might be affected telling them of the life and so I want to get on with my life. I think Hinckley 36 Picnic Boat. Bennett added, “It
He explained, “One of the hard things for issues and what may happen. Bennett added, a lot of people have rethought their priorities wasn’t any genius on our part it just hap-
the media is to put things into perspective “At the Hinckley Company it is about the in life. Some people may have been working pened to be in the right place. With the Picnic
and still make it newsy enough so it is going employees. We’ve got an awful lot of em- really hard to make as much money as pos- Boat, what happened is these people didn’t
to make headlines. Unfortunate that’s the ployees here that have worked here a long, sible and all of a sudden scratched their heads have as much free time. People are not going
kind of reporting you get. We’ve been in long time and we care about the people, we and said hey wait a minute why am I doing out cruising for two weeks or three weeks on
business for 80 years and we’ve had times care about the business, and it is very impor- that? Some have been very philosophical
Continued on Page 14.
when we’ve had more people, we’ve had tant to be up front with them.” about this. I’ve seen a major shift in people’s
times when we’ve had less people, and we are “We may take that shop in Trenton and
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