Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS May 2014 MacCorkle's Purchase Padebco Custom Boats
ROUND POND – For several years Padebco Custom Boats in Round Pond has been on the market. It was close to being sold at one point, but at the time the economy went sour and banks just were not in the lending mood. The economy did not get better for almost fi ve years and at the time Bruce Cunning- ham, owner of Padebco, was getting very serious about retiring. All the ducks lined up at the 2013 Maine Boatbuilder’s Show and after some negotiating the deal was done and Leon and Sarah MacCorkle were the new owners.
Leon explained, “I met Bruce at the Maine Boatbuilders Show last year. A friend of mine, who dabbles in selling boats, was right across the walkway from him. They had been talking over the weekend and when I arrived with my family on Sunday, sort of last-minute, and as I was talking to my friend Brian and I said ‘I had taken a look at Padeb- co on paper,’ and he said, ‘Well you really should go talk to him, because I have talked to him over the weekend and he is ready to retire.’ We ended up walking Bruce out to his car at end of the show and Bruce said ‘Well if you are interested you should come up and see me because there has been other interest.’ I didn’t waste any time, I came up the very next week. That started things off and we managed to put it all together. I came up and worked for a few days in the Spring and a few days in the Fall, just to get the feeling for it and away we went.” The MacCorkle’s put the cart before the horse and purchased a house in South Bristol before they had a deal for Padebco. “We bought a house in October,” said Leon, “and then we moved up here and closed on the business November 15. We did a lot in a very short period of time. In that period of time, I still had two full-time jobs who didn’t know that I was looking to leave. At the same time our house in New Hampshire need some projects completed. I put a kitchen in, hardwood fl oors on the fi rst fl oor and trim out all of the replacement windows that I had put in years ago, and then put the house up for sale.”
Leon was doing two full-time jobs: he
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was property manager of a boys sport camp in Amesbury, Mass. and a fi refi ghter/EMT in the town of North Hampton, NH. However he was not happy. He added, “I guess instead of having a midlife crisis I talked to my wife about not being happy with my two careers. I had been doing it long enough. My wife and I had always talked about having our own business and I think that seed sort of ate away at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. We had looked at several businesses and we were looking more at marinas. I had been in boat building before working for JC Boat and so I knew better than to get into boat building.”
When Leon was 15, he would ride his bike in a nearby industrial park. He added, “The smell of the polyester resin led me right to JC boat. When I was out of school in the summer the garage doors would be open, and I would spend hours just watching what was going on. Once in a while Jack would come down from the offi ce and say ‘Hey kid what are you doing?’ Then one day he said ‘Hey kid do you want a job?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ He gave me a job sweeping fl oors and putting tools away. I became the go to guy because I had put everything away and nobody knew where it was. Every last bit of what I learned I learned there. I did some of my own work after I left JC boat. It was more economy related. I bought a couple of damaged sailboats and fi xed him up and sold them with my dad.”
Leon has also owned several boats. The
fi rst was a 1932 Alden. It was started in ‘33 by a father and son builders. They started the boat together than I believe the war got in the way. When they came back the father, who was the shipwright, he was sick and it languished in a barn for years. It was sold to another fellow who really didn’t do much with it either. We did a great job keeping all of the materials together. I bought it and had it for seven years. I built two barns around it in two different locations. I had the best intentions, I was single and I could get away with all those kind of dreams. When I got married my wife was understanding. That kind of project takes time and money, co-
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Bruce Cunningham (left) has sold Padebco Custom Boats to Leon MacCorkle (right).
pious amounts of both at the same time and I never had that equation together. Actually we had two boats for a while, because we bought the OC 42 and had both in the barn. My wife really wanted to get out on the water when we had our fi rst daughter. She came to me and said, ‘What is it going to take for you to give up that wooden boat dream so we can actually get on the water?’ She knew. She said how long is it going to take? I said, ‘I don’t know, 10 years and $150,000.’ She said, ‘I don’t see that happening.’ That is when we decided to get a fi berglass boat.” “I was never a powerboater,” said Leon. “I guess I was brought up that way. We had the OC 42 out of the water and I was in the middle of rebuilding the Perkins in it. We made the decision to take a summer off from boating. Not long after Sarah said she wanted to be out of the water. She said she really enjoyed being on powerboats when she was a kid. She went off looking and couldn’t fi nd anything worth putting in the water for $5,000 so we inched it up and ended up fi nding a Parker. Once we’re able to buy our own Padebco that will be put up for sale.”
There were several things that Leon learned when he was out looking at business- es. He said, “Any person who is looking to retire and sell their business, your fi nal few years you have to put on the books what truly happens. A young guy like me comes in, I’ve got funds, but limited. I probably have got enough for a down payment, and I’ve got to go to the bank with these fi nancials and they need to match up or I get laughed out of there. That is the biggest thing. Then the other thing is you need to be really re- alistic about what your business is worth. If someone is going to invest money, whether it is the bank’s money or their own money, they are hoping to see around 10% return on their investment. So your net ordinary income at the end of the year should be close to 10 percent of your selling price. No more, maybe less, but that is where you want to be. A lot of times people are very emotionally invested in their business and they feel it is
worth way more than it is. Another thing is in your fi nal three to fi ve years, put some money back into the business make it worth more. Don’t take every out of it, because it won’t be there for the next person. Hopefully I remember that when I retire.”
When Leon took over Padebco they had two boats sold and within two weeks he had closed the deal on another two. He said, “We fi nished a 23½, which got delivered just after the boat show. We had two more behind that, which are now on the fl oor. We also have a 25 foot roadster. What you don’t see on the fl oor, is another 23½. So the two 23½s will go and we will concentrate on the 25, and the fi nal 23½ will go out a little later. They made some changes to the 25 mould. Leon explained, “The sheer was there on the drawing, but it didn’t end up on the plug. Not that it’s a bad looking thing, but it wasn’t just right. Prior to me coming they added that back into the mold. What we did just before this one was laid up, Bruce and I went in and sanded it out. They added close to 6 inches in the bow with a low gradual taper back and then brought it up slightly at the transom, maybe an inch or two.” As for changes, they are not planning anything major. Leon does want to change how they lay up their fi berglass parts. He is looking at infusing and will by doing small parts and we will begin plumbing up the shop when we have a some free time. Another change is that they are going to be much more aggressive building up their storage and repair customers. Leon added, “We are going to come out with new rates in the spring once everyone is launched. The intent is to get more people to come back and store and do service work with us. We defi nitely want to build that part of the business.”
They have a total of eight acres and at present they can use just under three acres. He also at some point wants to offer heated inside storage, but that is off in the future. Leon said, “Build it and they will come and I think that there is a demand for that.”
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