It may be a forced option with the current economy. If anything, I believe the Baja line will be what keeps Fountain rolling. The Baja fanbase is huge........just go to one of Hawkeyes events and you'll see what Im talking about! Talk about brand loyal..........

"I can't stand Reggie" is a strong statement. You may not like the way he does business, or really the fact that he is RELENTLESS in his pursuit for success, but you can't not respect the man.

I don't comment on this Fountain soap drama often but I have a little to add. I know Reggie personally. Met his family, hung out out his house (when he wasn't working which is almost never) and have had many dinners and "talked boats" over many meals all over the country with him.

Regardless of anyones opinion of his tactics for growing/keeping/running FPB alive, the only reason the company, boats and really, offshore racing for the past 20 years, exists is because he refuses to give up.
I'm not not knocking the guys who haven't been in business for themselves but you just wouldn't understand. He created something from NOTHING.

Failure is not an option if you started a company and decide, no matter what, that you will be successful. PERIOD. I made some investments when I was younger and dumber that I should've never done but never doubted myself and NEVER considered failure as an option

Grants to businesses with stipulations for employment payrolls (as with this grant) are a very, very good use of public money. If you have ever owned a company, you KNOW that by very far, the biggest payables is TAXES.

Total taxes exceed total payroll deposited by the employees. Add it up. Payroll taxes. Property taxes. Sales taxes. Registration fees. It goes on and on.

If Reggie pays 250x30,000 = 7.5 million per year in gross payroll, he's paying taxes of about that same amount. So the ROI to the state is 2 years. Try and find any other investment with that ROI. There is a reason countries exist forever.

As a NC resident, and a taxpayer who was robbed by the NC Dept of Revenue, I am appalled....but I am a capitalist at heart so I understand his way of thinking. If I could figure out how to get the state to GRANT/give 12mil to my biz, that does help to support the economy, (back when people were still buying homes!) I'd be right there to pick up the check.

BTW,....fountain & baja are both chevy's...right??

TeamBaja, can you comment on this? It seemed to me Baja was more stable than other boat companies at this point...

You and the ex Baja guys would know best though.

I think if he let baja go into bankruptcy down the road he would not be able to completely seperate the two companies same land and buildings etc..

And notice the grant was given to fountain powerboats not baja. or whatever name he so chooses.

That being said bankrupcy would probably not hurt him very much if he had no actual assets or if brunswick was his biggest bill and they worked some type of a back door deal.

I do feel from what I have read and seen that he is very relentless to keep fpb in business at all costs. The downside to his business is he makes it go around without him who else is going to be that relentless.

My former business partner had a business and still does that works about the way this one seems to makes 4% every year makes all his money in 8 months of the year and has to borrow money all the time for bills he has been doing it for 30 years and everyone who knows him is like man he has a great business but I feel the only reason he still keeps it is because of his ego. I've never seen someone in my life have more headaches for $150,000 a year. The reason he is my former patner is he was happy making 4-6% a year and I realized that is way to much work for very little gain.

This is probably why reggie is "always working" is he has so many fires to put out because he is stretched so thin he has to.

Once again where is he going to get customers for these boats.

I wish him the best of luck and if he does well in 5 years bring this thread up and I will say I was wrong.

The thing is no one wants to see fountain go out of business....think about how many performance boats they turn out. Mercury would be devastated if FPB went out of business, so would the rest of the marine industry that provides rigging for Fountain. I'm not saying that Mercury would go out of business, but I have to think that FBP supports a lot of the industry in general. That grant that is helping FPB may also be allowing Joe Schmoe at Mercury to keep his job.....there's a bigger picture that people are missing.

Look at it from the other perspective...

Had Reggie decided to build a high-end boat in marketable quantities, where would the rest of the business be? He could have been right there with Cig, Nor Tech, OL and some others, but he decided to build a dynasty. But in his quest to be the biggest, he's only succeeded in losing investor's money and building a company that doesn't generate profits.

How many other quality builders would be out there today had Reggie not succumbed to his ego?

As far as Merc and all of Fountain's other subs- this isn't the Japanese dumping on our market. If Fountain went away today, the market for midrange-quality performance boats would neither shrink nor grow. Those same outdrives, the same cables, seats, gauges, etc. would go into the increased production of an existing builder or that of an upstart.

That grant doesn't benefit the greater good of the country or the industry and there is no altruistic motive. It's there for one reason- a predatory move on behalf of one state to attract jobs away from another. Happens every day.

P.S. I live and operate a business in Ohio and I know first-hand why Reggie is moving Baja to North Carolina. This is not a business-friendly state and it's headed the opposite direction.

A very good point here- Reggie's no teenager. At some point, his abilities will begin to lag behind his desires. And he's not going to live forever. So where does that leave Fountain? I have to wonder what would become of FPB once Reggie's not in the picture.

People who aren't trying to run a business in Ohio have no idea how bad it is. It is as if they are trying to prevent business from coming here. The taxes are outrageous, based on a plan that the last business standing will pay the entire state budget. No new businesses come here, and existing businesses are moved or sold out of state.
I worked with a lot of college students at UT and BGSU in my last job and became very close with many of them. When they graduated, there were NO job fairs in Ohio. Ironically, a BUNCH of them ended up in NC. There were job fairs there. We educate people in Ohio still.... but they take that degree to better business environments. I know of 5 who all went to Raleigh 2 years ago. They all went to the same job fair, they all got jobs and they all moved to NC.


They could live off of the gold for a while.

You think Ohio's bad. I ran a business here in Michigan and our headquarters were in N Canton Ohio. The Ohio facility was an identical business, same product line, number of employees, sales, etc. Our penalty in Michigan was almost $150,000 over Ohio because of the higher unemployment rates, higher workers comp rates, and a single business tax based on what equipment was in the facility and it's value per the state, not on actual value. That's why Michigan business is moving out also. The only ones staying, or coming, are the ones that have all of these taxes, plus property taxes, waived and incentives added just like Reggie's. Sorry, I digress.