Dave Mathews

Co-owner, American

Used Boats

“My partner, Mike Dilks, and I are boat brokers; we sell used boats and ship them all over the world. Business is good for us, but I’d hate to be a guy on U.S. 41 looking for local buyers. Australia is our big market; they love American-made boats because our boating industry is 10 to 15 years more advanced than theirs, and the Australian dollar is stronger. On average, it costs $10,000 to ship a boat to Australia and the buyer pays all the expenses. The largest we’ve shipped was a 65-footer. We market these boats through our own website, americanusedboats.com, and we’re linked to 25 major boating websites around the world. We used to ship a lot of boats to Denmark and Sweden, but the European market is dying off with the euro being so bad. In the past, we’d supply used boats to 10 to 15 dealerships in Europe, but they did not call us in 2011.”

Maggie Villani

Sales and marketing director, AM/PM

Mailing Service

“We’re direct mail specialists: targeted mailing lists, list cleaning, mail preparation, postage discounts, etc. Business has continued to stay strong. In 2011 we handled just under two million pieces of mail. A lot of businesses in the area that had switched to email marketing—restaurants especially—have switched back to regular mail because of the older demographic of their customers. We also handled a lot of holiday mail: greeting card mailings for businesses so they could use the discounted postage rate, and annual fund-raising letters from nonprofits. I’m not sure when the political season will be hitting us; it depends on who is up for re-election.”