Marketplace Today Blog

David Van Gorder of Fond du Lac heads out onto Lake Winnebago last week to fish for bluegills, his boat powered by a 50-horsepower 1995 Mercury outboard motor. Mark Hoffman photo.

By Bill Glauber
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bob Lloyd is “Mr. Marine.”

He has tested, serviced and sold products made by Mercury Marine, the boat-engine maker that has called this city home for decades. He worked 24 years for the company and for the last 21 years has operated the Mr. Marine boat dealership.

So, Lloyd took notice when news began to surface this month that Mercury Marine might be looking to consolidate operations, either in Wisconsin or in Stillwater, Okla.

“It would be a devastating blow here; they’re the number one employer in town,” Lloyd said, calculating the potential impact of Mercury choosing Oklahoma over Wisconsin.

Mercury Marine’s plans are as shrouded as Lake Winnebago in morning fog. It’s not even clear if this is a winner-take-all competition between the states.

Yet it’s unthinkable to imagine that the city and company could part ways. After all, this is a boating capital, a place where an employee can punch a time clock and within minutes be on the lake cruising to a prime fishing spot.

The outboard motor is as much a symbol of Wisconsin as a red barn.

Company officials, as well as government and civic leaders in Fond du Lac and Stillwater, have declined to comment about the future of the firm, a $2 billion subsidiary of Brunswick Corp.

“Given the unprecedented and challenging state of the industry, Mercury Marine continues to explore all possible options,” Mercury Marine spokesman Steve Fleming said. “Right now, we’re simply not in a position to comment on our plans.”

Only one person, Stillwater Chamber of Commerce President Larry Brown, has acknowledged that some negotiations have taken place.

Here’s what is known:

The boating industry is in a steep recession. People worried about their next paychecks don’t go out and buy new boats. As a result, the firm’s two major domestic plants, in Stillwater and Fond du Lac, aren’t producing at full capacity.

Stillwater, a nonunion facility, employs some 400 people who work on the MerCruiser line building stern-drive inboard engines. In flush times, the facility employs around 1,000 people.

The Oklahoma Legislature recently passed a bill that enabled Mercury Marine to avoid a tax penalty of more than $1 million. Without the bill, the company would have been forced to repay tax incentives because of a drop in employment at the plant.

Fond du Lac, which has a union, employs around 1,900 people. At full capacity, around 3,000 workers are employed at the 1.5 million-square-foot facility where outboard engines are manufactured.

“Mercury is extremely important to Fond du Lac County’s economy. I hope they’re here for a long, long time,” said Fond du Lac County Executive Allen J. Buechel.

Buechel knew Mercury founder Carl Kiekhaefer, who established an engine firm in 1939 in Cedarburg and later moved the company to Fond du Lac over the objections of some local business leaders.

“At the time, the leaders of Fond du Lac did not want Carl Kiekhaefer here because they worried about the competition for labor,” Buechel said. “They tried to stop him.”

Kiekhaefer bought land on the southwestern edge of Fond du Lac and set up his business.

“Carl was an irascible gentleman,” Buechel said. “I’ve talked to people who were fired or rehired by him three times. He’d hand you a hundred-dollar bill, fire you and tell you to go home and, ‘I don’t want to see you around here.’ The next morning, when you didn’t show up for work, he’d ask, ‘Where are you?’”

Lloyd started at Mercury fresh out of high school in 1964, earning $1.10 an hour and working “for the old man,” Kiekhaefer.

“His motors were really built a lot better” than his competitors’, Lloyd said. “They were state-of-the-art. Now, they’re still way ahead of everybody else.”

Around here, you can’t miss a Mercury Marine engine.

Head to the boat launch at Lakeside Park West in the early afternoon and witness rush hour as, one by one, the fishermen unload boats with Mercury engines.

“I’ve had Mercs all my life, from 5 horses on up,” said Dave Van Gorder, a retired truck driver. “They’re always dependable. They always start if you keep ’em in tune.”

The engines have provided good-paying jobs for workers in Fond du Lac. These are jobs they don’t want to see head south to Oklahoma.

“If we’re going to have a state-to-state war, Wisconsin better buckle up and belly up to the bar,” said Mark Zillges, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 1947.

Zillges, who works the second shift as a die caster, said the state has lost too many manufacturing jobs. He pointed to the recent closure of the General Motors plant in Janesville and the spring announcement that 280 manufacturing jobs at Thomas Industries in Sheboygan are headed to Louisiana within a year.

He said workers in Fond du Lac make an engine that can’t be beat.

“I’m pretty confident that my people are the best people in the world at doing what they do,” he said. “I say that because we build an engine from scratch. We’ve been doing it here for 50 years, plus.”

But these are uncertain times for the workers, as well as the residents of Fond du Lac.

Bob Lemense, who runs the Pump ’n’ Pantry, a gas station, convenience store and restaurant that sits across the street from the plant, said Mercury Marine’s continued presence is vital for Fond du Lac.

“They employ so many people,” he said. “You don’t have to go very far in Fond du Lac to find someone connected to Mercury Marine.”

From his perch, Lemense can chart the ebb and flow of the local economy.

When there are layoffs at the plant, local businesses feel the pain, he said. A few years back, when times were good in the boat business, Lemense’s staff would run over once a day with food orders at the plant. Now, the food runs come once a week.

Like others here, Lemense watches and waits, a city’s future hinging on the roar of boat engines.