By Mary Swift-Swan

Randy Repass, who started and remains a guiding and driving force in West Marine, placed an ad in the electronic sailing magazine Scuttlebutt and with the popular San Francisco sailing magazine Latitude 38. West Marine has become the largest boating supply retail chain in the country. It started with Randy selling rope out of his garage. The first West Marine discount recreation boating marine products store (Chandlery) opened in Palo Alto. The business has grown by leaps and bounds. They went public a few years ago, which spurred growth, then recently acquired Boat US marine supply stores. There are the biggest in the United States and are still growing. In the ad, Randy specifically asked for women applicants to join West Marine’s Board of Directors. He needed to find someone who knew sailing, was familiar with big business, and is current with what is going on. It was a bold move to look for a public company board member in this fashion. It took awhile to decide, because of the number of quality replies. Placement agencies, take note.

RR: We had about 70 replies to the postings in Latitude 38 and Scuttlebutt! All of the applicants had impressive sailing credentials and many had the kind of public company business experience we were looking for. Our biggest problem was only being able to select one! We are very grateful to Latitude 38 and Scuttlebutt for the postings and especially for all of the interest in West Marine!
Our Board has nominated Diane Greene for election as a member of the West Marine Board. The election for director will be at West Marine’s Annual meeting May 12th. Diane is president of VM Ware a subsidiary of the software company EMC of which she is executive vice-president. In addition to being a founder of VM Ware, she was its CEO prior to its sale to EMC in January 2004. She has extensive sailing experience in dinghies, windsurfers, and keelboats in buoy and ocean racing. She also is an experienced bareboat charterer.

BC: What is in store for West Marine’s expansion plans for the upcoming year?
RR: Next year, we plan to open a few more than the 28 stores we opened in 2003. About half will be in our standard “normal” size format and half will be the smaller express stores.

We plan on continuing with installation of electronics via locations in Ft. Lauderdale, Alameda (both via West Marine Boat Services), and Sausalito (via Maritime Electronics).

We are remodeling our Point Loma San Diego store into a 28,000 sq ft Super Store with expanded inventory selection and many more working displays.

And, of course, we will continue to modify our selection in all of the stores to provide more of what our customers are asking for product-wise. Along those lines we have completed major new product offerings in the sailboat hardware and trailer sections of many stores. Several stores will also be remodeled.

BC: How can people contribute to quality growth in West Marine?
RR: We are always interested in hearing not only what customers like about West Marine but what they would like us to improve. Comments will be heard and appropriately responded to at
customercare@westmarine.com.

BC: With your new custom built 66’ Cat Ketch, designed by Tom Wiley, what are your personal cruising plans for the near future?
RR: Regarding cruising, my family and I have cruised extensively in the Pacific Northwest, primarily British Columbia and SE Alaska over the past nine summers in our 42 ft. Lobster yacht “Explorer.” Prior to that, we have cruised in Mexico and in the Northeast.

We will take our new performance cruising Wylie 66 sailboat to the South Pacific this summer. The boat is very unique, incorporating lots of practical concepts that will make sailing and cruising more comfortable and less hassle. There is a write-up on the boat in our 2004 master catalog and at www.westmarine.com.