Industry Initiatives

UMMA and its affiliates have consistently been leaders in promoting marine industry unity, strengthening its infrastructure, and resolving its underlying problems. The positions taken on the following issues are reflective of this leadership:

• Survival of Independent Builders - We believe that the independent boat builders are a cornerstone of the marine industry. By making and keeping them more competitive, dealers and consumers have the availability of a greater diversity of products and suppliers have a broader range of potential customers.

• Survival of Marine Suppliers - By fortifying the independent boat builders, the presence of a strong and diverse base of business is secured. By combining the resources of the suppliers with each other and with the UMMA builders through the formation of UMSA (United Marine Suppliers Association), both groups are strengthened.

• Survival of Independent Boat Retailers - Without healthy boat dealers, marine suppliers, and boat builders cannot survive. To ensure that the dealers of the UMMA boat builders remain viable, UMRA (United Marine Retailers Association) was created to work in partnership with the rest of the "United" family.

• Anti-Splashing - Splashing (direct copying) of competing boat products has long been a pervasive industry problem. Initial legislative attempts failed to curtail this practice. Even more recent legislation is limited in its ability to control this problem. UMMA eliminated this problem among its Members by making it a condition of Membership that no UMMA Member would splash the products of any other Member. Because of the importance of this commitment, an offer of reciprocity was extended to other boat building organizations.

• OMC Bankruptcy - In the aftermath of the OMC bankruptcy, the Trustee used the tools of the bankruptcy court to attack thousands of innocent parties. UMMA organized a cost-effective strategy for defense and extended this defense to all parties in the industry, without receiving financial benefit to UMMA.

• Trade Show Duplication - In order to protect the limited resources of the industry, UMMA and UMSA have joined in supporting an initiative to limit the number of competing trade shows.

• Government Relations - Because of the diversity of the marine industry, it continues to be very difficult to unite the various parties to offer a unified front in addressing issues of unwanted government intrusion. UMMA has joined forces with NMMA (National Marine Manufacturers Association) to provide a vehicle to mobilize the Members of its related companies to challenge such initiatives. Because of the importance of this initiative, UMMA has extended this service to all of the rest of the industry at no charge (See Government Relations Tab).

• Import/Export - The "United" companies have established a separate trading division, United Global Trading, which helps to import products and/or components for UMMA builders and UMSA suppliers. In addition, this entity helps facilitate the sales of builder and supplier products outside of North America.