HometownSource Blogs

When I accepted a job at the Record right out of college in 2007, my family asked me, “What’s the economy like in Little Falls?”

New to town, I didn’t know that answer, so I asked my editor at the time, Joyce Moran.

“The boatworks are Little Falls,” she said.

I think I, like many others, took that statement for granted, never really thinking about what it means. But now, as reality sets in, we’re going to have to understand it.

Genmar Holdings, Inc. – with one of its five manufacturing headquarters in Little Falls (Larson, Glastron and Seaswirl) – announced last week that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

And now, Genmar founder and CEO Irwin Jacobs is hoping to rally his industry together, calling upon the federal government to see the necessity of providing financial support to the boating industry in the same fashion it did with the automotive industry.

Oh man, my political appetite has my stomach growling just thinking about the partisan politics which will surely be involved. I bet one side will use the word “bailout” and the other will call it “support.”

But locally, that debate will be even more interesting as a movement is brewing.

Little Falls needs to show Jacobs why it should be the company’s home for the future.

And for that, there is a precedent. Recently, there was a “grassroots” effort to show support for the Lindbergh Historical Site in Little Falls. They called it, the “Blue Letter Campaign.” Led by the mayor of Little Falls, Cathy VanRisseghem, a passionate group of individuals took up the cause of saving the Lindbergh House from the Minnesota Historical Society’s chopping block. They said the home was too important to the local economy because of its value to the tourism industry.

They also said there were jobs at stake – a full-time director, a 3/4 time employee and several part-time historical interpreters.

In the end, they sent over 1,000 letters down to the state capitol as part of the Blue Letter Campaign.

So as Jacobs calls for a similar campaign to begin, the Little Falls community should be inundating state representative and senators, U.S. Congressmen and congresswomen and the White House with letters of support for the boating industry. And thus, by the economy of scale, there should be roughly 1 million letters mailed out by area residents.

I mean it’s been shown that Genmar’s headquarters alone (not including Brunswick’s Crestliner and the other boating industry suppliers in the area) put over $150 million into the local economy each year. The business pays over $300,000 a year in property taxes to the city of Little Falls. That’s importance.

But how will a conservative community avoid the hypocrisy of speaking out against the auto bailout and in favor of a boating bailout.

Most likely, this is a case where necessity of government support for the auto industry could not be understood unless your community would see direct losses from the industry’s demise. There were a lot of small towns across America that realized this as suppliers started to go under last year.

Little Falls is now facing that harsh reality.

The community needs to rally with the boating industry, not around it. The letters need to be mailed out calling for government aid to free up wholesale dealer floor plan financing as well as retail financing. The sympathy area residents have expressed for displaced boating industry workers needs to fuel the production of those letters. And city officials, Chamber members and political leaders needs to resolve to support Genmar.

Realize that when we’re talking about the uncertain future of the boating industry, we’re talking about the uncertain future of Little Falls.

Following his Chapter 11 filing, Jacobs told me it was the most “humiliating” experience of his professional career. But he said he had no choice.

I hope knowing that humbles this community as well. The boating industry needs to survive in Little Falls.

Matt Perkins is a Record reporter, and can be reached by e-mailing matt.perkins@mcrecord.com.