Unified Marine -- A Classic American Success Story

In 1984 David Nirenberg used to store inventory in the bedroom of his Naples home and cringed each time the mail brought credit card statements. Since those days, the company Nirenberg started has grown its warehouses and offices four times, located today in a 51,000-square-foot distribution and packaging facility in Naples.

What moved this entrepreneur past the precarious world of start-ups and on to a company whose products are now distributed through Kmart, Lowe's and Sears? "I did a lot of missionary work," Nirenberg says. "Fear of failure was a big motivator."

Not out to Sea

That fear catapulted Unified Marine Inc. from a home-based, one-man show into a firmly established and well-respected supplier of marine equipment. As a sales representative for a boating products distributor, David Nirenberg's world was shaken up 14 years ago when the employer cut his territory in half. He faced a crossroad in his life but knew it was time to set out on his own, despite a pregnant wife and a new home.

"I struggled for a lot of years just to get by and was right at the edge of failure several times," he says. "Living off credit cards is not a good feeling."

Establishing credit is a tough obstacle for a new business, particularly during its first few years. After the bank called in his first loan, Nirenberg's response was to form a "strategic alliance" with a supplier, allowing the loan to be paid and the business to stay afloat. Later on, financing was sought and received through a SBA loan of $600,000.

Unified Marine manufactures, imports and markets some 450 boating-related products nationally, 200 of them under its SeaSense brand name. "We target the owners of powerboats in the 10- to 28-foot range. Our strategy is to offer that 20 percent of the items, which move 80 percent of the time. We also handle impulse items, things that need to be replaced frequently," says Nirenberg.

Through a staff of 250, the company has operations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, as well as a 38,000-square-foot western states distribution and packaging center located in Indianapolis, chosen for its central location. Between Naples and Indianapolis, the facilities have nearly doubled the company's capacity to allow for continued growth.

Success Begets Success

Unquestionably, long hours are de rigeur for the self-employed and require the proverbial collection of hats, especially in the early years. "At the beginning, I worked from sunup until late at night, taking sales calls during the day, filling orders at night and delivering them myself the next day," says Nirenberg.

Nirenberg, left school in the middle of eleventh grade, did not obtain a GED and sometimes wonders how applicable some high school courses are in the real world. Apparently, he pushed the envelope from the very beginning. "Major manufacturers wouldn't sell to small distributors like me," he said. "I had to find smaller companies that didn't have any distribution in Florida."

Getting the right product to its ultimate end user is crucial, yet getting shelf space with mass retailers is no easy task. But somehow, Nirenberg persuaded Sears' regional buying office in Miami to carry his products in the Fort Myers store.

"When they saw the system working in Fort Myers, Sears added the store in Naples, then stores in Miami and Key West," Nirenberg says. "That was followed by all stores from Key West to Orlando, then all stores along the eastern seaboard as far north as Washington, DC."

Bolstered with confidence, Nirenberg then approached Kmart, which used its Punta Gorda store for a trial run. Through the eventual success with Kmart, "we had the ability to begin packaging under our SeaSense brand," says Nirenberg. Now with a growing distribution in place, "We've doubled the size of the business every year for the past three years. The volume we did five years ago, we now do in a month."

SeaSense products, purchased overseas, are packaged in Naples. Unified Marine also handles in-store promotion campaigns for about 20 sporting goods manufacturers, including Dunlop golf products, Jansport backpacks, Bear Archery, Swiss Army Knives and Wellington Outdoors. With boating's seasonality, "it helps balance our business," says Nirenberg. But a closer look shows this is a bit of an understatement. These in-store promotions are a major service that manufacturers dealing with Unified have come to rely upon.

Finding a Niche

Large national retailers must regionalize or risk losing dollars on precious retail floor space. Depleted, unavailable or back-ordered inventory costs money to both the retailer and the manufacturer whose product is not properly stocked. Suppliers soon grow impatient with archaic replenishment systems.

Retail buyers in Arkansas aren't necessarily attuned to what each state may need on its store shelves. What sells in some parts of the country collects dust in others; snow skis aren't big around here, and boating sales can be stagnant in landlocked Middle America. Even in states such as Florida, product needs vary. For example, stores on the coastline of this state would do well to stock salt-water equipment, while a mere 20 miles inland it's fresh-water Lake Okechobee. In comes Nirenberg with his specialized sales force and their ability to change the set in each store to earn the most amount of dollars on the goods.

Starbrite, an international company that makes chemicals for boats and RVs, has been a client of Unified since the beginning. President Peter Dorneau Sr. says he has watched the company grow from its infancy. Back then, Starbrite dealt directly with mass merchants, an often frustrating arrangement. Dorneau attributes Unified's impressive growth with "good hard work on their part. They plan for the customers they service." In servicing the mass merchants, Unified "does a service they can't do. We now have a giant operating efficiently," says Dorneau.

Unified began distributing Wellington products about eight years ago. Wellington is the world's largest water sports manufacturer with leisure products such as cordage, personal floatation devices, ski ropes and skis and wake boards, a particularly popular item right now. Mark Emmi, group vice president of sporting goods, says Unified has "grown significantly" and has become "one of the largest users of marine dock lines and anchor lines in the country right now."

"I think Dave found a niche in the marketplace in what we call micro-marketing," continues Emmi. Unified's sales representatives specialize in a given area and go into stores seasonally to review inventory and maintain it on a day-to-day basis. This also includes taking the space dedicated to a particular sporting-goods category and changing