Stories That Move
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Stories That Move
Jim Grant | If It Isn't Fun, Don't Do It: Building Sailrite From Scratch
Jim Grant's remarkable journey from political scientist to sailing entrepreneur unfolds as a testament to curiosity, resilience, and the power of pursuing passion. As the founder of Sailrite, Jim transformed a simple solution to a personal problem—needing better sails for a competition—into a thriving family business that spans three generations.
Growing up on Crooked Lake in Indiana, Jim developed an early affinity for boating and entrepreneurship, fixing outboard motors with his brother as teenagers. His path took unexpected turns, from being among the first American students to study abroad globally in the 1950s (where he encountered figures like Eleanor Roosevelt and the Pope) to teaching political philosophy at the university level.
The genesis of Sailrite came when Jim, unable to get professional sails made in time for a national sailing competition, crafted his own—and placed third. This success led to writing instructional articles and manuals on sail construction, which evolved into a business providing materials and guidance for DIY enthusiasts. What began with sail kits expanded to "make your own canvas" projects, supported by durable sewing machines designed to last, unlike the disposable alternatives flooding the market.
Jim's entrepreneurial spirit shines through in stories of running the business from an unheated barn in Indiana, starting a printing operation to produce manuals and catalogs, and continuously adapting to changing circumstances. Throughout it all, his philosophy remained consistent: "If it isn't fun, don't do it. Take a hobby and make it a life."
Now a multi-million dollar enterprise led by the next generation, Sailrite continues to empower people to create with their hands. Jim's advice to aspiring entrepreneurs? "Don't be discouraged by failure. Failure is a way to learn." His story reminds us that with persistence, adaptability, and genuine passion, we can build something meaningful that transcends our own time—turning what we love into a lasting legacy.
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Don't be discouraged by failure. Failure is a way to learn. I know that's a bromide, everybody says that, but very few of us take it to heart. The most important thing in life is to live it. If it isn't fun, don't do it, which means take a hobby and make it a life.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Stories that Move. I'm your host, matt Duhl, and today's episode is a special one for a lot of reasons. Our guest is Jim Grant, a political scientist turned sailing entrepreneur, a pioneer in international study abroad and the founder of Sailrite, a third-generation family business based in Columbia City, indiana. What started with custom sail kits has grown into a global brand that continues to innovate today, and Jim has lived many lives professor, sailor, global traveler and lifelong learner. His story is filled with curiosity, grit and a deep love for empowering others to create with their hands. And there's one more thing that makes today's episode extra meaningful Jim also happens to be Alexis's grandfather-in-law, so this was more than just a great conversation. It was a family moment we were honored to share. Let's get into it and welcome Jim Grant to Stories that Make All right.
Speaker 4:We are so excited to be jumping in today. Alexis, I want you to introduce our very special guest. Yes, on today's episode we've got Jim Grant. He is my grandfather-in-law. He is a lifelong learner, the founder of Sailrite out in Columbia City and just one of the most unique men that I have come to know over the years. We are so excited to have him and unpack a little more of his story today.
Speaker 3:Jim, thank you for joining us today. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, such a pleasure. So, jim, just to start off, we want to back up and hear some of your story, but for starters, help our listeners understand what is Sailrite. What do you all do as a company, sailrite?
Speaker 1:sells instructions, usually free, but we also sell the supplies that are required in order to implement the projects, and those supplies must be manufactured, and that usually requires a sewing machine, and so Sailrite also produces a sewing machine. That is unique in one respect it functions, and it continues to function over a period of years. Most sewing machines sold today, I'm afraid, are unable to meet that criterion. They're lightweight but not long lived.
Speaker 3:How's that? Yeah, so what is the main product, the main project that people would be doing?
Speaker 1:I think it started out to be make your own sales. Indeed, that was part of the company's title Sailrite make your own sales and win, In fact, over the long haul it became make your own canvas. It's a lot easier to think in terms of building a Dodger or a Bimini or a sail cover or a bag than it is to think in terms of building a sail, Even though, in my opinion still, sails are probably one of the easiest projects that one can undertake. Building a Roman shade is a lot harder than making a sail. Understanding how to make that shade fold properly is an engineering feat, whereas building a sail is essentially a flat object. Whereas building a sail is essentially a flat object, there's a bit of shape built in, but it's done with half inch changes in seam widths, and so it's relatively insignificant.
Speaker 3:Process the materials, the instructions to basically help people through kind of a DIY process for sales and then eventually more products than just that, Connie my wife and I moved to California.
Speaker 1:I was to be a teacher and I did teach for three years. But in the course of that three years we bought a small 20-foot sailboat and we started to race it actively. We'd done sailing before I was brought up here in Indiana on Crooked Lake and we always had sailboats. But sailing on the ocean is a whole different game and there was much more competition.
Speaker 1:We would have 25 to 45 boats on the water on a given weekend Wow and the nationals were coming up. We finished about eighth or ninth in the fleet championships, which was enough to qualify us for the nationals. But we needed better sails.
Speaker 1:But we needed better sails we thought and I couldn't get them made in time. I went to four or five sailmakers and their wait times were always four or five months. I needed them in two or three weeks, so we made our own. We had cloth left over from a project that we carried out in Chicago when we were going to school there. Okay, and we did pretty well. We ended up third in the nationals. That's out of some 65 boats. You know Wow. To finish high up was unusual and as a result of that, I was teaching at the time and as a result of that.
Speaker 1:I was teaching at the time, but I started writing articles about how those sales were constructed. They appeared in the Caltoni newsletter, probably a circulation of what? 400 or 500? Maybe not even that and those eventually became little manuals on building sails, wow. And then you needed to have the, the fabric and the hardware, and nobody sold it. So in the garage we started stocking sailcloth.
Speaker 3:Anyway, that's a short story no, I love that, I love that that. So you go out to California as a teacher, you're, you're racing sailboats, kind of as a hobby, and through all of that you find this issue of we need better sales. You start to create it and then it turns into a product for other people Amazing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's kind of the nature of Jim really is he sees a need, he's like I've got a solution for that and so, yeah, I mean, if it wasn't clearly said um, sailrite is essentially equipping the di wires of today, whether that is, you know, avid sailors, or it's, you know, the mom and dad at home who just want to reupholster a chair, whatever it may be, and sailrite is coming alongside of them to equip them, whether it's the tools, the instructions, inspiration and so forth to get that project started.
Speaker 3:Wow, very cool, very cool. Ok, so, jim, let's, let's back up a moment and let's just hear where you originally from and just tell us a little bit about life for you. Growing up, I'm from.
Speaker 1:Columbia City and I was brought up on Crooked Lake just north of Columbia City, about nine miles north of Columbia City. And I was brought up on Crooked Lake just north of Columbia City, about nine miles north of Columbia City. My father was a dentist. He was quite a man. He was willing to do things that most fathers, unfortunately, are not willing to do. For example, I remember my first boat race power boats this time in Detroit. My first marathon. My uncle went with us. We camped out. When my uncle returned, by the way, I capsized in the race and did not finish the race when uh when we returned home, my uncle's one comment was there has never been a father like lowell.
Speaker 1:He permitted that activity yeah it was not fun for older people to camp in a tent, and we did it over and over and over again. We went all across the United States. At one point I held the record for class B utility 53 miles per hour. Within two hours someone went 54. It didn't mean any good, but it was still something.
Speaker 3:I claim to this day A record that you got Absolutely, absolutely, as you should.
Speaker 2:As you should.
Speaker 3:Where did that passion for boat racing come from?
Speaker 1:It's hard to say. I suspect it was more a matter of having grown up on the water Sure yeah.
Speaker 1:We always had boats. Dad loved to refinish boats. I remember we bought a Lightning, which is a sailboat about 20 feet long, 19 feet long, and Dad proceeded to work on it all one winter. It turned out to be about twice as heavy as it should be when we were done. Beautiful but not very good as a sailing boat. It was water logged, it was heavy, but that's fun. You learn that sort of thing over time in a family and it matters yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, over time in a family, and it matters. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it sounds like you know, the love for sailing was instilled um again, yeah by your father. That was a family thing that you did. But eventually, you know, you kind of said your dad permitted a lot of things that were unusual. And so not just sailing, but even going into your teenage years, you know, I think you had an internship in DC. You were one of the first 20 to do a world tour. You know, tell us more about what led up to those opportunities. Was it your parents? Was it academics?
Speaker 1:Well, we started a company, my brother and I. My brother is John, he's a doctor now and we started a company fixing outboard motors and dad was very supportive of that. We put a big 200-gallon tank on the pier so that we could sell gasoline to people on Crooked Lake Wow and opened up the garage so we could work on outboard motors. Yeah, and John put himself in part through school by working as a mechanic during the summer he became quite a good mechanic. I didn't quite achieve that, but I did learn a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, About. How old were you guys during this season?
Speaker 1:Oh we would have been. When I started racing, I was 16. That was the youngest. You could race a b utility yeah my brother was 12 and he could race an, a utility which is a a little, uh, smaller uh, what a 10 horse engine instead of a 20 horse engine. And so we both raced right from the beginning, from 12 in his case and 14 in my case, and we raced until about age 16. And then we went to college I'm sorry, until 18, for me 16 for him and we went to college and we couldn't race anymore.
Speaker 1:I miss that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but obviously early entrepreneurial spirit to be fixing motors and selling gas. That's right, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. Where does that entrepreneurial spirit come from?
Speaker 1:It's probably something everybody has, and I suspect circumstances are more important than innate ability, and circumstances depend a lot on luck. Interesting that's Machiavelli tried to eliminate the effect of fortune, but I think, as fortune is very important, uh chance yeah, is a significant importance the right place, the right time yes taking advantage of that situation that was in front of you. Yes, yeah, yeah, which may mean that we're not in control of our destiny. Hmm, interesting, okay. Well, my, my, I studied political philosophy.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And. I still consider myself a student of philosophy.
Speaker 3:Like Alexis mentioned, you were one of the first American students to study abroad with the International School of America in the 1950s. Tell us about that, carl.
Speaker 1:Yeager, a young man who was the son of an industrialist in Ohio, very wealthy because of his father, decided that he would devote himself to improving the quality of youth in the United States. And he thought the best way to do it was with a program that exposed us all to the world, and you've got to give the guy credit To organize a trip like that. He did it several times Probably, and I should know better, but I think he did it three times. My brother went the second year, so we were participants in two of those three efforts.
Speaker 1:It was a wonderful experience. It was a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, I failed to assimilate most of what he thought I should. As a young man, it's awfully easy to ignore the most important things around you, and I was guilty, so probably is almost everybody. But, it was an opportunity that, nevertheless, was very important, even though I might not have made the best use of it.
Speaker 3:Sure sure. What do you remember about that experience? A highlight or something that really stood out to you?
Speaker 1:My first paper. I think we were in New York at the time. The English teacher there were five teachers the English teacher, who was a professor from Ohio State, asked us to write a paper about what we intended to do when we returned to the United States. I told her I intended to get married to my high school sweetheart and I did. But she said in her response to my paper, an F, the first time I'd ever received an F, and she said it was rather superficial.
Speaker 1:My response was you only gave me a half an hour. How do you expect it not to be superficial? Was rather superficial. My response was you only gave me a half an hour. How do you expect it not to be superficial? It was superficial, and yet it was true too. I married my high school sweetheart immediately upon returning to the United States.
Speaker 4:Wow, but I think, even with that, you know it was. I think an eight-month tour or so, right, yeah. But knowing that you did want to, I think an eight month tour or so, right, yeah, um, but knowing that you did want to get married, I mean, I've heard stories from grandma Connie and even other family members of just how you'd lather her in gifts so you'd go to China, you get her a dress from there, you'd go to India, you'd find some spices, and so you know, just large scale. I mean, it's so easy to travel nowadays, right, you just book your phone, your your ticket on an app of some sort and you can go. But in the 50s, this is a big deal, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I have a certificate that says from Pan Am, which went bankrupt within two years after I left, but the certificate was you are one of the few who have traveled around the world on Pan Am and it was. It was quite an opportunity.
Speaker 1:But, and we got to see people who my grandchildren don't know anything about Nehru, I have a signature from Eleanor Roosevelt, uh, other people that you wouldn't even recognize the names, but they were very important people and uh, we were, I think, properly influenced by our short visits with them. I hope we were anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, wow. Do you remember meeting Eleanor Roosevelt? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. Do you remember meeting Eleanor Roosevelt? Oh, yes, yeah, tell us about that.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, Well it's the same way with the Pope. I met the Pope, but what does it? Mean to meet someone. I stood within five feet of both of them, and yet I really didn't meet them. But I was influenced by them. That's what matters more than anything. I was impressed, and it's important to be impressed, I think, young kids today. Here I go again.
Speaker 2:I'm spouting off.
Speaker 1:But young kids today should be more impressed. They're too likely to think I am my own person and it doesn't matter what other people think of me, it's very important what other people think of you, and so my muteness, in a way, was my recognition that I had a lot to learn from them. And, rather than spouting off on my own, I was better off just listening, just listening yeah. How's that for self-justification?
Speaker 3:I'll take it. I'll take it. So, as you think back on those experiences and again you were influenced by those people, by that experience what would you say? What was the lasting mark for you? What would you say, um, what was the lasting mark for you, like, how did that then apply to your life, to your future business, all of those things?
Speaker 1:well, I suspect, more than anything, it gave me confidence yeah, I felt as though I had a leg up yeah that's important. Uh, it's, it's. I can speak now to my, my daughter-in-law. It's important that her children feel that they are able.
Speaker 2:That's the way to put it, I guess.
Speaker 1:It's important to approach a problem with some confidence. Yeah, okay, I remember in class at IU I was in a class with HJ Muller, who there are two Mullers at IU. One was a Nobel Prize winner, he was the chemist and the other was an historian, and I was in the historian's class. He was talking about magic and why it occurred so often in ancient societies. He said how could that be? What causes it? Ancient societies? He said how could that be what causes it? I raised my hand and I said I think it gives people some control over their environment. If they think they can wave a wand and make something happen. It makes them feel more confident and thus it's a good thing. It stabilizes the environment, and I credit that sort of insight to my experience with the International School of America.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, love it Leg up.
Speaker 4:All right, I'll tell my kids that. Okay, well, I'm just one. I didn't know you met the Pope, so that's kind of a big deal. So who else on the list have you met that I don't know of in that tour?
Speaker 1:Oh, on that tour.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, a lot of people you wouldn't recognize. Emerson Burkhart was our artist, our resident artist. He was actually a pretty good artist. He was from Ohio and you can look him up on the Internet. He was a modern artist, not in the sense that he painted triangles and rectangles and so forth. He was modern in the impressionist sense, I guess you'd say, although he didn't use dots either.
Speaker 1:But he was quite a character. I remember he took me, along with two of the other students, joe Ford and John Patterson, to a White Sox game, and I got to see Ted Musial play his last game, or one of his last games. He was at the plate twice and they walked him both times. So I didn't get to see any action. But, it was still nevertheless an important thing.
Speaker 3:Yes Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so cool.
Speaker 3:So cool. So what was it that then led you to study political science and philosophy and those sort of things thought very much of in modern universities.
Speaker 1:It was hard to get any training in that sort of thing at IU. At least it was hard for me. One of my friends at IU recommended that I go to the University of Chicago to study under Leo Strauss, and I did. It was a wise move. I benefited, I think, a lot from Dr Strauss, Mr Strauss.
Speaker 4:So you did actually teach there for a while, right? Or did you attend Not?
Speaker 1:at the university itself. I taught at IUPU in Gary.
Speaker 4:Okay, oh gotcha Senior five.
Speaker 1:And then I went from there to Claremont Men's College, which is a very conservative school very Straussian Okay. And worked with Martin Diamond and Harry Jaffa, two excellent Straussian students Just had a ball, but I didn't really consider myself a very good teacher and I bought a boat and started sailing Wow.
Speaker 4:But even with that. So not only did you buy a boat, but you guys lived in a boat in Chicago, right In Chicago.
Speaker 1:We bought a 32-foot boat for $600. You can imagine what shape it was in. And the $600 didn't go to the owner of the boat, it went to the yard.
Speaker 1:They had accumulated that much in back rental fees, Sure yeah, and we worked on that boat, Connie and I, for an entire winter instead of studying. I didn't study as much as I should have, but we had fun and we sailed it the next year and then the year following that, Connie was pregnant and she ended up having the baby while we were living on the boat. We had subletted our apartment so we had to live on the boat. It's quite an experience to raise a child on a boat. When you think of a boat, you think I've got a dock. I walk down to the dock and step onto the boat. No, we had a boat moored into Grant Park Harbor about 400 feet from shore, and the only transportation out there was a kayak that I made out of a piece of styrofoam.
Speaker 1:And we had to row out to the boat.
Speaker 2:It was fun.
Speaker 1:Wow, it was quite an experience.
Speaker 2:We didn't sail very much.
Speaker 1:We had a good time, though that didn't have sails, and that's where the first sails came from. I had to make sails. I didn't have money to buy sails and so we made sails and we raced that boat rather successfully. It wasn't super, but we had a lot of fun racing that boat on Lake Michigan.
Speaker 3:Wow, okay, and I don't want to miss this point you said you were refurbishing this boat during the winter. Yeah, in Chicago, yeah.
Speaker 1:Connie had the baby in a basket on the boat, while she would be scraping down the hall or sanding.
Speaker 4:This is my father-in-law.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have pictures of it, I can prove it, wow, wow, and I think too, so, Connie's an amazing woman.
Speaker 3:We've just established that, like my goodness. Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 4:The visual here, though so he did mention, you know, the little styrofoam kayak is that he would take that kayak to shore right for classes or work or whatnot, but he'd leave his wife on the boat oh yeah she's super pregnant, and so all these other sailors around them would have this concern of like who is your husband, why is he leaving you here?
Speaker 4:you know, like you know, she would tell stories of like hey, I'm here, come get me. You know, like stranded pregnant woman on the sailboat. That's not functional. So anyway, yes, she's an amazing woman, but I'll let you guys continue we, we used.
Speaker 1:Grant park harbor is about uh what? 10 miles from the University of Chicago.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And to get back and forth I used a Lambretta scooter, a small one, 125cc, and the scooter was constantly being stolen, but it only went 35 miles an hour Right, and so I suspect that every time they'd steal it they'd find this thing doesn, it doesn't go, this is too slow so they'd park and the police would find it and I'd get it back wow, yeah, but it was. Those were years that uh probably had an a formative tendency. You can't reproduce that though. No, it's all spur of the moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I'm sure, living through that, there was a sense of you could almost feel like you could do anything at that point.
Speaker 1:Well, you're right, Nothing was ever going to go wrong.
Speaker 3:Nothing did, fortunately but it could have. Wow, Wow, Okay. So at some point you pull up anchor, you head out to California To teach, To teach but you're still sailing.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to sail. We sold the boat.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, that $5,000 was the down payment on our first house in California. Okay, when we got to California, my first concern was to start teaching. My second concern was to buy a boat, and we did so. I guess the order of precedence indicates where I was at that point. Yes, wow, okay.
Speaker 4:But really okay. So that is, you know, humble beginnings there, the birth of Sailrite. I mean, I've heard stories, even just from other family members, of your parents and even other people thought you guys were crazy to move out that way a little bit and start the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, except you've got to give my parents credit. They invested $5,000, which was a lot of money for us at that point and the idea was that I would return the money. I never did, I never did and I feel guilty for that even to this day. I did take care of my mother, but it wasn't a direct payment by any means.
Speaker 1:Anyway family obligations are important and I wish I had done better. But back to Sailrite. No, we would take if we sold $50 on a given day. That was a big day and uh, the fact that I was teaching meant that it didn't matter that much. But uh, my teaching only lasted for four years and Sailrite was far from well underway by that point. We, we were still very unable to survive without a lot of effort. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So then talk to us through what was that effort and what was it the thing that really created Sailrite to be more sustainable for you?
Speaker 1:Well, we bought a we didn't buy. We rented a store in Marina Del Rey. Okay, and it turned out pretty well. I think I spent a lot of time without ever seeing a customer come through the door, but nevertheless it was a profitable enterprise and the Cal 20 fleet was very good. They supported me by buying sails and kits. And that group was a significant factor in the survival of Sailrite, really.
Speaker 3:So at that point of Sailrite, really, so at that point is Sailrite, you and Connie, did you have employees? Were you starting to grow?
Speaker 1:We had some employees Nothing significant. To tell you the truth, sailrite was really not successful until my son and another daughter-in-law not Alexis, because Alexis didn't exist at this point. But when Matt and Hallie took over, that's when Sailrite really began to thrive.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Indeed, when they did take over, I was deeply involved in. The computer business did take over. I was deeply involved in the computer business. I was selling Wang computers and servicing a grain elevator, writing software for them, and Fox Products, a bassoon and oboe manufacturer in South Whitley. I was writing software for them. And also a third company, viking. They make muffler hangers in Columbia City. Those three companies were really my business.
Speaker 1:That was the heart of my income the first few years until Matt and Hallie took over Sailrite and they devoted proper attention to it and made it work. So what I'm saying, I guess, is that I don't deserve any praise for. Sailrite's existence, except for the fact that I started it.
Speaker 3:Well, that definitely takes something for sure. So what was the thing that brought you from California back to Columbia City?
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to bring my kids up in a rural environment. We came back to a farm.
Speaker 1:I bought a farm just outside of Columbia City, south of Columbia City, and a beautiful house, a beautiful barn. I put the business in the barn even though we couldn't heat it. I put the business in the barn even though we couldn't heat it. It was tough running that mail-order business out of a barn without heat, wow, and some of the cloth I'm sure I sent was rather soiled by its exposure to the elements in the barn. Yes, but it was fun and we made that barn watertight eventually and started a printing operation in the basement of the barn. I used the printing to support Sailrite. We printed all the manuals and all the catalogs and other incidental things and other incidental things. We had one of the first typesetters that wasn't lineograph, in other words, it was a computer-driven typesetter, an edit writer, and we were advanced in that respect, I guess mostly because we were just getting started and had no choice but to buy the latest that was what was available.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So I've been a sale maker, a printer. We had a newspaper for a printer. Uh, we had a newspaper for a while. Uh, I started a school of sail making. So I've, I've been in the uh in the business of uh teaching over the mail, uh, wow.
Speaker 3:So I've done a lot but I've had fun all the way along and now, in your retirement, you're doing programming still for the company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm telling people, I'm trying to make it possible for people to more easily build things out of fabric. Wow, I call it a fabrication. Yeah, let's fabricate. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:I love it. Well, Jim, it's, it's amazing, and I'm I'm so grateful for you to come in and share your story with us. And what strikes me is, you know, as you said at the beginning, you believe very much in right place at the right time.
Speaker 3:And in your life. What you've described to us is somebody who grabbed a hold of every opportunity and just squeezed the most out of it that you could, and in that you created an amazing business. You've had a wonderful family that's grown and carried on that business. We have a lot of young business leaders, entrepreneurs, who listen to our show and, as I told you, you know we're just four years old here. What would you say to the young business owners, the young entrepreneurs in that startup mode? What would your advice be to them?
Speaker 3:Your encouragement be to them.
Speaker 1:Don't be discouraged by failure. Failure is a way to learn. I know that's a bromide, everybody says that, but very few of us take it to heart. The the most important thing in life is to live it. One more bromide it's okay. If it isn't fun, don't do it. Which means take a hobby and make it a life wow it's not not hard to do mm-hmm wow I love that and I even love yeah, if it's not fun, don't do it.
Speaker 4:I mean, that's kind of the theme of what I've seen in you, right From your world adventures to Sailrite, to even retirement. You've chosen to make it fun, right, even when you know someone steals your scooter. Or I don't think we talked about this earlier, but when you were doing a tour in Europe with Connie alongside of you, you guys had this Mercedes-Benz that your dad tasked you with and that was stolen. Oh yeah, you of you. You guys had this mercedes-benz that your dad tasked you with and that was stolen.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah you know which is a different story but, um tell us that I mean you gotta hear it now that's.
Speaker 1:That's a good story, yeah we, I, I had a uh ford foundation, uh fellowship. I was to write a paper on French colonial disaster. They lost Morocco, they lost Tunisia and I was to spend the summer doing it. And we went to Paris and I spent most of my time in the bibliothèque, the library the.
Speaker 1:National Library Spoke lousy French. Still do. I don't speak any French anymore. The thing that Connie and I enjoyed the most was every four or five days we'd go to a five-star restaurant, and the French know how to cook. You've got to give them credit for that. The rest of the time we'd eat eggs and tomatoes were my favorite On a street corner. We had very good breakfast that way.
Speaker 2:I still like eggs and tomatoes.
Speaker 1:Next time, Alexis, you can make me eggs and tomatoes for breakfast.
Speaker 4:Sure Noted, write that down for tomorrow, but anyway.
Speaker 1:Dad wanted a Mercedes diesel and he found that he could pay less in duties if he bought a used one. And so we went over to pick up the diesel at the factory the same day, or very soon after picking it up at the factory, I parked it and didn't know anything about street signs in Germany. Evidently I parked it in a no parking zone. We went to the hotel and I went down to check on the car and it was gone and I told Connie I'll have to find it. I don't know what happened to it. And I went to the police station and it took me forever, but I finally returned with the vehicle. Everything was fine. I walked into the room and I thought well, I'll play a joke on Connie, I'll tell her that the police made me an offer I could either give them a large sum of money or I could stay in jail overnight. And she responded well, why are you here?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh so good.
Speaker 4:That was their personality. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it yes.
Speaker 3:Okay. So as we wrap up our time here, tell us about, you know, for you again, those early days of Sailrite working out of, you know, your garage eventually to a barn, now seeing it thrive as a multimillion dollar third generation company. What does that mean to you? Oh?
Speaker 1:it's. It's frightening, it really is. I can't understand how they can survive. Things like tariffs are threatening, competitors are threatening. It's tough to live in this environment. I really respect the work that these young people are doing. I'm sure you're in the same boat, matt. Everybody's struggling. It's harder now, I think, than it was when I was involved. The work environment is more threatening, I believe, than it was. So I'm respectful. You're doing a good job. Keep it up.
Speaker 4:But I mean to the point you said earlier. You know, even if all else fails, there is hope at the end of the day. Keep leaning in, keep staying curious right, keep pushing forward. You know Sailrite's not leaving anytime soon, but there's always ways to innovate right, always.
Speaker 1:You have to worry about keeping up Everything is a challenge, and that's good that keeps us on our toes. We need to be kept on our toes.
Speaker 3:It's too easy to become complacent. You don't want to do that, yeah, but I have a feeling you're probably someone who really soaks in the process and the journey more than the finished product.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah, yeah, that's an interesting point, matt is is it more important to focus on the goal or is it more important to focus on the means to get to the goal? I'm not sure that I know the answer to that? I'm not sure there is an answer to that. You have to focus on all of it.
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, but from what I've heard from your life, it certainly sounds like you've soaked up quite a bit in the experience, which is amazing. It's amazing, awesome. Well, jim, thank you so much for your generosity to just come and spend time with us today. This has been just so much fun to hear your stories and to get to know you and know that that, yes, you have created an incredible business that continues on through your family. So, uh, thank you really appreciate you coming today. Thank you for having me matt awesome, I appreciate it, awesome. And, to all of our listeners and viewers, thank you for joining us for another episode of stories that move. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories that Move brought to you by Dream On Studios.
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Speaker 2:We believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference.
Speaker 3:Let's make yours heard. Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter take care everyone.
Speaker 2:We'll see you next time on stories that move.