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The company's new boat and engine service center opened there about Dec. 1, replacing an older facility. A new boat storage building also has been constructed there.
SkipperLiner Marine Group owner Noel Jordan said Tuesday he plans to start construction in April on a building at the North Bay Marina that will house a new restaurant, showers and rooms for changing clothes. He hopes it will open about June 15.
Jordan also hopes to start construction in June, and finish work by December, on a new boat manufacturing plant at the North Bay Marina complex. That will replace SkipperLiner's existing boat assembly plant at 3222 Commerce St. in La Crosse.
In June, Dave Schmidt and Justin Pretasky became part owners of SkipperLiner's La Crosse retail operation. Jordan remains part owner of that operation and continues to be sole owner of the rest of SkipperLiner Marine Group.
"These guys are young and dynamic," Jordan said of Schmidt and Pretasky, who had worked elsewhere in the boat industry. "And we're so focused on our big boat business and that sort of thing," Jordan said of the rest of SkipperLiner Marine Group. His company manufactures houseboats, yachts and commercial boats; and owns the South Bay and North Bay marinas in the La Crosse area and the La Crosse Queen and Island Girl excursion boats.
Besides that, Jordan and La Crosse developer Jay Hoeschler plan to develop a condominium, hotel and restaurant complex at the former Yacht Club Resorts motel complex in the next few years.
Pretasky is the son, and Schmidt is the son-in-law, of Jordan's former SkipperLiner partner, Dave Pretasky.
Justin Pretasky, who is the new director of sales for SkipperLiner's American Marine, moved to La Crosse from Tampa, Fla., after more than 12 years of marine industry experience. Schmidt, the new director of service operations at SkipperLiner Marine Group's North Bay Marina facility, moved to La Crosse from Wilmington, ., after nearly 20 years of marine industry experience.
Dave Pretasky, who sold his interest in SkipperLiner to Jordan in 1991, bought the Elfman Marine boat dealership in La Crosse in 1984 and immediately renamed it American Marine. In 1986, American Marine moved to the Barron Island building that now houses SkipperLiner's headquarters and the La Crosse retail facility.
"In 1986, Noel and I kind of merged the two businesses," Pretasky said of SkipperLiner and American Marine. The La Crosse retail operation eventually was renamed SkipperLiner Marine.
The Pretaskys and Schmidt said Tuesday that SkipperLiner's American Marine is expanding its inventory of new and pre-owned sport boats, cruisers and fishing boats. "We'll have more models to choose from." Justin Pretasky said. The retail operation sells Sea Ray, Tracker and Yamaha boats and pre-owned pleasure and fishing boats.
The retail operation has had four sales people, Pretasky said. It probably will have five to seven sales people by summer, because of the expanded inventory and increased sales, he said.
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