On Reflection: Fast Company

The good things about a huge contract like the one Seattles Kvichak Marine Industries has won with a partner in Wisconsin for U.S. Coast Guard rapid-response boats are the revenue and jobs a full production line brings.

The bad thing is that eventually the contract runs out.

And if a company wants to keep its production lines running, employees employed and revenue flowing in, it needs to line up new orders long before that big contract runs out. Thats what Kvichak has been doing. In recent months, it has announced a series of new contracts, including three pilot boats for Alaska, Georgia and Washington.

Kvichak President Keith Whittemore wants more. The orders Kvichak has announced will sustain the companys production linesthe firm has 200 employees at three area facilitiesover the coming months but, as Whittemore notes, Im not looking at one, two, three years [out]. Im looking at five, six, seven, eight, nine years.

Some of the orders will come from other agencies that want versions of the fast and maneuverable 45-foot Coast Guard boats Kvichak now builds at its Kent plant. Whittemore says that contract has about two more years to run. We are working hard to backfill that production line with new orders, he adds. That plant will continue to build rapid-response boats for other customers for a long time.

But prospects for domestic sales are complicated and clouded by ongoing budget fights and constraints at all levels of government. We see this as a long-term issue, Whittemore explains. I see it as the new reality.

So Kvichak, which was Seattle Business magazines Manufacturer of the Year among large firms in the inaugural Washington Manufacturing Awards in 2010, is looking overseas for orders for patrol and pilot boats as well as oil-spill-response vessels. These are very standard products, used pretty universally around the world, he says. Every port has a pilot boat. Every oil facility should have an oil skimmer. Certain areas need patrol boats.

Making a shift in markets and product mix is nothing new for Kvichak, which at one time mainly produced fishing vessels. Says Whittemore, In the marine business, thou shalt be nimble.