The Bottom Line: Adapt and thrive
KENWAY CORP.
HEADQUARTERS: Augusta
HISTORY: Kenneth Priest Sr. launched Kenway Boats from his garage in Palermo in 1947. The company stopped selling boats by the 1960s as production shifted to other fiberglass products, and Priest renamed the company Kenway Corp. in 1966. The business grew and diversified into other industries. In 2003, Kenway returned to its boatbuilding roots, and now owns boat brands Southport and Maritime.
EXECUTIVES: Kenway is owned by President Kenneth Priest II, his brother Michael Priest, who works on the shop floor, and Ian Kopp, general manager and vice president.
WORTH NOTING: The deep-vee hulls of Kenway's Southport boats were designed by C. Raymond Hunt Associates, the same marine architecture firm that engineered hulls of Grady-White Boats and Grand Banks Yachts.
FINANCIALS: $7.5 million in revenue
But both products play roles in the changing business strategy of Augusta-based Kenway Corp.
In recent years, the 64-year-old fiberglass manufacturing firm has entered new markets, like boatbuilding, bridge making and wind energy.
Diversification has helped Kenway grow when revenue from traditional clients, like paper and pulp companies, waned.
"There's not a lot that's fun and sexy about paper, pulp and tanks. But boats are fun," said Kenneth Priest II, Kenway's president, during a recent interview. "It's all part of the plan to diversify."
"(Kenway is) a poster child for what Maine companies have to do to survive and thrive," said Steve Von Vogt, managing director of Portland-based Maine Composites Alliance. "They are doing things with infrastructure and pushing the edge on technology."
Kenway, with revenue of $7.5 million and 70 staffers, is a "composites company," said Priest. Kenway designs and manufactures industrial products made from fiberglass, like boats, blades, pipes, tanks and fittings.
Priest's father, Kenneth G. Priest Sr., launched Kenway Boats, a wooden boat building company, in his Palermo garage in 1947.
In the 1950s, Priest Sr. switched to making boats from fiberglass, which is light and strong.
Soon, local pulp and paper companies asked Priest Sr. to build fiberglass storage tanks and pipes.
By the 1960s, Priest Sr. shifted entirely to higher-margin pulp and paper equipment and renamed the company Kenway Corp.
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