Brunswick is here to help??

Not defending Brunswick. Not condemning Brunswick. But how do you know that some of these brands would have even made it for as long as they did had they not been purchased by Brunswick? You cannot only assume their life was shortened. Maybe in some cases it was longer as a result of being owned by Brunswick ...but of course we will never know. The examples in your post are hardly the only US boat brands that have closed or consolidated or contracted in the past 10 years. Just because a business has operated for the past 50 years is no guarantee it will be around for the next 50.

I'll just say this, when Brunswick wants something they go nuts trying to get it. They purchased us (Cabo) in 2006 and though the economy was just starting to shift downward, they made some poor decisions that intimately led to the company being mothballed then sold years later. Their best bet at making anything a success is being able to run it in a very corporate fashion. In our case they tried to turn a family oriented business into a corporate heavy handed business and ended up failing miserably.

By looking at the market and realizing that there are many other brands flourishing in the Sport Yacht and Yacht range which Brunswick essentially killed off for Sea Ray. And don't forget they had put Hatteras/Cabo on life support prior to their fire sale.

The Brunswick Model is fine (they are a long lasted corporation) when you consider their motivation - transoms for Mercury/Mercruiser products. It works for the boating masses, but not so much for the Yachts.

Brunswick purpose is not to “improve the marine industry” but to make money.

Brunswicks problem is they focus completely on cutting costs for short term gains and not on building the brand or building sales or even long term growth and in the end only focusing on cutting costs instead of improving sales and market shares, kills any business. Like with the downfall, they did huge layoffs at all of their builders and got rid of a lot of key people that they just couldn't hire back. And, lots of their boat factories are in small towns, where you just can't hire good trained people. So once those key employees were gone, they're gone. Like in Searay's case, they sold the Merritt Island plant to OA, and OA hired a lot of Searays former workers or the workers got jobs in other industries or moved...… leaving Searay with a lot of new hires that just weren't as good, then couldn't keep the big boats profitable because of the small quality issues and warranty repairs, so they shelf the yachts.....when the entire problem was getting rid of the good employees they had, versus taking a little bit more of a loss for 2+ years till things started turning around.

Do you expect anything less than that.
As I would tell my staff. We are in the business of making money, how we do that is secondary.

Of course not. I was just stating the obvious

I often wonder (after watching thousands of businesses go out of business) of why did they take cash out of the bank that at least made some interest and put it toward “investments” that have a track record of failing, and have “yes men” with no experience other than going to meetings run them? Then somehow the executives walk away whole (if not with a bonus) after they leave the once ongoing business in shambles? Then are immediately hired by other Corporations? I know about the Peter Principal but is there nobody with common sense out there in the Corporate World? How can I get my son a job at one, or is he not qualified because he hasn’t yet wrecked anything? Heck, am I not qualified-I’m pretty sure I could make dumb decisions if I focused on it.

Ocean Alexander wasn't really the issue. And you have to distinguish the SR Plants on Merritt Island - the Merritt Island Manufacturing Plant, the Product, Development and Engineering (PD&E) Plant, the Sykes Creek Manufacturing Plant and the Canaveral Warranty Plant. There was also the Palm Coast Plant in Flagler Beach. If I remember correctly, it goes like this:

Bertram buys the Canaveral Warranty Facility in 2012
SR closes the Merritt Island Production Plant in 2013
Bertram leaves and Ocean Alexander moves into the Canaveral Warranty Facility (now a production facility) in 2015
Sea Ray closes the Palm Coast Plant in 2018
SR closes PD&E in 2018 but keeps the Sykes Creek Plant operational to date. Some PD&E staff are relocated to Boston Whaler

The Space Coast and surrounding areas have always had a good resource of boat workers - Regal, Mastercraft, Monterey and Pursuit just to name a few big ones. There has always been movement amongst those groups and others. With the downsizing over time, SR was able to keep key personnel in selected positions.

The downfall was management's responsibility in regards to the design and construction of the large yachts, not a production employee issue. That is kind of insulting to those who lost their jobs due to no fault of their own. Brunswick lost their appetite for Warranty Policy, refocused on Mercury/Mercruiser product and moved on. Their stock has performed well over the last 15 years, satisfying the corporate needs, and while we may disagree with their approach at times, they have what it takes to remain a winner in the Marine Industry.

I disagree a little. With the large yachts production and employee workmanship was one of the big factors. Boats not being finished on time. Boats with lots of small issues. Owners with punch lists with 65 items on them. Boats having workers pulled from various departments to finish a yacht that's overdue so it didn't miss it's freighter loading to ship to West coast dealers.

My experience is that if you give that workman the time and the tools he or she will do a good job. If you follow that with decent QC you will sell a good product. If you ask them to do everything with nothing by noon.... yeah, you get sub standard performance. Not by their choice.