The API Marine Story Part 2

1973

How API Marine Was Started

Re Written 2012* 1,843 Words

By Howard Yasgar

Part 2

Eventually we signed up the William Miller Co.

They were hired to represent API Marine to the major marine distributors located in the Southeast of the United States.

It wasn’t long before the William Miller Company recommended to us another first-class group called Atlantic Marketing. They were going to represent API Marine in the New England area.

The orders from the Marine distributors soon began pouring in.

We knew immediately that we had some big problems to resolve due to the volume of orders we were receiving.

There were many special marine components and special parts that we needed to make to be able to convert commercial automotive starters and alternators into rebuilt marine units.

We knew that parts we needed could be made in Taiwan inexpensively, so my wife Katherine and I started traveling to Taiwan to look for reliable parts manufactures there.

It was quite an interesting time for us, as we were looking for Taiwan manufactures, and the Taiwanese manufactures were looking for U.S. customers like us.

Our hotel room phone never stopped ringing, and we were invited to visit quite a few companies.

Eventually we signed up with a Taiwanese company called PAAL.

Paal was run by Kiv Wang and his cousin Han Chen.

In the meantime, my partner Don was in Miami running API Marine and also managing our original company Automotive Parts Industries.

My son Jack had just closed his printing company, and I asked him to join up with us which he did.

Jack then set up a telemarketing operation in a large empty room in the API warehouse.

That’s when I started noticing an attitude change in my partner Don.

His first wife had divorced him, and he was now divorcing his second wife.

Don always acted weird, so I didn’t pay too much attention to his craziness.

Sometimes his girlfriends would call me up to ask if I could shut off Don’s source of income. They said he was spending money like crazy. They wanted to know where he got his money and what was wrong with him.

I knew Don had quite a few mental disorders so I tried not to let what the girls said bother me, but it was weird.

One day, Don told me he was going to divorce his second wife Linda.

We went to see an attorney and I watched Don pay him $3,500.00 in cash. This was my wakeup call. I started to investigate what Don was doing.

I started taking the company checkbook home, and my wife Katherine, and my son Jack, went through all the checks. It was terrible, it was apparent Don was embezzling the money.

There were quite a few checks made out to me, and Don was hiding them.

It appears he would have the secretary make out two checks, one for me and one for him. Then Don would cash his Check but he never gave me my check, he was stealing thousands.

I started going through our inventory and I realized a lot of merchandise was missing. The loss was in the millions of dollars.

It was 1991 when I discovered that My Partner Don had embezzled such a large sum of money which he apparently needed to support his wife’s drug habit and his own drinking.

The discovery forced me into filing a lawsuit, and my partner Don's ultimate departure.

With the departure of Don, the full extent of his embezzlement came to light and I had to try and

reorganize the various enterprises that we were engaged in.

Fortunately, my son Jack stayed with me long enough to help me.

At the time my wife Katherine was being offered a vice presidency by the freight forwarding company she worked for, but fortunately I was able to convince her to come and help me with the reorganization.

Katherine had excellent corporate experience and she easily took over most of the administrative work as well as the management of API Marine and the supervision of our Caterpillar Electric start

kit division.

We also had about 20 loyal employees working for us, and excellent working facilities. I wanted to develop a business that could utilize them all.

Around late 1991 my good friend Richard Schneider came by to talk to me about resurrecting API

.Marine.

Richard had always been in the Marine business and had a real love for it. He had also been in the

boat building business, and he had managed a Marina for a Drug Dealer who ended up getting convicted and jailed.

After that Richard got into the yacht repossession business with a Chase Manhattan bank employee.

Richard then suggested that he come in and run API Marine for me..

I had little interest in running it, so it seemed like a good idea, and I told Richard if he came in and got API Marine moving again, I would sell him the assets at a reasonable price.

Richard agreed and came to run API Marine.

Richard started out OK, and he eventually brought in his son Brian to help him.

Brian was just out of high school and really had no direction. The last thing on Brian’s mind was selling marine parts.

My problem with Richard was, instead of managing API Marine, he was running around doing twenty different things, none related to the API Marine business, so the running of the company

fell on Brian, and Katherine.

I was very gratified to see Brian, who to his credit started to learn the Marine Power Tilt Motor business and the skills needed to run API Marine.

Finally, the day came when I needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with Richard.

I told Richard that I would hold good my promise to him to sell API Marine. But he should let Brian

buy it, instead of Richard.

Richard, who had recently gotten married, made the decision to go to Colorado with his wife.

Brian continued to manage API Marine, kept learning and did a good job in general.

Then in late 1994 Richard came back from Colorado.

We agreed that I would sell the assets of API Marine to Brian for $90,000.00.

The only problem was that Brian had no money.

So, Brian and Richard approached Richards old friend the Drug Dealer who was now out of jail, and he became a partner in API Marine and he put up as collateral a 35-foot Midnight Express boat with 2 big 300 hp Mercury outboard engines on it.

So, finally the group came up with some cash and the boat for collateral. The boat was obviously going to be another drug transporter and I felt that my holding the title was not exactly a good thing.

I also knew that if Brian’s new partner was going to get into the drug business again, I didn’t want

To be holding the Midnight Expresses title, but I eventually agreed to give Brian extended terms and I took the title for the Midnight Express boat.

Katherine and I had a good laugh about the boat title, as we could not see ourselves going out fishing on a 35-foot Midnight Express that was well known as a drug running boat.

Brian had found a nice building formerly occupied by a paint manufacturer and they moved the entire API Marine company in one weekend.

Then in the first few months I started hearing a lot of discouraging things from them. They went into buying and selling boats which filled up their warehouse, and brought them in little revenue.

Then, next, they started rebuilding outboard engines which they knew little about. They told me that their outboard mechanic was an alcoholic who came when he pleased.

Then Richard told me his friend the Drug dealer had a foul-mouthed girlfriend that came in the office every day intoxicated, she was always swearing and screaming at her boyfriend. No one could talk on the phone when she was there.

I gave them the best advice I could.

Get rid of the partner, and get back to the original API Marine business of rebuilding and making starter motors, otherwise they would eventually have to close the business.

Brian then stopped making payments.

Then Brian had the gall to send me a letter stating that I had sold them a bad Company.

We read his letter and had a good laugh.

Then, that’s when they told me someone had stolen the engines off the Midnight Express so the Midnight Express boat was worthless collateral now.

I had expected to hear a story like this from them a lot sooner.

Finally, they resolved the situation with the drug dealer partner and he left.

Brian and Richard did return to the business that API Marine had built its reputation on.

I helped set them up with a good manufacturer in Texas who worked with them to design parts to make a new line of power tilt motors. And Brian continued to make payments on the note to me.

The next thing I heard was that the EPA came in and was going to prosecute Brian.

It appears that when they moved into the building there was a lot of paint residue and chemicals left by the previous owner.

Brian had hired a Company to remove all the toxic material, which they did.

But it appears that they dumped it in the Everglades, and when it was discovered, Brian’s building address was on the barrels.

Eventually Brian was able to convince them that he was innocent and he didn't get prosecuted.

Around 1995, we discovered that a trusted employee in our warehouse had been stealing.

We were selling Caterpillar Electric Start Conversion Kits and we allowed the employee to handle the sales and get a commission.

Instead of selling our kit, he advised customers where they could get it cheaper, then he stole the parts from us and had a friend assemble the kits and ship them to the customer.

The workmanship they did was poor and eventually the customers called to complain but they didn't have our invoice number.

Katherine caught on to the scam and we set up a recorder and caught the whole conversation of our guy talking to a customer.

We were considering prosecution, but the employee found out and didn't return to work .

He went to API Marine and they hired him. When I told Richard what had happened he said that

Brian had hired him and that was that.

I reminded Richard that he was Brian’s father, and should teach him what is right and what is wrong.

If an employee of theirs was caught stealing from them, I certainly wouldn't hire the person.

We felt bad that they took the attitude they did, but I realize that some people do not have the same

ethics as I do, and Richard and Brian held no value to our friendship.

I haven’t spoken to them since, but they did complete payment for API Marine.

In 2013 API Marine was sold to SEI Marine Products.