Hey boaters,
We just posted the following on our blog this morning. Bottom line is yes, you may have heard, Tim has purchased my share of the business and is the sole owner now. I'm sticking in town til my daughter's out of high school next year, then I'm out to Whidbey Island. Thanks for all your friendship and help in the past three years, and please please please continue to give Tim your support.
Meanwhile get out here for the Halloween Bash this Friday. Gonna be a good one!
Anyway here's the post:
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Three years' planning comes together in ownership changes at SRK
As we once heard every week from the A-Team's George Peppard, "I love it when a plan comes together". When Tim and Bill first talked about the "SRK-Team" three years ago, a key to the plan was that Bill wanted to be able to make his piece of the company available to Tim before 2008, so he could make the move out of the Seattle urban area like he'd always wanted to do.
Sure enough, Bill and his wife Cathy have purchased property on Whidbey Island, and as of last September 30, Tim is the sole owner of Seattle Raft and Kayak. Bill says he's now "living the dream with a part-time job in a kayak shop", and will continue in his new role organizing events, providing boat demos, and running SRK's race night series on Mondays starting next Spring. Meanwhile Tim, along with General Manager Ryan Murray, will keep the day-to-day operations cruising and growing, in the shop and on the water.
Bill and Tim are both grateful for the tremendous support they've had from local paddlers, from all those new enthusiasts to the "old salts" that have turned SRK into the place to be for paddlesports. In addition, SRK has been extremely lucky to have a devoted crew of staff members who've clearly shared the vision about serving our guests and making them feel welcome. Bill's greatest happiness about the new arrangement is that he'll be able to spend more time on the water with all the new paddlin' friends he's made in three years at SRK. "Enough time with my face stuck in the computer", he says. "Let's go paddling!"