Boat Business Faces "Walk on Water" Faith Test

Bill and Launa have been making fishing boats for almost 70 years. They credit their company’s success to family and faith.

“Our priority is to honor God first,” says Launa.

That hasn’t always been easy. Bill and Launa have tithed off their personal income since 2007, but that decision was tested during the recession when people cut back on luxury items like boats. By 2009, their family business was in trouble.

Launa remembers that time. “The first thing we did as owners was take a twenty-five percent cut in pay.”

“We were producing eighteen boats a week, and we went down to three boats a week,” Bill recalls.

The company was forced to lay off dozens of employees, but it was still running a deficit, so eighty more were let go. Later, the couple discovered that an employee had stolen from the company and defrauded them out of one million dollars.

“As we did the financials, we realized that that loss is why we had to do the eighty people layoff,” Launa remembers, “and it was devastating.”

Through it all, the couple were faithful and continued tithing, but they knew they needed a miracle to save their company.

“‘We were rock bottom, and we prayed ‘God, you pull us out of this, you help us, you direct us, you give us the wisdom we need to turn this around. And if not, give us the wisdom to know what to do next.’ And it wasn’t twenty-four hours later before things started turning around,”’ Launa recalls. “Things that had to be God.”

They also noticed an immediate upswing in their business.

“Money would come in unexpectedly,” Launa says.  As God blessed them, the couple started giving to ministries such as CBN.

“They have a worldwide mission,” says Launa,“that makes me feel like I’m helping. I like to know that we’re helping here at home in the United States, but we’re also helping in other countries and around the world as God has asked us all to do.”

Since that time, Hewes Marine Company has posted nearly twenty million dollars in sales.  They also hired back some of their workers and now have a hundred and thirty-three employees.

“We were the first boat business to pull up out of the recession,” says Launa. “Since then our business has been number one in the Pacific Northwest. Two years ago, we finished a twenty thousand foot expansion on the building and became debt-free at the same time.”

Bill and Launa say putting God first was the key to their success.

“God blessed the business so much we literally paid off the debt for the expansion before the bank even finished the paperwork, Launa declares.

“I see the world now as the sky’s the limit, you know? If we’re doing what God wants us to do, nothing’s going to hold us back.”