CEO of prominent boat company says the secret to his company’s success started with a mission trip

ORLANDO, FL, UNITED STATES, December 4, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- According to the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation, there has been a surge in U.S. and global companies giving public attention to including religion as an integral part of their diversity and inclusion programs. Bill Yeargin, CEO of Correct Craft says a foundation of faith has helped their company find success for over 99 years.

Yeargin talks about his personal faith in his new book “Faith Leap,” and how it has helped him lead a company of over 2000 employees with distributors in 70 countries. Correct Craft has been a premier boat manufacturer for nearly a century but was teetering on the edge of survival when he took the reins in the early 2000s.

“By the time I arrived at Correct Craft, the fighting within the company’s ownership family combined with a revolving door of CEOs, had created a culture that was, I think it’s fair to say, toxic,” says Yeargin. “Today, nearly 20 years later, Correct Craft has grown dramatically, exceeding our goal of over $1 billion in annual revenue. When people ask about the secret sauce that both turned Correct Craft around and fueled our tremendous growth, I share that it is primarily two things: our strategic planning process and our culture.”

Yeargin says that the catalyst to the company becoming successful came after he invited his employees to a mission trip to Mexico.

“Shortly after I got to the company, I took 25 employees with me to help a homeless family in Mexico,” says Yeargin. “We slept in the desert in 110-degree heat and used lake water to bathe. It was decidedly unglamorous. But it changed the lives of those employees who made the trip. Even those on our team who did not travel to Mexico heard the stories and saw that we had been able to help people who needed us— people who would never be able to pay us back. Our team now had something bigger than just boats to build and our organizational mess to clean up. We were determined to use our platform for good, and it pointed Correct Craft in a great new direction.”

Yeargin says even though many employees do not share his faith, they have been impacted in a positive way by the culture.

“We started a weekly Bible Study that began small, but soon had more than 100 employees attending,” says Yeargin. “We have taken numerous service trips since that first one to Mexico including going to Cambodia, India, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, most Central American countries, and across the Caribbean. People often mention that they believe we are having a more significant impact than many churches. I do hear from employees who, although they don’t share my faith, appreciate the fact that we look beyond our walls for opportunities to serve others. It inspires our whole team, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. It’s funny, but I contemplated going into the ministry as a young man, however, I later took a different direction and focused on a business career. I didn’t realize at the time that being a business leader provided a wonderful platform to live out my faith and would offer me an even bigger platform than most pastors have at their churches.”

About Bill Yeargin:
Bill Yeargin is the CEO of Correct Craft, a 99-year-old boat company which has manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and distributes into 70 countries. Correct Craft has won all their industry’s major awards and was recognized as Florida’s “Manufacturer of the Year.” Yeargin has authored six books including his new book “Faith Leap” and the bestseller, “Education of a CEO.” He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA, and completed post-graduate studies at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Villanova, and MIT. Nova Southeastern University awarded him a Doctorate of Humane Letters in recognition of his "contribution to the lives of others and the betterment of humanity." He served both the Obama and Trump administrations on cabinet-level advisory councils and has been invited to the White House eight times, by three different presidents. He has served on dozens of for-profit and nonprofit boards and was appointed by Florida’s Governor to serve on the University of Central Florida board of trustees. He has been recognized with many of the marine industry’s top awards including Boating Industry's “Mover and Shaker of the Year.” Florida Trend magazine called him one of “Florida’s Most Influential Business Leaders” and he is an Orlando Business Journal “CEO of the Year.” He was also presented the “Governor’s Business Ambassador Medal” by the Governor of Florida.

Gina Adams
The Adams Group
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