Sea Shield Marine: Our Story

As Sea Shield Marine approaches 40 years in business I find myself in a period of reflection replaying all of the events that have brought us to where we are today. I guess my hope in writing this article is to not only to tell our story but to also shed some light on the other elements of success that aren’t taught in the business books.

Honesty, Hard Work, Family, Faith, and always sticking to it.

I served in the US Navy as an E-5 Patternmaker, my dream was always to become a service diver but because of the importance of Patternmakers at the time and the limited availability of diving positions, it never came to be – but that didn’t stop me. After finishing my military career I followed my dream of becoming a service diver, getting hardhat certified and pursing opportunities in commercial diving. I eventually found myself working as an independent hull cleaner, it was hard work but I loved every minute of it – I got to work outside on beautiful yachts while enjoying the pride of business ownership.

That’s when I started to notice a lot of issues in the protection of pleasure craft. As any diver knows a big part of the job is the changing and maintenance of sacrificial anodes. What I noticed was that the anodes I was using on my clients boats had poor bonding, were constantly passivating, always wearing unevenly, basically they weren’t well-made and performed like junk. And that’s when I had my light bulb moment!

In the Navy the metals we used on our ships were made to very high-quality and specific standards known as MIL-SPEC. I thought to myself – why can’t we use that same MIL-SPEC standard for yachts and pleasure craft? I set out to find zincs that I thought would meet higher standards and best serve my customers, I searched high and low but found nothing – so I decided to make them myself. I was born with a natural talent for machines and all things mechanical and maybe those Patternmaking skills I learned in the Navy will finally payoff. Looking back, maybe being denied the opportunity to become a diver in the Navy was a blessing in disguise.

After countless rounds of trial and error I was able to finally build a permanent-molding machine I was happy with, and got to work. At night I was making anodes and during the day I was installing them on boats. I was exhausted most days but the happiness of my customers and seeing how well my anodes were working made it all worth it – plus it was making my job as a diver easier.

After a short while I started getting approached by other divers wondering if I would be able to make some anodes for them because they were also getting sick and tired of the subpar products on the market. I of course said “yes!” I was blown-away by the fact that people wanted to use these little anodes I was making in my backyard – the excitement of creating for others gave me the energy to work day and night. So I started cranking away making anodes for other divers, eventually I had to stop diving and the demand grew so much that I had to enlist some help. So I hired the best people I can think of – My Family.

So now my little one-man operation grew to a whopping 4 people! everybody pitched in making anodes and fulfilling orders while I hit the road pitching and selling anodes to anybody and everybody who would listen. It was a gamble to see if people would love our product, but we had faith. Granted there was a lot of stress, sleepless nights, and worrying if we’re ever going to make it. But I figured if we stuck to our core principles and kept our faith, things would work.

 And what do you know! it actually worked! After losing most of my sanity and a lifetimes worth of sleep, step-by-step and day-by-day we slowly progressed. We branded ourselves Sea Shield Marine, introduced pressure die casting, and became one of the leading companies in the cathodic protection industry.

As we move forward into what we believe is a great time for innovation and growth we would like to thank everyone who helped us get to this point – especially you, our customers. Your feedback, communication, and insight is why we create the products you’ve come to trust, and also why we’ve been able to maintain our position as an industry leader.

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