Marine Service Management Course and Certification

Next Course Dates:

February 29-March 3, 2012 Kennebunkport, Maine

Agenda

• Brochure and Application
• Course Summary & Objectives
• Why Attend?
• The Details
• Who are the Instructors?
• What Will You Learn?
• Why Certify?

Course Summary & Objectives

The Marine Service Management course is offered by the American Boat Builders and Repairers

Association (ABBRA). This course is designed to meet the needs of boatyards and marine service centers by providing management training for individuals presently working in, or working toward leadership roles.

By the end of the course, participants will have gained exposure to new ways of dealing with the issues and challenges that are common throughout the industry from their peers and instructors. Participants will leave with concrete understanding of how to:

• Improve themselves, their work habits and leadership skills, including time management, scheduling, work force management and corporate communication taught by Pam Lendzion.
• Manage repair and retrofit projects in the context of operational workflow taught by Jim Bronstien.
• Meet the environmental management and safety standards of EPA and OSHA taught by Kellie Crete.
• Build and deliver a highly functioning customer service system, increase customers satisfaction and revenue taught by Pam Lendzion.
• Avoid common legal issues and understand the basics of maritime law and how it affects boat yard operations taught by Dennis Nixon.
• Predict the future by understanding where the industry trends are heading and how to position your company for future success taught by Mark Amaral.
• Successfully navigate the lucrative world of warranty work taught by Jim Bronstien.
• Increase sales through a robust and content-rich marketing program and how to customize one for your facility taught by Pam Lendzion.
• Deal with emergenciessuch as fire, storms and accidents taught by Tim Timpson, CMM.
• And much more including administrative efficiencies, facility management and codes and standards.

In addition to the lectures and participatory discussions, Jim Bronstien—former president of Rybovich Spencer, W. Palm Beach, Florida—will introduce the class to a case study in which the students will review a marine repair facility situation, and then apply their newly gained insights to identifying problems and advising for improvements, corrections and modifications to the given scenario. They will work as a team and present the remedies in a report that will comprise their final class exercise.

But most importantly, the intensive participatory nature of these residency courses will establish a long lasting network of contacts in the industry, a major benefit for years to come, as well as a deepened set of management tools to improve both their own performance and that of their companies.

 Why Attend?

Insurance Discounts. ABBRA’s membership insurance program, ABBRAGARD delivers the best, most comprehensive insurance for boatyards, customized to your specific needs. Through this program, further discounts are available for ABBRA trained and certified staff working at the facility.

Improve Operations, Job Satisfaction and Ability. Managing a boatyard is more than knowing about boats. Feel confident in your skills and ability to manage people, issues and work flow. Whether you’re talking about personnel issues, healthcare options, or fire and safety regulations, have the knowledge to give quick answers or know where to get the answers to the everyday situations that can slow down.

Stay out of trouble with EPA and OSHA. Immediately after the course, there will be at least three items that you can improve or fix that will prevent your exposure if there were to be an EPA or OSHA inspection. These adjustments could potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and legal costs.

Increase margins on repair and warranty work.  Are you confident in your quests for repair and warranty work? Understanding how to successfully pursue warranty work and the nuances of preparing competitive estimates is critical to running a successful boatyard. Learn how to build a consistent and quantifiable approach to increasing your margins on repair and warranty work.

Be prepared. No one expects or wants a fire, but knowing how to deal with such an emergency in the first ten minutes could affect the survivability of your facility. Knowing what steps to take, how to communicate them and practice them creates another lawyer of insurance and reduces your risk.

Reduce legal fees. The best defense, in this case, is a good offense. Do you know where your legal liabilities are in your berthing and repair contracts? Do you know how the courts have ruled on law suits that affect you? This four hour module could save you a court visit.

Networking with colleagues.  This course will put you in touch with new networking contacts with which you will maintain close peer relationships well after the course has ended. Alumni of our programs maintain tight professional networks and regularly share tips and information with one another, ensuring that each is up to speed with the latest technologies, processes, and regulations. This knowledge network makes a you a better manager.

Improve your bottom line. We all can do better. This course will provide a near limitless list of ideas that can be applied immediately and easily to improve your bottom line. From marketing tricks to improving customer satisfactions, you are guaranteed to leave with at least three profit making ideas.

Become a CMSM. CMSM designation is an important career step. It documents your career experiences and management training. It is the only credential of its kind in our industry. It formalizes your status as  professional service manager, providing you with objective peer recognition of your accomplishments by ABRBA, the leading trade association in our industry.

Tim Timpson, CMM

Tim Timpson is presently the principal of MarinaResource, LLC. This company provides consultation, management, and training to the Marina Industry. Prior to this position, he was the Executive Director of the International Marina Institute from 2002-2004. He assumed this position in 2002, replacing departing founder Paul Dodson. He had been a frequent speaker, instructor, and conference chair for the Institute in the past. He has also served on several committees for the Institute including several years as the Chair of the CMM qualifications review committee. He is also a writer whose articles appear frequently in the International Marina trade press. Before taking over at the IMI, Tim was employed by an investment group that acquired Seagate Marina from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in November of 1996. The ten-acre facility consists of a 450 slip dry storage, a 20 slip wet storage basin, Ship’s Store, Fuel Dock, as well as a Retail Arcade, and a Boat Sales and Service Facility which are leased out to independent operators.

What will you learn?

Personal development/time management—The topics to be developed include an in context definition of “marine service management;” a discussion of the general scope encompassed by the position; the experience and training needed to attain and serve in such a position; personal and professional goals for marine service managers; peripheral operations that affect the service facility; the technical and managerial disciplines that comprise this position’s responsibilities; interactions with company ownership, staff and customers. The marine service manager will become familiar with the skills required to effectively manage scheduling workload, which include workforce issues, both technical and administrative; repair techniques and methodology; coordination of workload, facility premises, materials and workforce availability; weather considerations, and safety compliance requirements.

Project management—A project is an assembly of jobs, each requiring efficient planning to effectively integrate “the job” into “the project.” From work order to final payment, this session will cover all the phases of managing a project. Taking the work order; qualifying its terms; assessing its scope and timeline; assigning the tasks to effect efficient use of workforce, facilities, equipment and materials; reporting to the boat owner; dealing with delays; establishing and achieving the customer’s expectations; documenting the project’s progress (“He who has the best documentation wins.”); advantageous purchasing; monitoring the process; progress billing; surveyors and captains; insurance issues.

Customer service—The marine service manager has two principle “customers.” One is the boat owner. The other is his employer, who may be himself. Both demand satisfaction, but serving the interests of one often appears to conflict with serving the best interests of the other. Other customers who get in this stream of CSI include individuals or companies with vested interests in the boat and its condition. These include prospective purchasers, insurance companies, marine lenders, etc. Students will gain insights into the complex relationships developing from “customer service.” They will learn how to define and maintain the boundaries of the varied vested interests while focusing on the task at hand—the work order, and seeing to its successful fulfillment, reflecting quality workmanship at a fair price, on time. Is the customer always right? The class will also study approaches to and options for resolving customer disputes. Throughout this syllabus, students will hear emphasis on the importance of communication, in all its forms, and the habits (or lack thereof) related to it.

Warranty—Session will address issues such as developing and maintaining relationships with product manufacturers; identifying terms and conditions of boat and equipment warranties; dealing with the product manufacturer; the boat owner, the product manufacturer and you; getting paid; determining coverages; warranting your own work product; limiting a warranty; working with insurance claims; “betterment” issues; safety standards’ compliance in warranty work. Warranty work can be an excellent source of revenues. The class instructor focus on the importance of mastering the special skill sets for effective communication and customer relations.

Codes and standards—Throughout the class, the value of a strong knowledge base of the technical safety standards that relate to the repair and service of boats and yachts will be empahsized. Instruction will cover sources of these standards, some statutory, some voluntary, include the USCG, ABYC (American Boat & Yacht Council), NFPA (National Fire Protection Association), SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), UL (Underwriter’s Laboratories); the evolution of these standards; their relationships to building safe boats and maintaining them as such; standards and their place in reducing boating accidents; the risks of “We’ve always done it that way;” compliance issues in older boats; finding the “leg to stand on;” compromising standards in form over function thinking—It’s just not worth it; standards’ compliance as a profit center. Codes and standards as they relate to the boatyard itself will also be addressed.

Legal—Class discussions are designed to raise student’s consciousness in areas of product liability; admiralty and maritime, contract, bailment and tort law issues related to the marine service facility and its operations; insurance underwriting and claims issues; collection, liens and their enforcement; jurisdictional determinations. Legal considerations and the anticipation of legal entanglements are an everyday part of marine service operations, and the competencies gained in this area will definitely affect a service facility’s bottom line. The emphasis will be on how the service manager can direct operations to minimize the potential for legal conflicts in the context of work quality, safety and profitability. Exercises will lead the class to identifying and taking steps to rectify situations that can lead to expensive losses, both financial and in facility reputation.

Sales and marketing—Attracting customers to your facility is a fundamental activity of every marine service operation. The instructor will lead the class through the ways and means to knowing what you do, what you do best, and how to convey that to your customers, current and prospective. Everyone in your operation is capable of selling the benefits of doing business with you. How you get them to participate in this process involves training, motivation and attitude development, and the reward for taking ownership in this process. The class will revisit the basics of advertising and public relations beginning with taking the work order, estimates and quotations, service capabilities and special expertise, technician and facility certification, and referrals from satisfied customers.

Environmental, emergency and safety management—Students can expect to learn how to more expertly direct the general operations of their facility in terms of general and preventive maintenance to extend the facility’s and its equipment’s useful life; facility risk assessment and containment; the safety and health of the people in the workplace, including the customers, vendors and other non-employees on the premises; warning signage requirements; recognizing and managing the physical and psychological impediments to making your facility user friendly and safe; identifying hidden hazards to your workforce; what to do before, during and after a regulatory agency inspection; record keeping; protecting your operation from liability costs; controlling access to high risk areas and equipment; exploring “what if” scenarios; emergency management practices to protect your people and your property from the effects of fire, explosion, hazardous materials, windstorms and flooding, and personal injuries. The class will also learn about the hierarchy of regulatory agencies in a Who’s Who that ranges from OSHA to the EPA and beyond.

Administrative skills—This course segment describes the many options to manage the nuts and bolts of the information flow that document the process, plan, progress and, ultimately, comprise the records of every job or project. Organization and consistent use of organizational tools in all documentation, reporting, correspondence and all other communications that are the essence of the understanding about the nature of the job and its status, at any time, as the work progresses is the only way to accurately assess the who, what, where, why and when in your operation. Low tech or high tech, the method of tracking these details can be simple or complex, but the constant is that the method chosen must be integral part of the work habits of your administrative staff. Discussions will include ways to use readily available modern computer and digital technologies at all levels of administrative operations. The key to the process is establishing and practicing well defined internal protocols for you and your admin staff.

ABBRA’s Certified Marine Service Manager — Why get certified?

MSM Certification is an important career step. It documents your career experiences and management training. It is the only credential of its kind in our industry. Why apply? It formalizes your status as a professional service manager, providing you with objective peer recognition of your accomplishments by ABBRA, the leading trade association in our industry. To the boating world and its customers, it signifies your commitment to providing consistent, high quality and thoughtful marine service as a highly trained professional. Certification as a Marine Service Manager is a brand of excellence for your career growth within the international network of ABBRA’s membership. The Certified Marine Service Manager designation is firmly rooted in professional experience, as specifically defined by ABBRA.

Greater Earning Potential. MSMs have greater earning potential and are more competitive in the tight marina job market because they have the reliable knowledge and experience to make them more valuable to marina owners who crave the kind of quality and reputation only the best marinas have. All things being equal—age, education, experience—professional certification does indeed make a difference in salary. MSMs are projected to earn an average of 10% to 15% more than their colleagues, based on experience in other service industries.

More Job Opportunities. Similar to other leading professional qualification and certification programs, such as the real-estate industry’s Certified Property Manager (“CPM¨) program, employers seeking the best qualified managers for marina properties are demanding that applicants be Certified Marina Managers to ensure investors, bankers, insurers, and customers that their marina properties are run as professionally as possible. Your MSM designation gets you to the top of the resume pile.

Career Advancement and Job Security. Marina owners and investors see MSMs as being aggressive, qualified, professional, and more dedicated and committed to a career within the marina industry. MSMs are perceived as being most up-to-date in the latest procedures, techniques, industry regulations, and requirements—a most marketable collection of assets.

Job Satisfaction and Ability. Managing a marina is more than knowing about boats. Feel confident in your skills and ability. Whether you’re talking about personnel issues, healthcare options, or fire and safety regulations, have the knowledge to give quick answers or know where to get the answers to the everyday situations that can slow down.

Networking with Colleagues. Through the process of obtaining a MSM designation, most managers acquire networking contacts and maintain close peer relationships. MSMs have one of the tightest professional networks in the world and regularly share tips and information with one another, ensuring that each is up to speed with the latest technologies, processes, and regulations. This knowledge network makes a MSM a highly qualified, respected, and able manager.

Instant Recognition. Once you become a MSM, you’ll feel confident that the people you want to impress—employers, peers, bankers, investors, etc.—will know it means you’ve distinguished yourself as an outstanding professional. Professional certification is, after all, a highly prized mark of distinguished achievement among practicing professionals.