When former Center Grove classmates J Westley Hurless and Monty Anderson purchased a boat dealership in the spring of 2018, they hoped to improve upon the industry standard when it came to providing excellent customer service. The pair, who serve as Managing Partners of Reeder Trausch Marine, each has their strength. Hurless focuses on sales while Anderson works in service. When they bought the marine, they vowed to make everything about the boat-buying experience enjoyable.
“We bring light to the business by delivering a young, fresh, personable feel when people walk through the door,” says Hurless. “Buying a boat is a big purchase, but we make it exciting and fun.”
Two years after acquiring Reeder Trausch Marine, COVID hit. Suddenly the public began frantically shopping for campers, bicycles, and—you guessed it—boats! Both new and pre-owned boats were selling like gangbusters. Although the pandemic has since passed, boating has remained immensely popular.
“Sales are still through the roof,” Hurless says. “What’s different now is that the supply can keep up with the demand.”
At Reeder Trausch Marine, they serve as an authorized dealer of Lund, Bennington, Avalon Pontoon Boats, and Four Winns fiberglass boats.
“The COVID craze got everyone out on the water, even those who had never been before,” Anderson says. “Now those people are taking their neighbors and friends out, which is creating a whole new set of folks who want to get out on the water.”
As a result, first-time boat buyers still make up a good portion of their sales. When it comes to sales, pontoons and tritoons still reign supreme. Hurless notes that they’re seeing more people gravitate towards tritoons than pontoons because they prefer more power.
“You can pull someone on skis, do more water sports, and get across the lake faster with a tritoon,” he says. “As the boats have become more expensive over the years, customers realize that if they’re going to spend X amount of dollars, they might as well spend a bit more and get a tritoon that has some speed behind it.”
The westside location, which has been booming for the past several years, has grown to include 25-30 employees. With some of them ready to move into management positions, Hurless and Anderson elected to purchase a second location—Denny’s Marina, located on US 37/69 on the southside of Indy. They renamed Reeder Trausch Marine Indy (the first location on the west side they refer to as Reeder Trausch Rockville).
“They had a good staff who had been here a long time. Plus, they worked with great manufacturers like Lund, Bennington, and Crownline,” says Hurless. “That was a driving factor, not to mention the location.”
Centrally located, it’s roughly an hour’s drive to several boating lakes such as Monroe, Geist, Morse, Lemon, and Cordry-Sweetwater.
Their business model is unique in that they provide an on-the-water tutorial with each purchase, which includes demonstrating how to back the boat down the ramp, how to dock and tie up a boat, and how to load it back on the trailer. They even have a full-time captain who leads these tutorials.
“It takes away people’s nervousness knowing that there’s somebody there to show them what to do,” Anderson says.
At the time of the delivery, their parts & accessories specialist educates customers on accessories, as well as safety and legal issues. In addition, the staff explains end-of-season costs such as storage & winterization.
“It’s important in this business to have the patience and time to run people through their boat because that makes them more comfortable with their purchase,” Hurless says.
A dedicated captain enables the customer to have the captain’s undivided attention as he’s not forced to wear several different hats. This also lets Hurless and Anderson focus on their respective jobs. Again, it’s all about creating an excellent customer experience.
While this is considered “off season” for boating, the staff stay plenty busy all winter long doing everything from winterizing watercraft to fixing furniture. They take care of routine maintenance, service engines, and tend to other repairs.
“We do just about anything you can think of,” Anderson says. “We fix and/or upgrade a lot of stuff people want to take care of in the winter versus in the summer months when they’re on their boat and time is precious.”
Plus, they sell boats all year long.
“Our sales are still really good in November, December, January, and February,” Hurless says.
Hurless and his wife Shelby have a 1.5-year-old daughter named Blakely. Anderson and his wife Alena have a 13-year-old Huskey. Not surprisingly, they all love boating. Anderson also keeps busy working on various projects. For the past three years, he’s been building an airplane in his shop at home.
One passion the friends share is giving back to the community. Each Christmas they partner with the CASA Foundation to “adopt” local families who could use a little extra holiday cheer. They ask for each child’s shoe size, pant size, shirt size, and interests.
“We get each child a winter coat, a couple of outfits, and some sort of gift,” Hurless says.
Last year they shopped for 27 kids. This year they plan to shop for 40.
“We go with our employees to Kohls to shop, then share lunch,” Hurless says. “It’s a good bonding time that brings our employees together as we take care of families who maybe wouldn’t otherwise have the greatest Christmas.”
Reeder Trausch Rockville is located at 6950 E.US Highway 36 in Rockville. For more information, call 765-344-1771 or visit www.rtmboats.com. Reeder Trausch Marine Indy is located at 5550 Kopetsky Drive in Indianapolis. For more information, call 317-786-9562 or visit www.rtmindy.com.
