By Gregg Mansfield

Reggie Fountain was taking some visitors to lunch in his Chrysler 300C SRT 8 when he punched the gas pedal to demonstrate the muscle car's acceleration. Running well above the speed limit on a two-lane road outside his factory in Washington, N.C., Fountain was busy touting the car's handling ability.

"I've had this car going pretty fast a few times," said Fountain a minute or so before the car's radar detector began screaming. "You'd love it."

Whether it's in the car, behind a desk or at a boat show, Fountain always has the pedal to the floor. And if he's not pitching the virtues of the boats that bear his name, he's busy selling you on his car or his favorite lunch spot.

Few people in the marine industry work as hard as Fountain, who regularly puts in seven-day workweeks. It's that work ethic that has helped him keep the company at the top of high-performance boating for nearly 30 years. And with greater competition in the industry today, it only fires up the 66-year-old.

"My high school football coach believed the more you practiced, the harder you worked, the better you were and the luckier you got," Fountain said. "That's true in business and that's what I've always done."

The Beginning
After getting a business and law degree from the University of North Carolina, Fountain followed in his father's footsteps and entered the insurance and estate-planning business. He worked side-by-side with his father for four years before his dad died at age 61 from complications of the Asian flu.

Fountain said the time working with his father was an incredible learning experience.

"He spent a lot of time in unpaid public work—mayor of the town, chairman of the county commissioners," Fountain said. "You've got all kinds of people dragging on you about something and taking your time. I watched him handle all those people and the things he did for the county and town. I thought he was pretty smart."

Fountain, who had been racing boats since he was a teenager, was asked to join Mercury's legendary tunnel-boat racing team in 1970. Already stocked with racing luminaries Billy Seebold and Bobby Hering, he competed on the team and continued to sell insurance. The racing team was simply dominant. From 1974 to 1978, the team from Oshkosh, Wis., never lost a race. His best season came in 1976 where he won 15 of 23 races he entered.

With the money he made in the insurance business, Fountain began buying apartments in the college town of Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. (Today he owns more than 300 apartments and a major shopping center.) When Mercury's factory race team disbanded in 1978, he would parlay that real estate fortune and get into the boat business.

Modern Day
Fountain is fond of describing boat companies as giant holes that suck money down. He would quickly learn how much money it would take when launching the Excalibur Executioner in 1978 with Bill Farmer and Don Able.

After selling the first offshore boat to a friend, the second went to a customer at the Miami Boat Show who paid $80,000 in cash.

A year later, he ventured out on his own and rented an abandoned car dealership in Washington and leveraged his real estate holdings to get Fountain Powerboats going.

"I always had confidence that I would work hard enough to make it," he said.

From there he continued building boats and says it was a test by the late Bob Nordskog in Powerboat magazine that helped jump-start the business.

Over the years he rode out the economic roller coaster of the marine industry with help from some individual investors or "angels." But in 1987 he took the company public and raised nearly $6.5 million from the Initial Public Offering. Today the company is still publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange under FPB.

Fountain occasionally bristles at the requirements of being a publicly traded company. Besides the mounds of paperwork, he says financial disclosures required by federal law sometimes give competitors too much insight into the company's future projects.

The company did $80 million in sales during the 2006 fiscal year but has been under pressure by stockholders to increase profits. That's a major reason Fountain is expected to reduce its sponsorship money in offshore racing this year.

Driving the company's growing sales over the last decade has been its high-performance fish boats. Fountain decided to move into the fishing arena full time in 1987 when he realized his company couldn't survive on producing sport boats alone.

"He's probably the lone survivor in the marine performance area," said David Knight, president of Fountain Powerboats. "Lots of marine companies have been through bankruptcies but he never has. That says a lot."

Knight adds, "Reggie is comfortable in a boardroom situation. (But) he would much rather be out on a boat with a customer."

The fact that Fountain Powerboats has never filed bankruptcy is a great source of pride.

"Many of the competitors have gone broke three or four times," Fountain said.

Consummate Promoter
Fred Kiekhaefer, president of Mercury Racing, says there are few individuals who are as committed to promoting the sport and the brand as Fountain.

"I give Reggie credit, he has done more to raise the profile and promote the performance-boating industry than anybody out there," Kiekhaefer said. "He's the penultimate promoter. He works tirelessly to promote the name and brand."

Undoubtedly, Fountain has promoted its name over the years through splashy advertising campaigns in magazines and television. But that is only one part of the marketing equation.

Fountain is constantly on the road like a presidential candidate looking for votes. In a typical month, you'll find him at a couple of boat shows, a fishing tournament, an offshore race and a poker run or two. And if he has a free moment in his tireless schedule, he'll drop in to see one of the company's 50 dealers.

"Reggie makes the phone ring," said Scott Shogren, owner of Shogren Performance Marine, the largest Fountain dealer in the world. "(Customers) hear what he's doing and they all know Reggie. People come out to the shows just to see him."

And it's that interaction with the public that Fountain likes. At the Miami International Boat Show, the executive is there when the show opens and well after it closes. He takes countless pictures, signs autographs and shakes hands. Fountain knows he's there to do one thing—sell boats.

"Lots of athletes hate autographs," he says. "I love it because that means somebody is interested enough in me and my company to get an autograph. It sort of solidifies the relationship between me and my customers."

For the past decade the builder has also been the dominant name in offshore racing. Having been the title sponsor of the American Power Boat Association (APBA) and Super Boat International (SBI) tours, the company also backs several teams each year.

Although Fountain won't say how much money he has spent on racing throughout the years, he concedes, "a lot of money." Fountain says besides promoting the brand, racing has helped better the high-performance products sold to the general public. "Racing gave me the technology to build the boats," he said.

Pushing Technology
Besides the offshore-race circuit, Fountain has found other ways to promote his brand. The company has been at the center of a "V-bottom war" that has involved Outerlimits Powerboats and Cigarette Racing (at least for one day).

Fountain currently owns the speed record of 171.883 mph. Cigarette Racing failed to break the record in 2006 and Outerlimits has been mum on whether it plans to chase the mark. It's a remarkable speed that was once only reserved for catamarans. Now V-bottom builders are delivering boats that can break 100 mph on production power.

Credit goes to improved hull designs and more dependable engines and drives, Fountain says. He also cites better propellers for pushing boats to the speeds they are running today.

But why is it so important that Fountain own the V-bottom record?

"It's a display of technology and brand image," Fountain said. "We have the technology to go 170, we sure as hell can build you a better boat than people that can't go over 100."

Now Fountain has catamarans in its marketing sights. The company has put up a "Cat Killer" video on the its Web site of the Fountain Rio Roses boat outrunning a catamaran during a poker run.

He received a share of criticism in Internet circles because people said it shouldn't have taken place at a poker run. Critics said that should have happened on the racecourse.

It did eventually when the Super Vee Unlimited boat was the overall winner at the 2006 SBI/APBA world championships in Key West, Fla., in November. Although the V-bottom had 1,500 more horsepower than its catamaran competitor, it was still a notable feat.

Shogren says it's just part of Fountain's marketing genius.

"He knows when to stimulate the industry," Shogren said. "He's going to get you when he can."

The irony that he would go after catamarans isn't lost on someone like Marine Technology Inc.'s Randy Scism, who founded the offshore catamaran company. Fountain and Scism had a partnership earlier in the decade to build catamarans. The venture didn't work out and neither side has any hard feelings.

"I told him he should be in politics because he can put a spin on anything," Scism said.

Fountain's Legacy
"I'm always firm in what I would have liked to done," says Fountain, sitting in his office that is adorned with trophies and photos from his life in the boat business. "I would have liked to have been Elvis but unfortunately I didn't sing like Elvis.

"As much as I tried and played the guitar and all, I decided to find some other vocation. I just listen to Elvis and not sing like Elvis. If I can arrange it in my next life, I'm coming back as Elvis."

No one denies Elvis' impact on music and certainly the same can be said about Fountain's impact on performance boating.

"He's larger than life when you meet him," said Skip Holtz, a friend of Fountain's and head football coach at Eastern Carolina University. "You sit down with him and there's not a more genuine and caring person."

Fountain says he doesn't plan to retire any time soon. He enjoys watching his children's careers flourish. Wyatt is in sales at Fountain Powerboats and Reggie III works for Pier 57.

The company is in the midst of a new program called Lean manufacturing. Simply put, the program should improve quality and reduce production time and costs. Fountain wants to pass that savings along to customers and increase profits for the company's shareholders.

But ultimately his career will be measured more than just on the bottom line.

"I think Reggie will be bigger than life," Shogren said. "The cult and the following Reggie has will never stop. It will only be bigger when he's gone."

When asked what he credits for his longevity in the boat business, Fountain said with a smile, "I credit fast girls, fast boats, fast cars and good exercise and good food, how about that?

"And probably in that order."

The King would be proud.

Click to enlarge.