1947 was a profound year in the evolution of sport fishing in Pompano Beach. It was the year that saw the arrival of a family that would become the “apex predator” of custom sport fishing boat builders globally. This family arrived on the shores of our swampy Intracoastal Waterway building a small boat yard to service their own charter boats and the growing business in the area of recreational boaters. Fortunately for our City and for the South Florida Region, the founders of Merritt Boat Works, “The Merritt Family,” were a family that believed in the values that have made our country a place where people who worked hard and used their innate ingenuity could succeed. When they did, they never forgot the community in which they lived and the core values of family, faith and honor for your neighbor. It has been 77 years and three generations since that beginning, and today the family business is still driven by that same sense of morality under the guidance of Roy Merritt and his family.
Giving back takes many forms and Roy Merritt represents a truly unique form of giving back. One that stems from being humble and simultaneously impactful. We usually define giving back in terms of time, talent and treasure. Roy represents all of these but there is a fourth dimension and that is “touch.” Roy exudes the ability to seek out individuals and organizations at a time when they are most in need and then in his humble and subtle manner guides them to success via what is contemporaneously called “Servant Leadership.” How did this come to be? A bit of history is in order.
In 1947 Franklin and Ennis Merritt decided to relocate their charter fishing operation from Freeport Long Island, NY to Florida in order to capture a year-round trade. They purchased an old WWII PT Boat along with a barge, loaded up all their belongings, towing that barge to Florida through the as yet uncompleted Intracoastal Waterway with jaunts of offshore passages as well where the inland waters did not allow transit.
Upon arrival at the swampy shores of Pompano Beach’s Intracoastal Waterway, they found a hunk of undesirable land of some 10 acres that looked like a good staging point for a newly formed charter fishing operation. After inquiring with a local they were able to purchase the property to establish their charter fishing business. In those days the Intracoastal property was not desirable as it was not good for farming nor was it accessible by roads. Keep in mind, Pompano Beach was a farming community, and the value was in the high dry fertile ground along the ridge where the railroad tracks were located.
By 1948 the charter fishing business from Pompano was established and the Merritts decided to expand to a boatyard and engine works in an effort to serve the new sport fishing industry and to service their own fleet. In later years, along with their sons, Buddy and Allen, they began to build purpose-built sportfishing boats under Buddy’s leadership. Later, Allen’s son Roy would focus on building a better boat that could travel further, handle the seas in all weather, and be comfortable for their growing list of well-to-do clients. It turns out the family had a natural intuition for boat design that was honed through countless hours on the water fishing.
One problem would potentially hinder their ability to grow and service their clientele. They needed a road access to the mainland across the swamps of east Pompano Beach. What do community-minded people do in such a situation? Well, the Merritts, true to their moral character, decided it would be worth joining the local business community and showing them the value of their business. The Pompano Beach Chamber of Commerce was just forming, and they quickly became a member. Ironically, today they have been the recipient of an award by the Chamber for being the longest standing member, having joined in 1949. Once the business community recognized their value, they were willing to support the use of dredge spoils for the construction of US 1 as well as to create an access road to Merritt Boat and Engine Works on the Intracoastal.
Today the family, which includes Roy’s sister Fran Pinnell, wife Karen, cousin Steve Merritt, and nephew Allen Pinnell, operate their various businesses from the same location except that they now have a 13.5-acre facility on the Intracoastal, which is probably one of the largest properties of its type in the county.
Merritt Boat Works, as it is currently known, employs over 100 people from the community. They have fostered four additional affiliate companies, including Merritt Supply, making their total employment upwards of 150 people. They are a powerful economic engine in their industry and in our community.
Roy Merritt, who only admits to being a hair over 80, is at the helm of the boatyard, everyday spending time with team members at all jobs big and small. During his tenure, Roy has led the company to international recognition, a fact of which most Broward County residents are unaware. From the early days of their first genre of boats, which were 37-foot wood and glass marvels, the company was able to evolve the design and production to 42- 43-foot wood and fiberglass machines, and finally today they dominate the industry with sleek, advanced composite built fishing machines that hail to 88 feet in length. Much of this growth was in response to new engine technology that could efficiently put out more horsepower. Merritt continues to be the apex predator in their industry and the sought after boat of major industry leaders, influential individuals, and hard-core tournament fishing people having built over 100 of these finely crafted machines.
Why? Simple, Roy does exactly what his family has been doing since 1947. They keep the business in the family, they continue to live their moral values and work ethic, they support their community, and they require each and every family member to start at the bottom and work their way up from mating on a sportfish to working all jobs in the yard. Subjectively, I believe there is something in their DNA that layers in a sense of design that stems from the concept that form follows function, yielding a marvelously performing boat that is just as aesthetically beautiful. Roy Merritt represents the embodiment of the family history and culture; however, he possesses an additional unique quality. He is also a “Servant Leader.”
If you sit with Roy and talk to him about the numerous innovations that Merritt Boat Works can lay claim to, he would tell you that he had nothing to do with them. Humble is an understatement. Roy honestly believes that all he does is listen to others like his clients and employees who bring him problems for which he usually says, “Let me work on that.” With pencil and paper, he goes all in, solves the problem, and produces a functional and aesthetically pleasing solution which ultimately moves the entire industry forward because other manufacturers usually follow suit. Roy will still maintain he had nothing to do with it. This is truly the character of a Servant Leader.
I started with the premise that Giving Back takes on many forms. In the case of Roy Merritt and the Merritt family, the form is impactfully exponential. The reputation of their product has put an international focus on Pompano Beach and our South Florida region. The sportfishing industry is a 9.6 billion-dollar industry in Florida employing more than 121,000 people. However, as relates to our community, Roy has built boats and is currently building boats for names like, Tyson Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Jimmy Buffett, Alan Jackson, Armando Codina and numerous other celebrities, titans of industry and influential people throughout our nation. His boats are all over the world and as far away as Australia. What does this mean for Pompano Beach? Well, each and every one of these folks makes numerous trips during the boat building process, along with an entourage of people they bring with them, like interior designers, captains, crew, and others too numerous to list, and they spend money here supporting a host of our local businesses. They experience the quality of life we live (we are blessed) and they carry these experiences back to wherever they came from. This is invaluable to our community. This is exponential giving back.
In addition to Roy’s unique form of giving back to our community, there is no lack of time, talent and treasure as well. Roy has that ability to read an individual, sense that they are in need, and humbly provide them a path forward to success. The company is composed of numerous individuals that arrived on their doorstep, down and out, yet today can claim a working history at Merritt Boat Works of 20+ years and a productive community membership. This is consistently due to Roy’s ability at giving back to his community one person at a time.
As he has done with individuals, Roy has done with institutions, especially religious institutions. He has been a major donor especially when a religious institution focuses on caring for individuals in need or has a related educational facility. He is especially proud of his work to support bringing the Coastal Community Church to fruition in Broward County and recently to the City of Lighthouse Point.
What about the future? Roy and his lovely wife Karen will continue the story. Roy is grooming his two grandchildren to carry on the family businesses and continue to do what they do best, build the finest sportfishing boats in the world right here in Pompano Beach, Florida while continuing to innovate, employ and support the local population and give back to the community. This is the stuff that makes our country GREAT.
