White River Marine Group officials have made good on a February announcement of plans to reopen its boat manufacturing plant in Bolivar. The Tracker Marine facility had stood idle since 2009.
White River Marine Group, the manufacturing arm of Bass Pro Shops, includes Legend Marine of Midway, which they purchased in 2017, and Flippin-based Ranger Boats, which they purchased from Fishing Holdings in 2014.
In February, White River Marine officials said the Bolivar plant would reopen because of strong customer demand for its boat brands.
Production manager Stephen Skopec told KY3 he is back home, building boats in Bolivar. He says he started in 1989 on the assembly line. He worked his way up though different parts of the manufacturing to lead person and supervisor and eventually got into the engineering department.
Several workers have returned, but after nine years, the majority were brand new, and there was a lot of training to do.
Slopec says the reopening has been challenging, saying the effort started from scratch. He says they started at three boats a day at the beginning of April. He says the next week they did six boats a day. Now, they’re up to building 20 boats a day, with a full staff of 130 people.
Skopec says the pontoons they build in Bolivar are only growing in popularity. Bass Pro’s acquisition of Cabelas has also given them more places to sell.
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