By Marilyn Mower
As printed in the October 2009 issue of Southern Boating Magazine
Steve Moynihan - Founder & President
For a boy from Birmingham, Alabama, the Southeast Florida Coast looked like paradise, and Steve Moynihan moved here as soon as he was able to convince his folks he was ready to go out on his own. Working around boats was what he enjoyed and he found plenty of jobs on the Fort Lauderdale waterfront. But he had a talent for selling and when he discovered there was a profession called “yacht broker,” he knew what he wanted to be. The trouble was, in Florida there was a minimum age for a broker’s license. His dream was stuck in a holding pattern.
On his 21st birthday, he had his application in hand and he’s been a broker ever since. The 2009 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show will mark 30 years since he, Art Holler and Ron Youngdahl formed a partnership and called it HMY.
“Each of us had been working for someone else, and like young guys, we all thought we could do a better job than our employers,” Steve said.
“Our first office was at Marina Bay at the New River and Interstate 95. When the show opened that year we had the lease, but I’m not sure we even had office furniture, I know we didn’t have a telephone so we couldn’t print business cards,” recalled Steve. “If we wanted to talk to a customer, we had to go find him on the docks.” All in all, that wasn’t bad training for a customer service business. That, and a personal motto that failure isn’t an option.
HMY began by specializing in sportfishermen and motoryachts from 28 to 68 feet; Steve says that in 1979 there wasn’t much call for anything bigger than that. Still, he knew that bigger boats generally meant bigger deals.
“The first boat I sold at age twenty-one was a thirty-five foot Bertram Caribe. The first boat I sold at HMY was a forty-six-foot Hatteras,” he recalls. In 1983 HMY added new boat sales as a dealer for Post, and in 1992 began representing Viking. Tiara is the company’s most recent affiliation.
Despite the challenges of running a business with seven sales offices, Steve says he’s never had one day where he asked himself why he’d gotten into the business.
“Not even when the stock market dropped 520 points before the Fort Lauderdale show opened. I love what I do. I’m a people person and I get to meet new people every day.”
The last 18 months, however, he says have presented the most challenging business climate he’s ever seen. Part of that is the economy and part of that is due to the death of Doc Austin, his longtime business partner. Yet, he’s lately seen an upswing.
“Our guys are great. They sold 105 boats in 120 days, from center consoles to a 103-foot motoryacht. I’m most proud that we’ve sold and delivered 14 new Vikings this year. My success is due to the 75 people who show up to work every day at HMY.”
