Executive success: CEO of Stabicraft Paul Adams
Paul Adams considers himself a bit of a fashion industry veteran.
He’s been in the business for more than 30 years, but his designs aren’t found in the world’s fashion capitals, but around the inlets of Alaska, Tahiti’s tropical reefs or the Southland coastline.
The CEO of Invercargill-based boatmaker Stabicraft is emphatic that style trends shape the aluminium boats he began building as a 27-year-old.
“I tell people we are in the fashion industry,” says Adams. “If your boat is fashionable, it’s just like a car.”
It was a different story when he and former business partner Bruce Dickens took an idea suggested by a couple of commercial fisherman, to create a robust alternative to rubber inflatable boats.
The solution – to use aluminium rolled into tubes and welded together – sounded crazy at the time, says Adams, but after the first couple were sold to fisherman keen to use the boats as tenders, the pair were in business.