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David Rosen |
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Steve was easy to explain. He saw an
Adirondack guideboat being built and fell in love. In David's
case......actually it was the same. He saw his first guideboat and fell in
love. |
| He came across this boat at a yard sale. And, in truth, it wasn’t a very good boat. But Dave didn’t know any better. He bought it and soon went with his 4-year-old son to the Adirondack Museum where he discovered what quality guideboats were all about. He also found Steve’s name in a coffee table book. As it happened, both he and Steve lived in Vermont, about 20 miles from each other. |
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David’s
barn had recently burned down. As he watched it burn, he didn’t know if
it was insured. As it happens, it was. Thousands of dollars of
woodworking equipment melted away and rack upon rack of neatly sorted cherry, maple,
butternut, pine, black birch and walnut went up in flames. With the insurance money David
bought that first bad guideboat and then part of Steve's company.
Even
though David had been a woodworker, he certainly wasn’t in Steve’s league. Their
general sense was....Steve would build ‘em..... Dave would sell ‘em.
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| The only problem was…Dave could sell faster than Steve could build. So, they started expanding the company. As of this writing we now employee a dozen craftsmen. Every one of those employees, if we started building, say, kitchen cabinets, would leave and find another place to work....probably near the water....probably building boats. |
| When folks tell David that he's a wonderful salesman, he shakes his head and says, “Actually, I’m a lousy salesman...but I'm a good advocate. Our actual salesmen are sitting out there in the yard,” says David as he points to Steve’s boats. |
| Prior to discovering these boats, David had been a sociologist, he taught college, he had been a surveyor, a machinist, a construction worker, a medic in the Army and the caretaker of a camp for inner city kids. 15 years before ever hearing of an Adirondack guideboat, Dave had a dream in which a woman showed him three boats tied to a dock. She invited him to select which boat he would take. He didn’t know it at the time, but he can quite clearly recall that all three boats were Adirondack guideboats. That's how deep the connection goes. |
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