Houseboating Adventures - Issue 19 - (Page 11) business in Atlanta. (David and Bill grew up together and were college roommates.) An avid boater and an engineer, David is committed to providing a new attitude and fresh ideas to the houseboat manufacturing process. Bruce Chesnut is a business man and entrepreneur from London, KY. He is CEO of Laurel Grocery, and has an aircraft manufacturing company, a machine shop, and several other business interests. He has been a boater for most of his life. Stardust has always had the reputation of being the premier "truly custom" houseboat builder. If you have seen a boat on the lake that looks truly different, you can bet it’s a Stardust. Bill built his personal boat, "Cat Daddy" with Stardust in 2005 and had worked with them on over 20 rental boats. "I knew their boats, their employees and was always impressed with their skill level. When the opportunity to purchase the company presented itself, Bruce, David and I just couldn’t pass it up. The only thing that was lacking was business management and David was the perfect fit with his background of owning and operating his own Construction business. He has an engineering degree which helps when dealing with structural issues and an MBA. The key to the deal was the people. Most of the employees have been with Stardust for over 10 years, with many having 20 years experience! Those positives, combined with the owners’ passion for boating, were the catalyst for the decision to move forward with the purchase of the company.” David Barrett has been busy setting up new procedures, redefining processes, and fine tuning existing systems at the factory. They have purchased new equipment, repaired and set up regular maintenance programs for all the existing equipment to insure the quality of the finish product. )6B@" A05("%C&5AB9&@ The emphasis is being placed on consistency and quality in the manufacturing process. New standard features and processes are being established. A renewed emphasis is being placed on research and development. Another primary area of emphasis has been design. Each Stardust Cruisers houseboat will be designed with a level of detail that will provide the customer with an easy to understand set of plans. That same set of drawings will also provide the production departments with the detail they need to build each houseboat more efficiently, and will ultimately produce the highest quality houseboat. David Barrett explains, "Stardust Cruisers will continue being a custom houseboat designer with an emphasis on meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customer. The design of each houseboat starts with a clean white sheet of paper. Drawing on the experience of our sales and design professionals, we will lead the customer through the thought process to insure that every design meets the customer’s needs not only from an appearance and style perspective, but that each boat is practical and functional. The construction means and
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