Outboard Motor Inventor Evinrude

Wisconsin Engineer Changes Boating Forever

STURTEVANT, Wis. -- A worldwide company based in Sturtevant bears the name of an inventor who was inspired by love.

Inventor Ole Evinrude was courting his beloved Bess and went across the Okauchee Lake, in Waukesha County, to fetch her some ice cream but he couldn't row fast enough to keep the ice cream from melting.

That is when Evinrude started tinkering on the world's first outboard motor. The motor revolutionized personal boating, and today the Evinrude outboard motor is still made in Wisconsin.

"Right in the middle of cabbage patches and corn fields, we are building the products that take granddaughters fishing with their grandfathers," Evinrude employee Bill Ziehm said.

The plant in Sturtevant makes every e-tech Evinrude outboard motor in the world. E-tech means environmentally friendly and high efficiency.

The assembly line at Evinrude makes just-in-time motors.

"On our line, we have each model coming one after the other, and that gives us maximum flexibility for getting what our customers want. That gives us a competitive advantage. We're not trying to fill a warehouse with engines our customers don't really want," Evinrude engineer Peter Lucier said.

The unique assembly line helped Evinrude weather the economic meltdown that hit the leisure industry pretty hard.

Ziehm, whose been with the company for 38 years, said the plant has not had any major shutdowns.

Evinrude in Sturtevant employs 300 people.

When the parent company, Bombardier, relocated to southeast Wisconsin a decade ago, it chose the Racine area because of its labor pool that's full of skilled machinists.

The plant is in the middle of a $15 million renovation which will add 150 jobs to this site.

The upgrade will combine workers with management, marketing and research all in one plant.

The plant is also part museum, full of old outboard motors, like the one that Ole Evinrude fired up to get across Okauchee Lake.

Evinrude tests all of its motors at the plant before they are shipped out.

The company is worldwide, with Australia becoming one of its fastest growing markets.

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