Richard Allender
Director of U.S. Operations
Afer 35 years in the apparel business, culminating in becoming the chairman and CEO of a large company, he switched gears and combined his passion for boating with his career. For the past 11 years, Richard’s involvement with product development, branding, marketing and sales has been crucial to the continued success of the Ocean Alexander brand.
What sets you apart from your competition?
Our overall approach to the function of a motoryacht in relation to pleasure and safety and ensuring that both are achieved at the optimum level is I think unique in our industry. While we fully appreciate the necessity of a yacht that is a pleasure to operate and own, we never lose sight of the fact that yachts are in fact, used in the open sea and must always maintain a level of safety for the guests onboard. I feel that Ocean Alexander accomplishes this second to none amongst our competitors.
What is unique about your company or your approach to doing business?
One item unique to Ocean Alexander is the willingness to analyze the marketplace and address that market with manufacturing facilities that can provide a product that’s unique to that need. Ofen times, in close proximity to the market. This is evident in the recent announcement of the state-of-the art manufacturing facility at Merritt Island that will produce Ocean Alexander yachts. This facility will incorporate the latest technologies in manufacturing techniques, not found in most competitors’ products, while providing a rapid availability of product to the US market.
How does your company play into the passions of yachting enthusiasts?
We fully recognize in today’s market a motoryacht has to be designed to provide a highly enjoyable experience in many diferent boating environments. We constantly evaluate our yachts to ensure they can be just as comfortable in the Bahamas as they are in Alaska. The design that goes into them ensures the components found in our yachts will maintain a level of safety and heightened pleasure in these two extreme environments. Beyond that, we also understand the growing market for buyers who want the ability to charter out their boat occasionally or split ownership of a yacht with one or two other owners. The need for the yachts to accommodate multiple sets of guests in equivalent comfort is something we design into our product and especially with the OA 90 and OA 100 – it’s been a very successful attribute.
How does your company innovate?
One of Ocean Alexander’s long standing hallmarks is to look at each build as an opportunity to incorporate improvements learned from the last yacht we built. This is a unique philosophy of OA to never put of an improvement until the next model year if we can incorporate it in a boat currently under construction. We believe this gives Ocean Alexander an unique advantage in the market by providing our very latest innovations in design and function and not waiting for months or sometimes years to make a change.