A tale of Three Companies - or an obsession gone wild

DLNorth

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
432
I tend to spend too much time on the computer, often looking of new info.
Some of this I had heard before, some is new.
Note that Harold Schrock was controlling/running at least 1 of the 3 companies through most/many of the years of interest.

Enjoy,

Dan

A tale of Three Companies

1903 Arthur Schrock started to work for Star Tank Company
19xx Arthur Schrock bought part of Star Tank Company
1920?s is renamed Star Tank and Boat ? added boats to product line
1920?s Smoker Lumber Company Inc. - are selling oars and paddles
1926 Arthur Schrock bought all of Star Tank and Boat
1928 Changed name to Smoker Oar and Paddle Company
1947 Star Tank and Boat added alum boats
194x?s Sylvan Industries builds pontoons and houseboats - founded by John Cripe
1956 Starcraft name incorporated, added fiberglass boats
1963 Smoker Oar and Paddle Company started building alum boats, renamed Smoker Craft
1964 Starcraft added pop-up campers under trade name Starcraft
1966 Arthur Schrock, founder, died at the age of 85
1967 Star Tank and Boat Company sold to Bangor Punta, by Harold Schrock
1968 Bangor Punta's ownership increased to 96%
1966-69 Harold Schrock is president of Starcraft
1969 Bangor Punta drops distributer network, Schrock out of work
1969 Harold Schrock buys Sylvan Marine
197x?s Harold Schrock buys controlling interest in Smoker Craft, Sylvan rolled into Smoker Craft
1977 Starcraft expanded into van conversions
1984 Bangor Punta was acquired by Lear Siegler (Lear Jet)
1986 Lear Siegler went private with leveraged buyout, renamed Lear Siegler Holdings
noncore assets sold to pay down the debt incurred in the buyout
1987 Starcraft management team acquired the company, $78 million in debt
1988 Starcraft boat-building business, Starcraft Power Boats, was sold off to Brunswick Corporation
1990 Starcraft (campers/RV?s) filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy
1991 Starcraft (campers/RV?s) bought at auction by Kelly Rose and Stephen Kash
1991 Starcraft's camper/RV business sold to Jayco, who still owns them as of 2009
1996 Brunswick Corporation sold Starcraft Power Boats to Smoker Craft (H Schrock)
All 3 brands - Starcraft, Sylvan and Smoker Craft are now part of Smoker Craft Family of Products
2013 Sylvan will be only building pontoon boats, alum boats will now part of Starcraft line
 
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Watermann

Starmada Splash of the Year 2014
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
13,824
Nice timeline of events going back over a century! It's all good for me and I'm happy to read that there's no mention of those companies being sucked up by some Asian company.
 

laurentide

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Messages
1,869
They need to start building islanders again for the future generations of bottom feeders.
 
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