sunday, september 23, 2012 - Lake Union Conference

World Class Integrity
by don Jacobsen
The phone rang at the canal-side home of our neighbors, Tom and Elaine, late on a warm Tuesday afternoon
several years ago. Recently retired as vice president of the Casting Division of Ford Motor Company, Tom
reflected how it was almost a welcome sound to have the phone ring again.
But this call was not about Fords. A few months before,
Tom and Elaine purchased a cabin cruiser from a company
by the name of S2 Yachts in Holland, Michigan. It was their
pride and joy. It had great lines, was well engineered, and
the attention to detail on the boat was meticulous.
The phone call, though, was a little disquieting. It seems
the engineers at S2 Yachts had discovered that a problem
could possibly develop with the way the fuel lines had been
routed from the tanks to the engine. There had been no
incident with any S2 boats, but there might be and the company
would take no chances. The purpose of the phone call
was to advise Tom that a technician would fly from Michigan
to Florida and, totally at company expense, make the
necessary changes on the boat. “Would it would be okay if
the tech showed up on Thursday of next week?”
Arrangements made, Tom and Elaine sat on their back
patio and talked about the phone call. One of the reasons
they bought the boat from this company was because of
its reputation. They had done their due diligence before
writing the check. They knew Leon Slikkers founded the
company in 1955 and that, a corporate north star from the
beginning, this would be a no-shortcuts company — every
product sold would be built as well as it was possible to
build it. As part of a company that manufactured and sold
expensive items to the public himself, Tom knew what a
challenge it was to keep that promise. They were convinced
Leon was a Christian, a man of his word, so they bought
the boat.
An interim event in the company’s history that Tom and
Elaine didn’t know about would have further deepened
their respect for Leon and his faith. In 1969, after much
heart-searching, the Slikkers family sold their company
to a large manufacturing conglomerate from New York.
The new owners were sufficiently impressed with Leon’s
management skills that they prevailed on him to stay on as
president. Leon agreed, but not many months passed before
he began to sense the new owners did not plan on using the
same quality materials or the same careful craftsmanship
as had made the company famous. Leon tried feverishly to
instill his company’s culture into its new owners, but soon
discovered this was an impossible assignment. Rather than
be forced to be less than his best, Leon left the company.
The next year, 1974, he started over with a brand new company,
S2 Yachts.
The name “Leon Slikkers” was still magic in the boat
manufacturing community, and the new company went
well. Dealers across North America and in Europe were eager
to market a product with his name on it and his integrity
behind it. Styling was superb, engineering was state-of-theart,
and customer service was unmatched in the industry.
And that’s why the phone call. The next Thursday, right
after breakfast, Edwin, an experienced technician from the
12 | August 2012 • Lake Union HeraLd The Lake Union Herald is available online.