Caught up with my longtime friend Joe Nasso earlier today. Well-known in New Jersey performance-boating circles—he won the 2009 New Jersey Performance Powerboat Club Performance Boater of the Year award—Nasso and partner Jack Panzarella have started Optx Marine based in Wayne, N.J. The recently founded company manufactures a number of interior and exterior LED lights for both new and retrofit marine installations.

“Our prices are 50 percent less than our competitors,” said Nasso, who also owns Nasso Electric, a commercial electrical contractor with clients in New York and New Jersey. “Another advantage of our products is that the ‘drivers’ for those that need them, like our adjustable deck spotlight, are integrated into the fixtures. All of our systems are integrated.

“We have strip lights, channel lights, LED pods and LED disks,” added Nasso, who is currently exhibiting at the IBEX marine trade show in Louisville, Ky. “We offer light colors of white, orange, green and blue.”

In addition to pursuing the new and retrofit boat markets, the company will focus on retail packaging for marine hardware and supply stores, according to Nasso.

“We are already talking with West Marine,” he said.