After a 16-year career, Mercury Racing products integration product manager Mike Griffiths—a familiar face to high-performance boat builders and owners around the country—is departing the Fond du Lac, Wis., company at the end of the month to take on the general manager role at Marine Technology, Inc. Griffiths and his wife, Ruthie, and their three Labrador retrievers are in the process of relocating—their Wisconsin home is for sale—to Wentzville, Mo., which is home to the high-performance catamaran and center console company.

Mercury Racing products integration manager Mike Griffiths has been a familiar face to high-performance powerboat builders for years. Photo copyright speedonthewater.com

Griffiths final day with Mercury Racing is July 27.

“I am leaving on good terms,” said Griffiths, who is 49 years old. “But I sure won’t miss the Wisconsin winters.”

Griffiths cited the opportunity at MTI combined with the travel demands—helping boat builders from coast to coast with setup for the company’s products from the Verado 400R outboard to engine to the entire quad cam four valve (QV4v) stern drive engines— of his role at Mercury Racing for his decision.

“I have been doing this for so many years, and you have to park aside your family and friends and hobbies to do it—and I’ll be 50 soon,” he said. “Randy called me in April, told me what he was looking for and asked me if I knew anyone interested. I said, ‘Yeah, I’m interested.’ So about a month ago, he flew up and we had dinner. We shut off the phones and had a nice conversation. I gave my notice last week.”

“Mike has been a tremendous asset and key part of our success at Mercury Racing for the past 12 years and his total 16 total years at Mercury Marine,” said Stuart Halley, the general manager of Mercury Racing. “We are sad to see him leave but he has been presented with a great opportunity. MTI is a great partner of ours and having Mike and his knowledge of Mercury Racing at the helm of MTI will continue our great partnership.”

Griffiths said that Nick Nida, an electrical engineer working in product applications he has overseen, would make an excellent choice as his successor.

Scism, who brought on industry veteran Terry Sobo as his director of sales and marketing in June, said he couldn’t be happier to have the well-known and widely respected Griffiths join the MTI team.

“I think he’ll be a really good fit,” said Scism. “Mike eats, drinks and sleeps boats—I certainly don’t have to teach him how to drive one, that’s for sure. This is a win-win for everybody. The business part of being general manager of a boat company can be a challenge, but he’ll rise to it.”

Said Griffiths, “I’m really looking forward to the opportunity. I’ll still hit the major events like Key West and the Miami Boat Show. I’m also looking forward to going home every night and sleeping in my own bed.”

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