A prized quality in the sales and hospitality worlds, “five-second likability” cannot be taught. You either have it or you don’t. Most of us—this reporter included—do not.

Performance Boat Center sales representative Michael Hall is loaded with it. You can feel his presence before you see him because he warms any room he enters. A six-year member of the multi-brand dealership’s team at the Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach, Mo., the 42-year-od husband, father and general bon vivant is a charisma bomb.

Captured here with Performance Boat Center of South Florida general manager Tommy Mason (left), Michael Hall will lead the Speed On The Water Key West Bash charity auction benefiting Samuel’s House and Samuel’s House and AHEC Health Centers. Photo from Emerald Coast Boat Week 2025 by Matt Trulio.

So when longtime Speed On The Water Key West Bash Charity auctioneer Nolan Ferris—another mega-charismatic character—let me know me know a couple of days ago that he couldn’t make it to this year’s November 6 affair, Hall leapt to mind as his replacement.

OK, that’s not entirely accurate. The first things that leapt to mind were panic and terror. Ferris has anchored the auction since it moved to the Pickle’s Pub Sandbar on Greene Street nine years ago. In the past two years alone, the force of his personality combined with the next-level generosity of the performance-boating community has translated to a combined $400,000 raised for charity.

In less than two hours of work.

So Hall, who I’d just grabbed drinks with at the Florida Powerboat Club Emerald Coast Boat Week in Destin, came to mind after my quiet freakout. I ran the notion by longtime Speed On The Water Key West Bash organizing team-member Greg Harris, and he liked it.

When the need for a new auctioneer arose, Hall (right) came to mind for the author. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.

Then I ran it by Performance Boat Center co-owners Brett Manire and Mark Waddington. It was an old school move—like asking a father for permission to propose marriage to his daughter—only different, but it was the right one.

Manire and Waddington loved the idea. Manire even threw his longtime buddy Waddington under the bus by suggesting he help on stage, and Waddington—a tad more reserved that his business partner and an ocean more reserved than Hall—suprised both of us and agreed to it.

As did Hall.

“My brother, I would be honored,” he sad. “Thank you for thinking of me. It means a lot.”

It does. Because Hall means a lot. That much I knew within five seconds of meeting him.

He’s going to rock this gig.