This book is packed with information, a treasure chest of photographs, anecdotes, portraits of key people and boats and shipyards. The part about Barry Fisher and the joint venture is vivid and accurate.” Anthony AllisonCEO, Marine Resources Company International (Retired)
I received a copy of this fascinating history of boat building on the southern Oregon coast from author Bo Shindler – many thanks. I thought it was going to be pretty specialized, but it encompasses an entire saga of an American family from its roots to the move to Oregon and the creation of an …
I became fascinated by a new book that recently crossed my path. In With Barely Two Nickels to Rub Together, author Bo Shindler tells the remarkable story of Ed Freeman and his son Dugie, who in the 1970s in Gold Beach, Oregon, would build the largest aluminum commercial fishing boat constructed in the United States. …
“The story weaves together is a mixture of entrepreneurship, risk-taking, human creativity, and a history of west coast boatbuilding and how this boatyard did its work and thrived. Shindler is an excellent story teller. The book is a highly entertaining and the illustrations and photos are outstanding. And through all the story of Ed and Dugie Freeman and their boatyard, there is a blue-collar approach of getting things done no matter the cost.
Also, scattered throughout the book are nuggets of information on how to run a successful, complex business, told with a blue-color spin which the Freemans were known for.
You are not likely to find Ed and Dugie’s approach to accountability and customer service (as told by Shindler) in the Harvard Business Review: They make plans, stay on task, implement decisions, accept responsibility, learn from mistakes, rarely hesitate, rebound from hardship, and when the bell rings they’re ready to come to the center of the ring even if it includes the possibility of taking a good ass-whipping. At their core Ed and Dugie Freeman were these kinds of people.”
Bruce J. Cole
Publisher & Editor, National Fisherman Magazine (1975-1994)
All who closely knew these people, as I have, would come to admire them. This is a true story of hard-working individuals who had vision, ethics, and the tenacity to persevere through various challenges in starting a company on a shoestring. With little more than the desire to provide for themselves and those that worked …