Formula For Success

When I first ran the 457 CCS, it banked hard to starboard as 1,800 horses spurred out of the barn. Dire Straits’ 1985 hit Money for Nothing blared from the JL Audio system, the engines were screaming and the boat’s metallic gray paint glistened under the South Florida sun as we approached 50 knots—it was as Miami a moment as I had ever experienced. This was the same stretch of offshore water where Formula founder Don Aronow tested the company’s original model, the 233, 62 years ago. Built in Miami, it had a deep-V hull and the performance to propel it to numerous wins on the national racing stage.

South Florida is not where Formulas are built anymore. They’re now made in Decatur, Indiana, where I visited recently, in large part to learn how a builder so far from the ocean, can be so in tune with how offshore boats are used today.

When you arrive in Decatur with its population of 9,900 you see a Tractor Supply, a Kroger, a pancake house and Richard’s Restaurant, with its large roadside sign boasting a $7.99 dinner special of chicken-fried steak and tots. You then pass a quiet suburb before catching a glimpse of the modern, 575,000-square-foot Formula factory that seems to sprout from the ground like the corn in the fields surrounding it. Every year, 250 boats roll out of that facility and down an unassuming street in middle America.

My guide through the plant was Product Design Coordinator Ron Gephart. What made him perfect for the task was more than just his knowledge of each boat’s design (thoughtful) and build process (robust and confidence-inspiring); it was the fact that he was born and raised in Decatur. As we moved from department to department he knew every single person. He knew who was new to the job, who was nearing retirement; he knew that the husband of a woman in laminations worked for Formula for a spell and that the guy who rode by with materials on his bicycle is a second-generation Formula employee. He pointed out a mother/daughter duo working side-by-side in upholstery and the two brothers working together in silent lockstep to raise a deckhouse. “Yeah, there are a lot of siblings here,” Ron explained.

Minutes later he stopped to chat with another employee about the week’s upcoming MLB match-ups. “This is my brother, by the way,” Ron said with a smile. Formula truly is a family business.

“We think having family work together is a positive. Plus, how can we deter it when me and my siblings and now the third generation of our family all work here?” says Formula’s President Scott Porter, who works alongside his siblings Grant, Ted, Jean and Wayne. “Our dad always said, you’re kind of tougher on your own family members than you are on your closest friends. So, we get really good effort and family values.”

Dad, in this case, refers to the patriarch of the Formula family, the late Vic Porter. And while it was Aronow who launched the brand, Vic was its longtime steward, especially after becoming the company’s sole owner in 1979.

Enduring Legacy

The shadow of Vic Porter looms large throughout Decatur, but it’s especially present within the walls of the factory. During my tour, I walked past a workstation where an employee neatly pinned up two photos. One was a shot of him and his wife on vacation and beside that was Vic Porter’s obituary. I stopped to take that in. I’ve never met anyone who felt such a connection with their boss that they felt moved to hang their picture in their workstation.

For Vic, and later, the next two generations of his family, working in the boat business wasn’t preordained. It was the result of an entrepreneurial spirit and happenstance. Born in 1931 and raised in Decatur, Porter worked as a volunteer firefighter, he sold real estate, he sold mobile homes and then owned an ice cream store and ice cream truck. Incredibly, I saw said ice cream truck—completely restored to its original vintage—near a brand-new center console tucked away inside the factory. It was restored as a gift some years earlier.

A short stint selling boats led Porter to believe that he could build a better mousetrap. He began building small dayboats with three employees in a converted ice cream locker—humble and cold beginnings for a man who would grow Formula into an internationally renowned builder. It’s his working-man roots that play a big role in how he became so respected by his employees. The second factor was the personal care he showed to everyone who worked for him.

“My grandfather, he spent a lot of time here before his passing,” says Vic’s grandson and third generation Formula staffer Josh Porter. “I don’t think he ever really retired, but he would come in most days up until close to his death and would walk the factory floor and continue talking to employees. He wanted to make sure they knew that they were valued and they understood that what they do matters. I think he left a great legacy. He was known as a great leader within the company and a servant leader. He often gets brought up in meetings; somebody will raise their hand and say, ‘Well, this is a question that Vic usually would ask, but I’ll ask it.’ So, his legacy lives on. His presence is still felt.” 

When asked if he felt any pressure growing up to join the family business, Josh says that while the door to work for Formula was always open, he never got pushed through it. For a time, he actually pursued a career in aeronautical engineering, even earning a degree in the field from Purdue. But eventually he missed the soul and charm of Formula. He found his way home and he now applies his engineering knowledge to make the new hulls fly.

In many ways, Josh’s return to the company would seem like destiny; he has countless happy memories from inside the walls of Formula. “I remember coming here when I was in Boy Scouts and building Pinewood Derby cars,” he said. “This was our workshop. My earliest memories of being at the factory go back even farther though. That would be in elementary school when we had grandparents’ day. I had my grandma and grandpa take me to the boat factory for lunch. That was a big deal for me then.”

When he came back to work for Formula, he started out on the factory floor.

“I spent the first two months there,” Josh says. “I did a rotation through the entire factory just to see every workspace and what it looked like. And then I spent a good amount of time with our prototyping team on the new boat we were building at the time. And then I finally came into the office and started doing engineering work.”

During his rotation through the many departments, he said engine installation was his favorite; the engineer in him liked lending a hand and seeing the boat’s systems connect to the outboards or sterndrives. Before long he would find himself again manipulating CAD drawings and helping to lay out the framework for the builder’s largest project to date, the 500 SSC. On boats like the 457 that I tested in Florida, he had a hand in manipulating the angles, depth and position of the hull and its steps to ensure they’re constantly evolving while maintaining their race boat DNA.

Pedigree of Performance

Despite the newfound perspective I gained from traveling 1,000 miles inland to Decatur, I still couldn’t shake the question of how a builder, so far from the ocean, can be so in tune with how boats are used today. For example, on the 457 they’ve incorporated doors on both sides of the console that are aligned with the helm. At the push of a button, they open to deflect the wind flow that typically buffets anyone seated behind the helm. This changes the entire experience.

The reason for such thoughtful design elements is extensive testing by the company’s sportfishing team—one of the most enviable jobs at Formula. While many boatbuilders hesitate to get their new models dirty or banged up, an opposite approach is embraced by the Formula sportfishing team, which competes in countless tournaments in all sorts of sea conditions. These long stretches living aboard, cooking aboard, spilling—and then cleaning—blood from the decks is how, according to the company, Formula staffers are able to bring back notebooks filled with design tweaks, which make the boats stand out.

Among the “born-at-sea features” in the new 457 is storage for a Seabob that comes with a paint scheme to match the boat, a clever aft grill with a foldout cutting board and built-in utensil storage, dual transom doors with a fold-out step in the gunwale for easy boarding from a bulkhead and a massive cooler in the cockpit that holds 180 cans. There’s also a power windshield, 24 phone chargers, 36 cup holders and a partridge in a pear tree. In short, this thing is fully loaded with features today’s boater would appreciate—all put together by a passionate and hardworking congregation from the Midwest.

Prior to my stay in Decatur I thought of Formula as a family boat. I think of a slip mate who spent every weekend aboard with his family. I think about the countless other families I’ve seen parading through Formula models at boat shows. After my visit, I still associate Formula with family, only now, that includes the 500 employees who consider themselves part of the family business. I rolled out of Decatur with a newfound respect for how Formulas are built, and the culture that’s been created and cultivated by the men and women who build each boat.

This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue.