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September 1, 2025
WAUPACA – In just four years at the helm of Amherst Marine, Max Verhagen has steered the dealership to national recognition – all while navigating a newborn and two toddlers at home, a career change and major moves, both personally and professionally.
Earlier this year, the Waupaca-based Amherst Marine snagged the title of Harris Pontoon’s Dealer of the Year in the under-200,000 units category.
Verhagen, who took over the business in 2020, said the award marks a high point in a whirlwind chapter of both professional and personal growth.
“I have always loved the water and boating and saw the business was for sale,” Verhagen, who was working in healthcare sales previously, said. “I’ve also always had this passion for entrepreneurship, and the two interests kind of aligned and made for a good fit for me. I saw a business with potential growth opportunities.”
So, in 2020, while buying the business, Verhagen said he and his wife, Jaunna, moved from Green Bay to Waupaca, where he grew up.
“We’ve had a lot going on, a lot of moving parts,” he said. “We moved, we have had three kids and we’ve moved the business from Amherst to Waupaca to accommodate a need for more space.”
Though he admits it was “definitely a lot of transitions at once,” Verhagen said he remained focused – “tackling the tasks and responsibilities at hand, both as a father and a business owner.”
“I think we all weathered it very well,” he said.
Charting new waters
Verhagen said Amherst Marine was founded in 1988 by Jerry Clinton, who sold it to him in 2020.
Moving the business to a 10-acre site located off Highway 10 near County Truck Q, Verhagen said the facility accommodates a showroom, administrative space, in-house financing center, sales offices, service center, parts inventory space and boat storage facilities.
“We moved to the new Waupaca location in 2023, which is only about five miles away from our previous location,” he said.
Verhagen said Amherst Marine sells Crestliner fishing boats, Harris pontoon boats, Fliteboards, e-Foils and Mercury outboards.
“We are a full-service Mercury Marine service center,” he said. “We also store about 275 boats annually.”
Verhagen said his first goal as the new owner was to build on the strong foundation that the previous owner had built for Amherst Marine with customer service “as our core.”
In addition to the move and expansion, Verhagen said other changes under his leadership include a transition from paper-based record keeping to dealer management software to help modernize the business, a website refresh and new inventory.
“A major change for us was bringing on Harris pontoon boats about four years ago, as well as adding Fliteboards [personal watercraft],” he said.
Making waves
Earning Dealer of the Year honors from Harris, just four years after assuming ownership of Amherst Marine and bringing on the brand, Verhagen said, was very rewarding, albeit somewhat surprising.
The award, he said, is based on customer surveys.
“We were not expecting it when it was announced at the annual meeting in July – it’s such a great honor,” he said.
Verhagen said the economic climate since he assumed ownership of the dealership – having to very quickly navigate through a global pandemic – “has been a wild ride.”
“Three weeks after I purchased the business in February 2020, we were told we’d be under the mandated COVID-19-related shutdown,” he said. “Fortunately, we were eventually able to reopen.”
After months and months of closures from schools to workplaces to recreation centers and everything in between, Verhagen said when the summer of 2021 hit, and “people wanted to get out – get out on the water, especially.”
“We saw an industry high for boat sales through 2021 and into 2022,” he said.
Verhagen said that rush depleted the supply chain.
“So, very quickly, no one had any inventory,” he said. “At that same time, we were making our move from Sylvan pontoons to Harris, and as a new dealer with Harris, we were able to get boats, but there was a limited number available.”
The ups and downs of COVID, Verhagen said, were followed by a minor recession “that I think we’re maybe just starting to see our way out of.”
“But the recession has brought inventory to an all-time high in a very short period of time,” he said. “The increase in interest rates also slowed sales a bit in 2023 and 2024. So, we’ve definitely seen a rollercoaster of events take place, all while taking over and trying to grow a business.”
Verhagen said due to restrictions on things like going out to eat and vacation travel during the lockdowns, people had more money to spend on bigger-ticket items, including recreational vehicles.
That dynamic, he said, is starting to reverse with travel back to normal, but overall, the COVID-19 era produced a shift in recreational trends – with families accustomed to spending more time together and wanting to get out on waters closer to home.
Verhagen said the ease in inflation and projected drop in interest rates are likely to help businesses, such as Amherst Marine.
Regarding shifts in the recreational boating world, Verhagen said tritoons – which have three tubes underneath the boat versus two – are on trend.
“What that third [tube] does is give people the room and space traditional pontoons have to offer, but with the performance of something more similar to a runabout or deck boat,” he said. “They can run at a higher horsepower, allowing the boat to pull skiers and tubers. It’s more like a knife blade through the waves with the three pontoons, so it gives a little bit better ride.”
Shifting seasons
As summer winds down and the cooler temperatures move into the state, Verhagen said the dealership will start shifting gears to its winter maintenance and storage focus.
In October, he said the dealership hosts a brat fry party, welcoming everyone who plans to have their boat stored there over winter.
In March, Verhagen said they conduct an open house to help people get an early start on the summer boating season.
With the move back to Waupaca, he said he is enjoying a homecoming of sorts with his young family and new career.
Visitors to Amherst Marine, Verhagen said, may even be greeted by his dad, Brian, who helps out on occasion.
Looking ahead, Verhagen said Amherst Marine plans to grow by expanding its boat storage capacity and enlarging the showroom to better showcase its diverse inventory.
Additionally, he said the dealership aims to strengthen its team by hiring more staff – including skilled service technicians and detailers, to improve turnaround times and enhance overall customer experience – “as we’re customer service-centric.”
Offering quick turnaround times – with his clientele hoping to head out from docks across North Central Wisconsin in short order – Verhagen said is key.
“We understand that Wisconsin summers are short, and people want to be on the water as much as possible,” he said.
For more information on Amherst Marine, head to amherstmarine.com or check it out on Facebook.
