Tara Lordi on Marine Innovation and Weedoo Boats Expansion to Martin County

Earlier this year, the Business Development Board of Martin County had the privilege of teaming with Weedoo Boats to assist the company in opening its 27,000-square-foot facility in Stuart.

Founded more than 20 years ago by Tara Lordi, owner and president, and her late husband, John Grimes, the couple worked side by side from the onset to develop environmentally responsible solutions for removing invasive aquatic vegetation.

The company created a lane all its own.

Weedoo Boats designs and manufactures compact, purpose-built vessels designed to navigate shallow waters such as swamps, wetlands, canals, lakes and even dry land. Its vessels support environmental remediation, shoreline maintenance, and restoration projects by mechanically removing aquatic vegetation, invasive species, algae, and other biomass—all without the use of harmful chemical herbicides.

We spoke with Tara to learn more about her business and her experience since moving to our community.

What do you like most about operating out of Stuart?

Initially, the reason we moved from West Palm Beach came down to economics that the fact that we needed to secure a larger building. But after working with Troy McDonald of the BDB team, I realized that Stuart reminded me of home. I grew up on the base of the Catskill Mountains and everyone helped each other.

I realized that Stuart was more family oriented than West Palm Beach and from a business perspective felt so much more sincere. I walked into ACE Hardware and people told me to have a blessed day. Typically, I get hip checked when I go to Home Depot in West Palm Beach.

Martin County is home to strong marine industry that’s rooted in fishing. Weedoo Boats is a unique company with very specialized, innovative vessels. What has your experience been like integrating into the local industry?

Because Martin County and Stuart are so manufacturing friendly, it’s been a delight because I can turn 360 degrees and I’m talking to someone who’s in the composite world—which we usually have to outsource.

There are very smart people here who’ve been manufacturing fiberglass for a very long time so that’s an advantage. And our product helps with an environmental matter that Stuart’s been dealing with for a very long time, so I think we’re going to be able to give them some relief.

What can you tell us about your typical customers?

Municipalities are a big customer base of ours. Government agencies, the federal government, environmental contractors, water management districts, drainage districts, landscape companies, homeowners’ associations that maintain lakes, waterways, and canals, and sometimes the gentleman farmer who wants to clean the ponds on his own farm for his cows.

We’re direct to consumers in sales—whether government, municipalities or the gentleman farmer.

Are there any other marine manufacturers that create innovations to address the issue of waterway remediation?

There are other competitors manufacturing large harvesters. There are some companies doing that—but not very many. We started with a mission to build compact shallow workboats. We’ve grown and are now in 22 countries,

We have amphibious equipment and we also bring in the larger harvester equipment, which we incorporate with our 11-foot shallow workboats, and actually remove biomass around Lake Okeechobee.

What will it take to reach a time when innovations like yours will make the usage of herbicides in local waterways a thing of the past?

If you fly to Portugal tomorrow, you’re going to see seaweed built up on the shores. We need to safely, effectively and efficiently remove the biomass from the shores because spraying only sinks it to the bottom, creating more toxic blooms. We have to keep building awareness and that would be my goal.

I grew up in the Catskills, as I said, where having a canoe strapped to the top of the car was common. Jumping in any river and lake was common. But we know there are now contaminates there that are a concern.

We talk to a lot of different business owners about their pain points. What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your field?

Education to stop herbicide spraying is the main challenge. I’m only one person and the only one who has this breadth of products. But education is the biggest hurdle we face—and dealing with people who are used to a certain way, so change is difficult.

On the manufacturing side, Stuart has opened up the doors for me and I have to hire very quickly. Luckily here, unlike in West Palm, I have been able to fill orders every quickly.

We won Manufacturer of The Year from South Florida Manufacturer Association. We won for our ability to communicate and train. Within three to four weeks, we’ll have you feeling very comfortable and functional at speeds that we need. These are 11-foot hauls, so it’s not a huge boat. It’s not expense center consoles. They’re workboats.

What’s next for Weedoo Boats?

We’re going to expand through the dealer market. Now that we’ve stabilized a lot of our product line, we’re going to aggressively go to the dealer market throughout the world. We’ve launched in Canada, and that’s doing great. But each time I speak to a customer, I’m getting requests for more customed products. That’s the nice part about staying direct to consumer.