Springfield Marine Company
From our humble beginnings in 1952 as an aluminum foundry operating out of a rented garage and still in 2025 as we celebrate 73 years of business, Springfield Marine Company has always been a pioneer. In the 1960’s, we pioneered the marine seating market, in the 1980’s we were among the first U.S. companies to begin global sourcing, and in the 1990’s our founder was among the first American entrepreneurs to open his own manufacturing facility in China to ensure our products maintained our high quality but still benefited from the low cost of Asian manufacturing.
Today, Springfield Marine Company is known worldwide as a leading provider of marine seating, seating & table hardware, and boarding ladders. We are not a company that is comfortable resting on our laurels. Every day, Springfield Marine pioneers new technologies, new manufacturing equipment / methods, and new designs to MAKE BOATING BETTER for boaters around the world.
In 1952, then 22-year-old Garnett Carnahan purchased an aluminum gas furnace and started Springfield Aluminum Company to support a local fence company with castings. The company first operated out of a rented garage space with just a few employees to run the casting facility. Through word-of-mouth the aluminum casting foundry grew to support other companies in Southwest Missouri.
Garnett operated his business based on three (3) core values, which is still how we measure everything we do today:
- Focus on the needs of our end-customers (boaters)
- Manufacture / Source only the highest quality products, and
- Empower and grow our employees
In the late 1960s, the marine industry started to grow in Missouri, and Springfield Aluminum started supplying castings, including bow eyes, cleats and corners. Our first marine customers, Tracker Marine and Lowe Boats, are still among our top customers today.
The 1970’s saw our sales territory expand across the Midwest and the marine segment quickly became the largest market segment for Springfield Aluminum. Based on this, Garnett created the new brand “Springfield Marine,” and began developing a product line to go with it. The primary focus of the line was seat pedestals, but this rapidly expanded into other seat hardware to complement its pedestal line. With his success in the marine segment, Garnett soon realized the business needed more space. In 1974, the company relocated to a new custom-built 86,000 square foot foundry in Nixa, Missouri.
By the mid-1980’s, global sourcing was all the rage among U.S. companies. However, it was old hat for Springfield Aluminum. Garnett was an early pioneer of global sourcing, having begun his search for manufacturing partners in Asia in the early 80’s.
To aid in his search, Garnett contracted with Caroline Lee who operated a consulting business helping American companies find qualified suppliers. Their search led to several key relationships with suppliers in Taiwan.
In 1988, Garnett married Caroline Lee and in 1990, the couple partnered and opened a manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China, called SCHECO. Having control of manufacturing allowed for more secure handling of the growing Springfield Marine product line, including proprietary processes and patented designs. With the added capacity and lower cost basis of the Shanghai facility, Garnett and Caroline set about expanding the customer base globally. In 1995, they expanded the Springfield Marine brand into Europe and Australia.
Tragedy struck the business in 1999 when our main plant in Nixa, Missouri, burned to the ground in a catastrophic fire over Thanksgiving weekend. The Springfield Marine team rebounded by quickly renting several building to continue operating while they rebuilt. The one saving grace we had was our sister company, SCHECO. The China facility had a fully working foundry, and was already producing components, sub-assemblies and some finished goods. Our Chinese co-workers stepped up and quickly became the primary supplier for Springfield Marine to its U.S. and international customers.
In 2001, Springfield rebuilt its Nixa headquarters. Replacing the 86,000 square foot foundry was a new 117,000 square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility. With the combination of expanded capacity and the lower manufacturing cost from our China facility, Springfield Marine became the low-cost provider of boat seating and seat/table hardware and began to see significant growth.
In 2007-2008, the world was hit by the “Great Recession,” and the marine industry was hit extremely hard with new boat sales dropping ~50%. While Springfield Marine’s sales dropped, we were not impacted as negatively as many of our competitors. Our low-cost position helped us pick up market share during the downturn, and post-2008 we saw rapid growth.
To meet this rapid growth, we needed more manufacturing capacity. Due to the significantly lower manufacturing costs, Garnett and Caroline decided to expand the China operations. In 2009, they moved the SCHECO business to a new 350,000 square foot facility in an emerging industrial area called “New Shanghai” and renamed it to Jiangsu Carnahan.
The 2010’s were, for the most part, good for Springfield Marine as the business continued its rapid growth. However, the company suffered a tremendous blow as we lost our founder, Garnett, in February 2014. Garnett wore many hats at Springfield Marine: founder, leader, product visionary, and manufacturing expert. Fortunately, Garnett had a solid team behind him and a partner (Caroline) that was more than equipped to pick up the reins and lead the business forward. Under Caroline’s leadership, Springfield Marine closed out 2019 with revenues that were more than double our 2010 levels.
The first half of the 2020’s has been a rollercoaster, to say the least. First, came the shutdowns from COVID then the supply chain crisis, which cut revenue and drove significant additional costs; during the supply chain crisis, Springfield Marine absorbed over $2M of air freight costs to ensure we were able to properly supply our boatbuilder customers. This was immediately followed by a COVID demand spike for new boats that resulted in a meteoric increase in 2021-2022 where we doubled our revenue in two (2) very short years.
In 2023, our President of 15 years retired. Realizing the company’s recent growth required a leader that could transform the business’ processes and infrastructure to continue its growth in the future, Caroline went outside the company and brought in Mike Folkerts as the new President of Springfield Marine. Mike came from Brunswick Corporation, and his experience building their parts & accessories business and transforming eight (8) companies made him ideal for what Caroline had in mind. In their first meeting, Caroline assigned Mike the task of not only updating the infrastructure and growing the business, but to grow the company into new product offerings and new markets.
In the last two years, Springfield Marine has done just that. No area of the company has been untouched. We have upgraded our staff (sales, marketing, engineering, QA, Mfg, and whse), installed an ISO 9001:2015 compliant QA system, developed over 20 new products, expanded into boarding ladders and enhanced our manufacturing capabilities.
Beyond our internal growth, we also completed two acquisitions. In 2024, Springfield Marine acquired Advanced Fabrication Technologies, which added significant metal fabrication capabilities including water jet, laser jet, press brakes, bending, shearing, and welding. In August 2024, Springfield Marine entered the shock mitigation arena with the acquisition of NZ-based Shark Seating Ltd. This acquisition not only expanded our product offering, but also brought Springfield Marine into the Commercial Marine and Defense markets.
For the last 73 years, Springfield Marine has led the way in the marine seating and seat hardware categories. We are passionate about what we do and the products we create. As boating continues to change, we are committed to listening to boaters and delivering the innovation and changes necessary to Make Boating Better for them.
Jiangsu Carnahan MFG
Jiangsu Carnahan Mfg. is a sister company to Springfield Marine. Our founders, Garnett and Caroline Carnahan, were among the early pioneers of global sourcing. Finding the quality of product was generally not to their standards but still wanting to take advantage of the low manufacturing costs of Asia, they decided the best way forward was to build their own facility in China to better control the quality.
In 1988, Garnett married Caroline Lee and in 1990, the couple partnered to open a manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China, called SCHECO. Having control of manufacturing allowed for more secure handling of the growing Springfield Marine product line, including proprietary processes and patented designs. With the added capacity and lower cost basis of the Shanghai facility, Garnett and Caroline set about expanding the customer base globally. In 1995, they expanded the Springfield Marine brand into Europe and Australia.
In 1999, tragedy struck our sister company, Springfield Marine, when their main plant in Nixa, Missouri, burned to the ground in a catastrophic fire over Thanksgiving weekend. SCHECO was a key part of their rebuilding plans for Springfield Marine. The China facility had a fully working foundry, and was already producing components, sub-assemblies and some finished goods. Our Chinese team stepped up and quickly became the primary supplier to Springfield Marine providing all castings and manufacturing almost 70% of their U.S. demand for other products. SHECO also began distributing finished goods directly to Springfield Marine’s international customers in Europe and the APAC region.
In 2007-2008, the world was hit by the “Great Recession,” and the marine industry was hit extremely hard with new boat sales dropping ~50%. While Springfield Marine’s sales dropped, they were not impacted as negatively as many of our competitors. SHECO’s low-cost manufacturing base helped Springfield Marine not only weather the storm but gain market share during the downturn and positioned them for rapid growth post-2008.
To meet this rapid growth, Garnett and Caroline decided to expand capacity and with its lower cost base the China operation was the logical choice. In 2009, they moved the SCHECO business to a new 350,000 square foot facility in an emerging industrial area called “New Shanghai” and renamed the business Jiangsu Carnahan Mfg.
The 2010’s were, for the most part, good for Jiangsu Carnahan as the Springfield Marine brand continued its rapid growth worldwide. However, in 2014, we suffered a tremendous blow as we lost our co-founder, Garnett. From the start, Garnett played a key role at Jiangsu Carnahan, contributing to training of foundry personnel, product design, manufacturing, assembly, and sales. He (and Caroline) spent 9 months a year at our facility, and his loss was profound. Fortunately, Garnett and Caroline built a solid team that was equipped to take the business into the future with Caroline at the helm.
An astute businesswoman with experience in a broad spectrum of areas ranging from sales to operations, Caroline firmly took the reins of Jiangsu Carnahan and steered the business not only through the loss of Garnett but also through a period of significant growth. To support the doubling of Springfield Marine’s business, we expanded our Jiangsu facility from 350,000 sq. ft. to 750,000 sq. ft. Under Caroline’s leadership, our manufacturing capabilities now included: on-site engineering and rapid prototyping, metal bending and welding, CNC machining, punch press forming, blow and injection molding, sewing and upholstering, and so much more.
The first half of the 2020’s has been a rollercoaster, to say the least. First, came COVID and all the government requirements necessary to ensure we all stayed healthy (masks, social distancing, daily / weekly COVID testing, quarantines, etc.). Then the supply chain crisis, where we struggled to find shipping containers and space on ships. To ensure customer demand was met, Springfield Marine dramatically increased air shipments and absorbed over $2M of additional costs. This was immediately followed by a COVID demand spike for new boats that resulted in a meteoric increase in 2021-2022 where we saw demand double in two (2) very short years.
In 2023, Springfield Marine got a new President and he developed a plan for continuing the rapid growth of the brand worldwide. The plan included acquisitions, expanded new product development, moving into new markets, and driving efficiency & automation across manufacturing. In preparation for this continued growth, Jiangsu Carnahan has once again expanded our facility from 750,000 sq. ft. to 825,000 sq. ft., as well as adding new, more efficient machines in both our fabrication and upholstery departments.
As Springfield Marine enacts its plan and captures more market share, Jiangsu Carnahan continues to play a large role. We are expanding our engineering team, driving innovation into our products and improving the efficiency of all our processes.
