BoatUS saddened by Nancy Michelman’s death

BoatUS (Boat Owners Association of the United States) are saddened due to Publisher and President Nancy Michelman’s death on Friday after battling with cancer for a year. Nancy was an altruistic leader who laughed all the time with a rare gift to inspire others making them work together and get the best of them. Nancy was overall blessed with energy and optimism all the time.

Nancy called herself a Jersey girl and began sailing at camps in Maine when she was a child and later on developed a craving for boating. In 1989, she was the upcoming star with AAA, and Richard Swartz, the founder of BoatUS, was taken aback by her intelligence and energy. He did hire her immediately and made her run the Membership Department of the BoatUS, partner relationship management and also aid in the growth of services and benefits.

During Nancy’s term, membership of BoatUS grew to an all-time high of 650,000 members from a reasonable 350,000. Nancy also took up the role of BoatUS publication while she was the President in 2008. The publication was called BoatUS Magazine. It was a dynamic magazine and kept members informed of all events and also the excitement about their fishing, boating and sailing grew stronger.

Richard Schwartz says Nancy belonged to a special group of professionals that built BoatUS the way it’s seen today. He told with Nancy, for most of the time, it was about passion, generosity, loyalty and engagement, and at the same time, enjoying each moment while working on it. He tells she used to encourage the staff working on similar goals, and strongly emphasized their number one priority should be to help members.

Nancy’s relationship was personal with members. She used to talk to members personally over the phone. The personal touch to it was very genuine, and she also shared whatever she had to say about her illness in BoatUS publications that did inspire many members to live life to their passions.

Bill Oakerson, CEO, BoatUS, says Nancy made her colleagues and all the members feel they were all special and unique to her and indeed they were all special people. Bill says Nancy’s leadership qualities were exceptional, and the results were amazing as she was gifted to talk from the heart to people and taught everybody at BoatUS how to grow through optimism and find joy in everything that life could offer such as in their work, aboard their boats and friendships.