Ed Lofgren, MRAA Educational Foundation president, presented two Technical Scholarship awards at the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. Receiving a $3,000 award was Thomas Dempsey, a native from Massachusetts and a student at The Landing School, Arundel, Maine. He has an associate’s degree in business administration from Dean College. He has worked as a deck hand on an educational schooner, the Roseway. He has also been crewing for the Adventuress, a 1924 Fife Ketch out of Newport, Rhode Island. His responsibilities include maintenance, restoration, training crews to sail and pass Coast Guard certification, sailing the yacht and overseeing crew and guests during charter tours.

Also receiving a $3,000 award was Nicholas J. Welch, who is attending WYOTECH, Daytona, Florida. Setting high goals for himself, he has achieved perfect attendance and a 99% academic average. He is concentrating on the diesel technology field. While in high school he was a member of the FCA and Fish Club where he developed a passion for fishing and subsequently a career in the technical area of the marine industry.

The Marine Retailers Association of America held its annual Board meeting at the Marine Dealer & Conference Expo on November 19th at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The following officers were elected: Ed Lofgren, Chairman, 3A Marine Service, Inc., Dave Foulkrod, Vice Chairman, Ship & Sail, Inc., Steve Baum, Treasurer, Boat Owners Warehouse, and Robert Soucy, Immediate Past Chairman.

Pursuant to the MRAA Bylaws, Article VII, Section 2, you are hereby notified that the 2008 Annual Membership Meeting at which the election of offices and directors will take place, will be held:

Nomination of Officers:

Nomination of Directors:

Regions 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 10 have Directors in place who have remaining terms.

Oak Park, IL, July 21, 2008

The Marine Retailers Association of America (MRAA) sent a strongly worded letter today to the Environmental Protection Agency commenting on its proposed rule on recreational boat incidental discharges. As a reminder, a Federal District Court judge ruled that recreational boats would have to secure burdensome and expensive federal or state permits to discharge engine-cooling water, gray water, uncontaminated bilge water, and weather-caused deck run off.

MRAA stressed that the proposed rule would have a vast, unprecedented impact on recreational boating and would place an undue hardship on Americans over everyday water discharges. It would place them in a direct regulatory regime designed for land-based industrial facilities, like sewage disposal plants and commercial shipping vessels.

The proposed law also does not allow for education of the public about the rules. Individual states can implement their own laws, thus causing confusion for the boaters trying to follow the rules and at the same time enjoying a day of relaxation. Boaters will have to comply with the NPDES permit requirement after September 30, 2008, but the EPA will not be educating the boating public on what these new permits mean. There are a lot of people to educate in a very short period of time.

"MRAA sees great fault with the proposed rule and the potential of it causing great harm to the nation. We have asked the EPA to reconsider its proposed rule and to return recreational boating to the current application of the Clean Water Act," said Robert Soucy, MRAA Chairman. "As we have asked our members in Dealer Alerts, we again ask them to go to www.boatblue.org and to contact their members of Congress to voice support for S. 2766 and H.R. 5949. Passage of these two bills is imperative by September 30, 2008," added Soucy.