Tadd Mick, Noelie Achen and Chris Schaffner are the owners of Tradewinds Charters in Depoe Bay. They recently won a statewide award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The national winner of the Small Business Person of the Year award will be announced in May. Mick is the president of Tradewinds Charters, and Achen is the vice president. They’ll head to Washington, D.C., next month to receive their award. Achen and Mick join us to share more about their business.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Every year, the U.S. Small Business Administration celebrates the owners of one business operation in each state. The SBA’s choice in Oregon this year is the team behind Tradewinds Charters in Depoe Bay. They manage a fleet of six vessels for whale watching tours and fishing trips. I’m joined now by two of the three members of the ownership team. Tadd Mick is the president of the company. Noelie Achen is the vice president. Welcome to Think Out Loud.
Noelie Achen: Thank you for having us.
Tadd Mick: Absolutely.
Miller: And I should say, before we start, that I also want to recognize the third member of your team, Chris Schaffner. Tadd, first, what does Tradewinds Charters do?
Mick: We’re basically a booking agent for ‒ actually we’re down a boat, right now we have five boats – but we are the booking agent for five independent contractors.
Miller: What kind of services do you provide for those independent contractors? These are folks who own their own boats or own their own operations, but then if I want to go on a whale watching tour, I would interact with you?
Mick: Yeah, you can call our office, or we also have a really good online booking system that’s super easy to use. It’s very, very user friendly. Generally, we fish in the mornings and then, Depoe Bay is the whale watch capital, so we whale watch in the afternoons.
Miller: Noelie, how long have you been a part of this business?
Achen: I have been here for over 20 years. I started out as a teenager working there selling whale watching tickets to people that would walk by, and I’ve played a number of different roles there, but yeah, it’s been over 20 years now.
Miller: So you were there as a teenager, but it was only a couple years ago that you joined on as one of the owners.
Achen: Yeah, I decided that at that point in my life it was either I want to get more serious in my role here or decide if I need to move on from it. And I decided I didn’t want to leave and I had the opportunity to invest in the business, and I did it at that point. So it’s been really exciting.
Miller: Tadd, what about you? Does your time with this business go back as long as Noelie’s?
Mick: Well, not quite. I bought one of the nicer charter boats in the fleet in 2013, and pretty much ran that boat until the business became available to us in 2018. We were gonna close on it early 2020, and the pandemic came along. So we decided we’d better wait to see to get through that environment. So, we actually bought the office in 2021.
Miller: 2020 was when you were going to buy the business. What did the pandemic mean for whale watching tours or fishing charters?
Achen: Oh, it was a process to adjust to it, but essentially, like most businesses, we had to accommodate for social distancing. We had to lower the amount of people that we could accommodate, of course, and then just do our best to abide by all the rules that were put out in front of us.
It definitely made it difficult, but we were able to navigate through it pretty successfully and we are lucky because our service is pretty much outdoors entirely. So, at least it wasn’t like a lot of other businesses’ challenges, being inside a confined small area like that. We’re out in the environment getting fresh air and that really helped.
Miller: I imagine,especially if we’re talking about, say an extended family. It’s not like this is a mass group all in an enclosed area. It’s a smaller number of people in a place where there’s some fresh air. So people did come, once you figured out what the changes were going to be.
Achen: Absolutely. I think that it was a good activity for people to do outdoors. A lot of people that felt really cooped up that wanted to be able to go out and do something with their families, it was a relatively lower risk activity at the time. So I think that, although it was difficult and the numbers were down just because we weren’t able to accommodate as many people due to the social distancing guidelines, we still made it work.
Miller: Tadd, as we heard from Noelie, she had been working at various jobs in these businesses for a while, since she was a teen, going back 20 years or so. And then as she said, it got to the point where she had to decide, “Am I going to stay with this, and move up, or am I gonna move on?” What about you? Why is it that you wanted to become an owner of this operation?
Mick: Well, the number one thing I really liked about it is there’s really no inventory. I’ve always been in businesses where the inventory has been a big part of it, and I like the idea of not having to inventory anything.
Miller: You’re selling experiences for the most part, as opposed to stuff.
Mick: Exactly, exactly.
Miller: I wonder if you’re even more happy that that’s the kind of business you chose now, given all the challenges of importing, exporting, tariffs and inventory?
Mick: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I pretty much bought the business, and I knew I needed Noelie desperately because she knows the business so doggone well. And she’s just a fantastic person, so I decided I better make her a partner right off the bat. So, it’s worked out. We’re very, very fortunate.
Miller: Noelie, what is the business model here? Because, to go back to what we were talking about earlier, if you’re down a boat, as Tadd said, in the past there’ve been six, there’s five boats operating now. What’s to stop a boat owner from just saying, “I’m gonna do this myself. I don’t need someone to go through, to be a middleman. I will offer tours or fishing and I’ll just do it myself.” What do you offer?
Achen: There’s something to be said, I think, with the history of Tradewinds. We’ve been here since 1938, and we’re still here. So I think in the world of small businesses, that’s already a huge achievement. But the service that we offer, I feel for those that do try to go independently, it’s not gonna be quite as steady, not gonna be able to fill the boats as often as someone that’s going through an agent like this.
And you rely heavily on your return customers, too, so when you’ve been with a company like ours for a long time, we promote these boats individually, too. We really let our customers know each captain, each deckhand. They develop relationships, and they can come back and request that boat.
And all of our captains are really, really great. I think they all know the benefits of having a booking agent, because I think at some point or another the thought has probably crossed their heads of doing bookings themselves, but at the end of the day the fact that our business has been here for so long, we have the history. People know Tradewinds is an iconic business on the coast. I think that’s just a huge benefit for being able to fill these boats and have them working as much as they want to be working.
Mick: Can I chime in there, too?
Miller: Please, yeah.
Mick: There’s so much more to it than meets the eye. We field many, many calls, just with folks with really good questions and stuff, so our phones are pretty much constantly ringing, and as an ex-fisherman, we don’t have the time to field all those phone calls.
A big part of our service also is filleters. We fillet everybody’s fish when they come in, and that’s a big stopping point for somebody running independently too – just finding a filleter that wants to use a single boat vs five boats. So we get a lot more business for our filleters, also.
Miller: Tadd, I understand that you and the team took part in the Oregon Coast Community College’s Small Business Management program two years in a row. What did you learn from those classes?
Mick: Oh man, the benefits were just absolutely endless. The contacts we got were just absolutely phenomenal. I think the main thing, more important than anything, was navigating social media and Google, of course, and just dealing with individuals with today’s environment, with the new social media and everything that’s happening.
Miller: Noelie, I’m curious how you think the business has evolved since you all took it over. As you said, it’s been around since 1938, long before social media or Yelp, but you all took over at a time when that was already part of the landscape. What kinds of changes has your team instituted?
Achen: The biggest change that came with the new ownership I would have to say is the integration of an online booking system. Previously we were doing very well with people just calling in, but having the option for people to book online exclusively, and being able to book well ahead of time, having the entire calendar out for the year, people can really plan ahead, which is becoming more of a necessary thing these days. I think that’s number one.
And then part of what you were talking about earlier with learning the whole online atmosphere of all of the social media, Google, how do we deal with our advertisements online, what keywords you need to put so when people are looking for you online, they can find it. These are all things that we learned when we were taking the class through OCCC.
Learning all those things and implementing, coming into the new age where technology and an online presence is so important, I think that really helped us take the next step into catching up and advancing with the technology.
Miller: Tadd, you were saying that you were happy to buy into a business that did not have a lot of inventory, that was not in the business of selling a lot of stuff, but more an experience. But I’m wondering, have you been affected? Do you think you’ll be affected, going forward, by all the tariff whiplash?
Mick: Well, we’re optimistic. You know, every economic downturn we’ve ever had in the history of the business, our business hasn’t really been that affected, because not as many people are flying out of state and stuff. It’s so hard to say at this point. We’re so early in the game right now, but it really shouldn’t affect us that much.
Miller: Oh, do I understand what you’re saying, so let’s say that there’s a drop in international or out-of-state tourism.
Let’s say that there is a recession, something that plenty of economists say is a lot more likely now than they were thinking a month or two ago. The hope is, on your part, from previous downturns, that if that does happen, it may mean that Oregonians who otherwise would travel further, they may say instead go to the coast, and they may book a day trip on one of your boats.
Mick: Yes, exactly, versus going to Alaska. Our bottom fishing trips are $100 or $95, so it’s very, very reasonable. Like I tell folks all the time, it’s cheaper than buying it at the store. We actually have quite a few folks that fish with us just for sustenance.
Miller: What does it mean, Noelie, to get this award?
Achen: Oh, it means a lot. You know, I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to this business. I’m not that old yet, so 20 years is the majority of my life that I’ve been at this business. So it means a lot to get recognized. I think, more than anything else, the recognition that Tradewinds gets is what I like most about it. I really feel like Tradewinds has so much history and I’m glad that the work that we’re doing there is getting some attention, people are noticing.
To get that nomination was an honor. To know that people are noticing the work that we’re putting in on all levels of the business, not just the business in itself, but what we’re trying to give back to the community and to the environment.
Miller: Tadd, before we say goodbye, I know that one of the organizations that you’re passionate about supporting is the Oregon Kelp Alliance, an issue that we’ve talked about on the show a fair amount over the years. Why is this so important to you?
Mick: Boy, that’s really our number one thing for sustenance. You know, the Mysis shrimp – which are about the size of your fingernail – hang out in the kelp, and a whale has to eat a ton of those a day. So the kelp is a very, very vital part of all of our business. That’s where the bait fish also hang out, Rockfish and Lingcod, also. The Oregon Kelp Alliance is a great, great organization for us to be involved with, just for our sustenance, also.
We had a starfish die-off about 10 years ago, and the starfish eat the green sea urchins, and the green sea urchins eat the kelp. So we had a major downturn in our kelp forests during that time. But the good news is that the starfish are starting to come back. Last year, our kelp didn’t even show up here in our bay until about late July, and usually it’s here in earnest by mid-June. So that was a little bit of concern, but then when it did come back, it came back really thick. And this year we’ve already got kelp in our bay already, so it’s very, very encouraging, too. It’s such a vital part of our food chain.
Miller: Tadd, Noelie, congratulations again and thanks so much for joining us.
Achen: Thank you so much for having us.
Mick: Yeah, thank you.
Miller: Tadd Mick is the president of Tradewinds Charters in Depoe Bay. Noelie Achen is vice president. They are two of the three owners of this company. They’ve been recognized as Oregon’s Small Business Persons of the year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
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