Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve.
Hi Steve, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m a techie who got bored.
That’s the short version. The longer one starts at Caltech, then USC for a degree in Decision Systems, then UCLA’s Anderson School for an MBA. Very impressive on paper. I told my parents I was going to do something with all of it.
I did, sort of. I worked in business development at NYNEX, which is a company that ages me. I helped finish the security and parking systems at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark. Then America Online, then a few internet startups, then a stint in local government, then back into business. Eventually, I ran DJM Electronics, where we make EMI filters. If you don’t know what those are, congratulations you’re in good company. Not many people do (or will ever need to!).
By every reasonable measure, I was successful. I have three patents. My products end up in MRI machines, in classified rooms at three-letter agencies, and in the listening rooms of audiophiles who care more about the noise floor than I care about most things. None of my friends know what I do. They say I make “magic boxes.” I’ve gotten used to it.
The funny part: the older I get, the less I want to talk about engineering. I studied math and physics in college, and now I prefer taking classes about ancient history and architecture for fun. Twenty-year-old me would be horrified!
And now I’m co-founding a yacht brokerage firm. I ended up here because my wife, Leanne, has been selling yachts for over twenty years. I love boats, so I kept volunteering to move them around. Eventually, she just started drafting me. I worked my way up and earned a 100-ton Coast Guard captain’s license. That’s how it usually goes with me. I take a side door into something, and then I keep walking.
Pacific Yacht Partners is what Leanne, our partner John Bohne, and I are building now. We’re trying to do the brokerage thing differently, but mostly, I’m finally doing something I actually want to talk about at dinner (and, more importantly, people want to hear about!).
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. But I can safely say most of the bumps have been my own fault.
At one point, I decided the answer to all of DJM’s problems was to manufacture across the border in Mexico and bring the parts up for final assembly here. I was very confident. Spoiler: I traded one set of problems for a brand new set of problems, with cross-border logistics and currency stapled on top. To fix the problems, I moved manufacturing to the USA and encountered a whole slew of cultural and economic issues. It turns out “different problems” is not the same as “fewer problems.”
I’ve also learned that personalities will eat strategy for breakfast. Every business has them. The mistake I’ve made more than once is drifting away from who I am to manage someone else’s behavior. That never ends well. The only way I’ve found to stay sane is to stay grounded in what I actually believe and how I want to operate.
The most important lesson, learned mostly the hard way, is that white-knuckling the wheel doesn’t get you there faster. Constant pressure in the right direction usually beats correcting every bump. Sometimes you back off and the situation works itself out. Just not the way you had drawn it up. That’s harder for engineers to accept than it should be. We like the version where the math works out. Real life is more like sailing. You set a course, you trim, you adjust, and you arrive somewhere reasonably close to where you wanted.
We’ve been impressed with DJM Electronics and Pacific Yacht Partners, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My old company is DJM Electronics. We make electronic radio and microwave filters that keep noise out of sensitive equipment. They show up in MRI machines, secure communications rooms, audio gear, and aerospace systems. Customers in dozens of countries. Three patents to my name. I am genuinely proud of all of that. I also accept that nobody will ever ask me about it at a dinner party. After two decades of explaining my “magic boxes” at cocktail parties, I think I’ve successfully explained it once.
Pacific Yacht Partners is my new firm. We’re a yacht brokerage, dealership, and marine services company based in San Diego. My partners are my wife, Leanne, who has been doing this most of her life and runs marketing and customer experience, and John Bohne, our broker, who loves selling boats as much as the rest of us.
Most yacht brokerages are transactional. You buy a boat from a guy. The guy is great. Then you need something done on your boat and the guy is nowhere to be found, and you’re stuck with a service department that has never heard of you. You’re lucky they take your call. A few years later you’re ready to sell or move up to a bigger boat, and your guy is right there waiting for you, except he works for a different company now and is pitching different boats. Or you go back to the original brokerage and they act like you just walked in off the street. So you start over with a new guy and he’s great. It’s all very transactional, and it’s pretty clear that everyone involved is just chasing the commission.
We’re building the opposite. At Pacific Yacht Partners we know that buying the boat is just the beginning, and we want to stay with you for the whole ride. Sales, service, and customer experience are all under one roof, reading from the same notes. We sold you the boat, so we know the boat. Something broken? We get it fixed. Three years in when you want to upgrade the electronics, we already know what’s on it. Five years in when it’s time to sell, we know the boat better than anyone walking the dock. Then we help you find the next one. And the one after that.
Our tagline is “One firm, one relationship for your yachting lifestyle.” It sounds like marketing because it is. After enough years in business, I can tell you it’s rare when the marketing language and the actual business are the same thing.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about being successful at something you don’t love. The success is real. The bank account is real. The credentials are real. But none of it makes you want to get out of bed faster.
I built a good business solving real problems for serious customers. I’m proud of it and I’m not walking away from it. But over the years, I noticed I lit up around boats in a way I never did around a network analyzer. At some point, I had to be honest with myself about that.
What I love about this new chapter is that we’re selling fun. Nobody buys a yacht because they need it to get to work. Nobody is forced into one. People buy boats because of what the boat lets them be. The true version of themselves, on the water, with the people they care about. That is a great product to represent.
The work is still work. There are hard negotiations, difficult clients, contracts, money, late nights, lost deals. But when I catch myself getting wound up about any of it, all I have to do is take a breath. I sell boats. That tends to help.
If there’s anything I’d want someone to take from this, it’s that being really good at something you don’t love is a trap. It’s a comfortable trap, but it’s still a trap. Doing what you love isn’t easier and it isn’t less work. It’s different work, and you show up as the version of yourself that actually wants to be there. That’s worth a lot.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.djmelectronics.com and www.pacificyp.com
