Jim Austin no longer owns a boat, but he’s not leaving the GLCC

Jim Austin

Current Boat: N/A – “Retired”

Home Port: Fort Myers, Fla.

Joined GLCC: 2014

Joined GLCC Board: 2017

Title: Secretary

• Lifeline: You are retired. What was your occupation?

Jim Austin: I have worked in IT management for virtually all of my career, first in banking and financial services, then in telecommunications. My time in banking was working for two large Minneapolis banks which were providing IT services to smaller community banks around the upper Midwest.

A big part of those jobs was installing data circuits, so the transition to telecommunications was fairly natural. I ended up working in project management for two large Cisco partners, assisting major corporations with the transition to VOIP and in particular building complex contact centers for them – the menus we all pretty much hate.

• Lifeline: How did you get into boating? 

I grew up in Rochester, Minn., and no, my family was not a boating family. I was active in the Boy Scouts, and our summer camp for one week each year was just north of Lake City, on Lake Pepin, which is a very scenic wide spot in the Mississippi River.

It was there that I first learned how to paddle a canoe and row a boat, and got my first exposure to sailing – it was an X boat, as I recall. (I have all three of those merit badges, along with a bunch of others.) During my high school years, I was on the camp staff summers, teaching firearms safety as well as marksmanship merit badge classes.

My Great Lakes sailing experience started only because of my former boss at TCF (a Minneapolis bank), Jim Whiting. We have been very close for the past 50-plus years.

He and his brother first chartered a sailboat out of the Madeline Island Yacht Club on Lake Superior, and I was invited along as part of the crew. This would have been the early ’70s. Several other charters followed, and we all loved it.

Suffice it to say, if I had not met James Whiting my life would have been completely different – devoid of Great Lakes sailing. My entire family owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

• Lifeline: What types of boats have you owned?

Jim Whiting purchased a trailerable 25-foot Bayfield sailboat, the John Silver. He and his wife first sailed her on the St. Croix River, which around the Twin Cities serves as the Minnesota / Wisconsin border.

The location was ideal as Jim and I and our wives could meet after work on the river for an evening cruise with sandwiches and a glass of wine and still get home in time to report to work the next day.

John Silver was eventually moved to the Apostle Islands Marina in Bayfield, Wis. Believe it or not, the four of us would drive up there and sail for the weekend, anchoring somewhere in the Apostles on Friday and Saturday nights – cozy accommodations indeed. In 1986, Jim and Diane upgraded and Coleen and I purchased John Silver from

them. We had one small boy at the time, and by the time we also upgraded, we had two.

In 1991, we upgraded to a 30’ Baba, Pleiades (named for a cluster of stars also known as the Seven Sisters) which we loved and thoroughly enjoyed for the next 23 years, although there was too much brightwork involved.

We were “enlightened” to the benefits of a power boat (BIG windows among other things) in 2014 when we found Baby Grand in Charlevoix, Mich., and fell in love. Our big cruise home was up Lake Michigan, through a portion of Lake Huron, then the Soo Locks, of course, and then all along the south shore of Lake Superior.

It was a great first adventure with our new cruising vessel and cemented for us the value of the GLCC Harbor Reports. Before leaving, I had actually printed all of them along our route home, because I was not sure we would have Internet access enroute. We still have the spiral bound book – it’s a great souvenir.

• Lifeline: What attracted you to join GLCC?

As long-time members of the Bayfield YC, we had been well aware of the GLCC for years. BYC members included Rohdes, Jensens and the Korstads – all long-time board members and officers of the club. One January, Bill and Judy Rohde invited us to the January Lake Superior dinner, where there was also a discount to join the club. We went, we joined and the rest is history. Why it took us so long, I don’t really know.

• Lifeline: How did you get involved with GLCCSchool?

Bill and Judy had bought us dinner one January evening, and refused our offers to repay them. A few weeks later, Bill called me about the GLCCSchool. He was losing the guy who wrote the weekly blasts during the school year, to highlight and promote the upcoming classes – wouldn’t I be interested in replacing him? I said, “Sure, no problem.” Famous last words – I have now been doing that job for the past 10 years. I occasionally remind Bill that it must be the best $100 he ever spent.

The GLCCSchool has been an important club offering for more than 10 years now, and the array of talent we have attracted to originate and present our 40-some classes each year is very impressive. (I can say that, because my school colleagues did all of the work – not me.)

The most recent change, effective last fall, was a major one: there is no longer any charge to members for any of these webinars, a very important benefit of club membership!

There is a lot out there at the GLCCSchool – certainly for new cruisers – but also for our most experienced boaters. There is everything from information on cruising grounds you have always wanted to visit, to lots of maintenance information, to classes on some of the new navigation electronics, to cruising and anchoring techniques – and so much else that I cannot even think of right now. Oh – and don’t forget the class on rum . . . !

Go to the GLCC school tab (https://www.glccschool.com/), and do some exploring – we’ll be firing things up by around early November.

• Lifeline: How did you get involved with the GLCC Board?

In 2017, my longtime friend Niels Jensen suggested that perhaps I would be interested in joining the Board. A  few years after that, I was recruited to succeed my good friend Phil Doolittle as club secretary.

The club secretary is responsible for documenting all actions taken by the Board. In addition, the secretary is responsible for managing the election of officers and directors at our annual meetings in October of each year. I work with the Nominating Committee and of course Yvonne as our office manager to ensure that our deadlines as specified in the bylaws are adhered to.

Our board normally meets four times a year. The Executive Committee (Commodore, Vice Commodore, Treasurer and Secretary) meets via a Zoom call each month without a board meeting to discuss any current club business items. Any actions taken are always reported to the full board at the next meeting.

It is an honor to be part of this small group, and part of the club’s senior leadership.

• Lifeline: You and Coleen have “retired” from boating and you are still very active in the club.  As a non-boater, what are the top benefits of your GLCC membership?

Whenever someone asks me why, as a no-longer cruiser, we are still active in the club, I give the same answer: I enjoy the work, and I enjoy the people.

Coleen and I have made many close friends through our involvement with the GLCC and have shared countless cruising adventures with them.

We decided to ‘retire’ from boating one Friday evening in late 2021. At Bayfield, several of our favorite restaurants had closed, many of our close friends had already moved on from our Apostle Islands Marina, and that marina was to be undergoing a major (and badly needed) reconstruction project over the next 18 months.

After 40 years of marriage and 40 years of cruising Lake Superior, we looked forward to other summer travel.

We have a son and daughter in law in the Twin Cities area and another son in Aspen, Colo. We do not wish to travel in the winter – that’s why we moved to Fort Myers, Fla., nearly nine  years ago. And, with a boat on Lake Superior, and all of those responsibilities and the expense, we did not want to travel elsewhere in the summer. So, we decided to cut her loose.

Baby Grand hit the market in late 2021, and we sold her the following spring. Yes, we greatly loved cruising and the Great Lakes. And, yes, our sons were also a bit upset at losing big parts of their childhood. But we all made it through, and are very happy these days, with our new options.

We continue to enjoy all of the boating friendships we have built, as well as promoting the Club and the School. We consider ourselves very fortunate.

• Lifeline: What has been your best Rendezvous/rally experience?

There have been so many, perhaps it was our first, in 2016 at Barkers Island in Duluth, Minn. – a short cruise for us from Bayfield, but a long one for everyone else, especially outside of Lake Superior.

We met lots of new friends, and became accustomed to the cadence of a Rendezvous, from the morning cannon to the VHF announcements to the wonderful Commodore’s reception and dinner.

And we had quite an adventure while cruising aboard (ITAL)Baby Grand, from Raspberry Island in the Apostles west to Barkers Island Marina. There had been torrential rains for the past several days along Superior’s south shore, which sent dozens of trees and logs adrift along our westerly course. We were constantly on watch to avoid a collision. We made it, just at a slower pace than planned.

Drone photos of our boats at Barkers looked like we were all floating in coffee with lots of cream. Not really the look we were after, but, as always, a good time was had by all.