Long before he came to the Lake of the Ozarks, Brett Manire was just a high school kid in Nebraska, earning a few extra bucks working at his dad’s garden center and snow removal company. During college, he took a job at the Premier Boating Center, a boat dealership in Lincoln. During his 10 years there, he climbed his way up the ladder—first doing detail work, then as a salesman, sales manager and finally general manager. When the opportunity arose, he moved to Missouri to take a job at LOTO’s Performance Boat Brokerage. “I wanted to do something different,” he explains. “To grow and be around some bigger boats and bigger water."

The impact of that move has made some dramatic reverberations in recent years, after Manire began to manage the firm in 2010. “It was just a small boat brokerage business, and hadn’t been open very long,” Manire recalls. After about a year, he teamed up with Mark Waddington, bought out the company and started growing the business. Keeping the original five employees, Manire rechristened the firm Performance Boat Center, which Manire operates under the auspices of Waddington’s Redhead Yacht Club, which owns all of the property that also features a full-service marina with 100 wet slips (including small 10×24 spaces all the way up to very large 20×60 slips), marina store and gas docks. In addition, it will also operate the new Redhead’s Lakeside Grill restaurant, slated to open in the spring. “Now today 25 people show up to work each day,” Manire smiles.

The team’s first order of business was to expand the brokerage and service business, then align themselves more closely with performance boat builders. In late 2011, they commissioned a couple of new boats from Outer limits, and recently signed a contract with Cigarette to be an official dealer. “We have three boats on order, so they’re going to be our main brand,” Manire says. “We’ve also got a couple of Statement center consoles on order.”Manire’s chief goal is to become a national performance boat center for everybody. Currently, the staff does a good amount of pickup and delivery for service work for customers in surrounding states, as well as places as far away as Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Florida. “We are not here exclusively for the Lake of the Ozarks clientele—if you want your boat to be stored and serviced at a brand-new state-of-the-art facility with the best technicians and mechanics available, we’re here for you,” Manire says.

They’ve certainly got the tools—and the chops—to deliver on that promise, with a large paint shop, service facility and full-service Mercury Racing-certified staff members specializing in #6 and #8 drives. “If you’re not happy with your service somewhere else, we’ll pick the boat up, bring it to our facility, store it indoors and work on it,” Manire says. “We can either hold it for you until springtime or bring it back to you. ”PBC is centrally located, right on the 21-mile marker off of the main channel, putting it right in the middle of the lake. “The major highway that feeds the lake comes right behind us, so we’re the easiest marinas to get to from in and off the highway,” Manire says. “It’s really a dream come true for trailer boaters. Just take the highway all the way to our front door—we have our launch ramp and storage facilities on site. So once you come to the lake, your first destination should be Performance Boat Center at Redhead Yacht Club.”

For more information, please visit performanceboatcenter.com or call (573) 873-2300.