Master Boat Builders has been named the Mobile Chamber’s 2024 Innovator of the Year for its groundbreaking advancements in the shipbuilding industry, including its leadership in the design and construction of the first-ever all-electric tugboat, the eWolf.

Founded in 1979 as a small seafood shop, this family-owned business has grown into a global leader in shipbuilding, producing cutting-edge vessels such as hybrid tugs, offshore supply vessels and articulated tug/barge tugs.

With more than 300 employees and plans to grow its workforce to more than 500 in the next 16 months, Master Boat Builders is committed to investing in its people. The company recently launched an onsite training facility and a matching program to support employee development.

Since taking over for his father and other family members in recent years, President Garrett Rice said the company’s evolution has come as it shifted from an isolated company “keeping our heads down and doing our work” in the bayou, to one growing with a global perspective, bidding on larger projects and becoming more process oriented. That shift in the company’s operational philosophy is thanks in part to Mobile Chamber initiatives, Rice said.

“Through connections facilitated by the Mobile Chamber, we’ve accessed programs and opportunities that have transformed how we operate and grow,” said Garrett Rice, president of Master Boat Builders. “We are focused on building careers and opportunities for families in a great community.”

Master Boat Builders has been a member of the Chamber for more than a decade, but “for the last year and a half, especially, the Chamber has been incredible for us,” Rice said. “They’ve been that conduit that’s allowed us to make connections to places that made sense for us and opened up the doors to different state programs.”

The Innovator of the Year Award is sponsored by Columbia Southern University.