George Menezes
George has been involved in the marine industry for almost thirty years, starting with employment at Sabre Yachts in Maine while he was still in college. During his time with Sabre Yachts, and later with Back Cove Yachts, George held a series of high-level roles and led the development of several sailing yachts, including Sabre’s 38 and 42 Express models and Back Cove’s 26, 29, and 33 powerboat models.
George honed his hands-on, multifaceted marine skill sets as the founder of Menezes Marine Group, a contract builder of custom composite parts and tooling, as well as prototype marine craft. George joined Southport in 2013 to help take the company and its building expertise to the next level. He has applied his experience and design skills to the development of several innovative new and future models, including the Southport 33 FE.
Dan Sayce
With boat building knowledge that spans 5 decades there are few others as qualified as Dan.Dan began boat building in the mid 70s. He spent 21 years at Boston Whaler. Beginning with assembly before moving to assembly foreman and ending up as Customer Service and QA manager.
Dan relocated to FL in the mid 80s to help get the BW facility established. After some time at Boston Whaler in FL dan moved on to Chris Craft Boats in Sarasota in 1996 as the Customer Service manager and Training Facilitator before returning to New England in 1998. Joining up with a former Boston Whaler alum Dan went to work for Maritime Marine in MA before following the company in their move to Maine in 2004. Dan then helped organize and set up the production of Southport Boats when the assets of Southport Boatworks were purchased and brought to Maine in 2010.
Jason Ellis
As a Maine native and a career boat builder, Jason was almost tailor-made for the Southport team. He began his career with North End Composites as a Drafter/Design Engineer, using 2D and 3D CAD software and 3D models to build composite tooling and parts for some of the biggest names in the marine industry.
Jason was involved in the design and development of the Back Cove 29 and 26 models, and worked closely with customers and dealers to ensure satisfaction and make improvements to the quality and comfort of the boats. Before joining the Southport team, Jason worked as Lead Designer at the design office of Lyman Morse Boatbuilding, where he was responsible for creating complete 3D models for custom yachts, maintaining shop drawings, interior renderings, and comprehensive system schematics, and developing the CNC machining programs. Jason joined Southport in 2014 as a Product Engineer to support existing models as well as the development of new designs.
Ryan Nadeau
Ryan joined Southport in 2019 as a member of the Assembly Team for the 33 Dual Console line. His passion for boat building was motivated by a childhood spent fishing and boating along the Cobbosseecontee Stream with his father Doug.
An unfortunate injury occurred that required Ryan to step-away from his production role. He used his downtime to complete a Bachelor of Applied Science degree and graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2020.
Ryan returned full-time taking his manufacturing experience coupled with his education to support the accounting, purchasing and materials teams.
In his free time, Ryan enjoys exploring the Maine outdoors, listening to music and getting together with friends.
“Those who fall in love with practice without science are like pilots who board a ship without a rudder or compass”
Leonardo da Vinci
