Boat Gas Refueling

Before the Turn

Mark Moertl, a mechanical engineer from Grafton, Wisconsin, saw a familiar inconvenience for boat owners.

Refueling meant carrying gasoline containers to the dock or taking the boat to a marina with fuel pumps. Mark wondered whether he could bring the fuel directly to boats at their docks instead.

The idea was easy to explain. Making it work would take his engineering experience and a good deal of persistence.

His Next Chapter

Mark developed Boat Gas Refueling, a mobile fueling service built around that convenience.

He spent more than two years working through safety requirements and regulatory approvals, engineered a specialized fueling barge, and dealt with the financial and technical challenges of getting it operating.

The service launched in 2006 on several smaller lakes, then expanded to Pewaukee Lake in 2007.

A May 2007 newspaper story described it as Wisconsin's first floating gas station service. The article covered the obstacles Mark had worked through and the interest from boat owners.

He'd taken a problem other people lived with and applied his professional experience to building a business around it.

How I Helped

Boat Gas Refueling had been operating for eight years when Mark and I started working together. He already had a website, but it needed to present the business more clearly and help customers find it.

I built a new site on Concrete CMS and optimized it for boaters searching online for refueling services.

We've kept improving it as the business and technology have changed. A few years ago, we added credit card processing. I still update Mark's delivery schedule each year so customers can plan for the boating season.

Mark had already done the hard work of creating the service. My role has been to support the business online, with a useful website and help that continues long after the first project.