I didn’t know Bruce MacIntyre, the longtime Vero Marine Center owner who battled cancer for months before succumbing to one final bout with the dreaded disease last week, less than a month after celebrating his 78th birthday.
But I wish I had. From everything I’ve learned about MacIntyre in the days since his passing, I would’ve liked him – not because I’m a boater (I’m not), but because he seemed like someone I would’ve enjoyed being around and probably would’ve become friends with.
“Bruce was a fun guy who enjoyed life, someone who could be the life of the party without being out of control,” said Brian Cunningham, his business sidekick for more than 25 years and one of his closest friends.
“He loved Vero Beach and was a legend in the local boating community. He was a great storyteller. He was opinionated; you always knew where you stood with him. He was big on nicknames and quips. And he was a real instigator of practical jokes.
“But what a lot people will remember about him was his sayings,” he added. “We called them Bruce-isms.”
Many of those “Bruce-isms” – such as “The clock is wound only once. What are you waiting for?” and “What’s holding you back, fear or gravity?” – were really adages, his way of challenging others to summon the courage to live their lives to the fullest.
As he did.
According to Cunningham, MacIntyre was a “born water rat” who embraced boating as a hobby early in life. He was working in the insurance business in Marblehead, Mass., in 1973 when he decided it was time for a change.
Change of livelihood. Change of latitude. Change of life.
“He had been bringing his family to Vero Beach for summer vacations for years, staying in cottages on South Beach,” Cunningham said. “During one particularly cold winter in Massachusetts, he came home from work and told his wife, Jackie, ‘That’s it. I’m not doing this anymore.’
“So they moved down and he managed Vero Marine Center for Earl McIntosh, the owner at that time, then bought the place on April Fools Day 1977.”
MacIntyre ran the business until 1988, when he partnered with Cunningham, who became Vero Marine’s general manager and has overseen the day-to-day operations ever since.
Cunningham is now partners with MacIntyre’s son, Boo, the center’s service manager, and they have 12 other employees.
He said “nothing will change” in terms of running the business.
“It’s always been a family-owned and -operated business, going all the way back to when Bob Chesborough started it in 1958,” Cunningham said. “Vero Marine Center was Bruce’s whole life. Jackie was our bookkeeper until she passed in September 2010. And we’ve had the same crew here for a long time.
“Bruce used to joke about adopting me,” he added, “but I’m Irish and told him I didn’t want to change to a Scottish surname. I guess I could’ve hyphenated.”
Cunningham laughed, then confessed, “This is the first time since he passed that I’ve been able to talk about him without losing it. I had a 28-year, business-partner relationship with him, and I was as close to him as anybody.”
So, as much as he misses him, Cunningham welcomed the opportunity to remember his friend and share those memories.
Among his favorite was MacIntyre’s founding in 1988 of “The Grady Bunch” – now a large and active boating club composed of owners who bought Grady-White boats from Vero Marine Center.
The “Bunch” takes monthly trips to destinations as far away as Savannah, Ga., the Bahamas and the Florida Keys as well as day trips to nearby places such as Capt. Hiram’s Resort in Sebastian.
“We’re in a tricky business,” Cunningham said. “Of course, we believe everyone should have a boat. But unless you live on an island, it isn’t exactly a necessity. And we’re at the mercy of the economy. We’ve had to weather a lot of storms over the years.
“So faced with those challenges and seeing that people weren’t using their boats enough, Bruce decided to start this club to get people out on the water and show them how to have fun in their boats,” he added. “He would organize trips to places like the Bahamas or the Keys and we’d have 20 boats following us. They’d be out there on their own boats, doing something many of them would not have tried on their own.
“A lot of them have gone on to become very active boaters, all because of Bruce and the Grady Bunch. That’s one of his crowning achievements.”
It’s as much a part of MacIntyre’s legacy as Vero Marine.
In fact, MacIntyre took a Grady Bunch trip to the Bahamas in July and, just six days before he died, accompanied the group to Capt. Hiram’s for a luncheon.
“He was a boater until the end,” Cunningham said.
MacIntyre was also a past-president of the local Rotary Club, and was very active in the congregation at Trinity Episcopal Church, where his funeral service was held Tuesday.
“Some of his sayings,” Cunningham said, “couldn’t be repeated in church.”
I would’ve liked that about him, too.
