My boating life started way back in 1955 (yes, I am really that old) with a summer job driving a fishing boat for a friend of the family. I learned much that year but the overwhelming lesson was that I need to fish! As I grew older, went to college and off to corporate America (where the companies I worked for kept trying to make me a landlubber), the sea, the sails and the fish kept pulling me back to where I belonged so, more than 15 years ago, I left it all to become a Yacht Broker. This was quite a risk for a family man with three children, but the risk was worth it - especially since JM YACHTS opened in 2003. I don't get to fish as often as I would like to, but I can see water, boats and a few fish jumping outside the office every day and know that this is definitely the life for me.

Member Yacht Brokers' Association of America, Member & Past Treasurer Gulf Coast Yacht Brokers’ Association, Member Texas Mariners' Cruising Association

Email - jerry@jmyachts.com jerry@jmyachts.com

Karol Moulder, CPYB
Principal

My introduction to boating came in the mid-1970's when my cousin and I each held 50% interest in what we affectionately called the "infamous boat that no one owned". She was a 17-foot ski boat that we trailered around to ski and motor the rivers and lakes of Western PA. For the next 30 years, I traveled throughout the US, Canada and the Caribbean as a sales/marketing rep for a variety of medical diagnostics companies. I gave up the "glamour" of travel to be a yacht broker when I joined my husband in his business in 2003, JM YACHTS, and turned my love of water and boats into an exciting new career. And I am happy to say that I was even able to put my old career experiences to work in 2007 when I opened a new division of JM YACHTS, Watercastle Documentation, to provide our customers with cost effective ownership transfer for the boats that they purchase from us.

Member Yacht Brokers' Association of America, Member & Past Secretary Gulf Coast Yacht Brokers’ Association, Member Texas Mariners' Cruising Association

Email - karol@jmyachts.com karol@jmyachts.com

Darrell Cottle

After what seems like a lifetime in the aviation industry as a corporate pilot and some personal experiences, I decided it might be time to consider a new career path….but what could I do that would combine my skills, my hobbies and still make enough money to live on????? I sat down to discuss the situation with my wife, Marsha, who wisely suggested that I look into doing something with boats. So off I went……..to investigate what a career in yacht brokering entailed and which brokerage I might want to work with. As I stopped at brokerages in the Clear Lake area (I think I hit all of them) and conducted my interviews – yes, I did the interviewing, not the brokerage – I kept hearing that I should stop by JM YACHTS and talk to Jerry and Karol. So on a cold winter afternoon, I stopped in and spent some time with both of them, then went off to consider my options. During our conversation, Karol invited me to go to the next Gulf Coast Yacht Brokers’ Association luncheon so I could learn a little about what being a yacht broker was all about and meet some of the people I would be working with if I chose to pursue this career path. Of course, I accepted the invitation. By the time the luncheon took place, I had offers from two other brokerages to join their teams and was a little uncomfortable sitting with Karol and directly across from the broker who I had spoken with the day before at another brokerage. But all went well and I went off again to consider my options. I was in quite a quandary because I liked all of the people I met and beside JM YACHTS, one of the other brokerages that I talked to seemed like it might be a good fit for me. After what seemed like an eternity (to Karol and Jerry), I made my decision to join JM YACHTS and jumped into the whirlwind life of a yacht broker. This is an exciting time for me and for the brokerage business, in general, because there have many been changes in brokerage sales in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, but I know that following my new career path with JM YACHTS was the right decision for me.

Member Yacht Brokers Association of America

Email - darrell@jmyachts.com darrell@jmyachts.com

Capt. Dave Hamilton

My love affair with boats began as a child in Lompoc, CA and became a career after attending UCSB where I studied Business along with Auto and Marine Electrical Systems. Soon after finishing school, I became an entrepreneur by opening a diesel and mobile repair shop in the Ventura and Channel Island Harbors where I offered full dockside services, including yacht deliveries for Carver, Chris Craft and privately owned boats up and down the West Coast. Time flew by and in the late 80s, I met my wife, Laura, and we (or was it “she”) decided to set up married life on land which, over the next 15 years or so, took us from the Keys in the Channel Island Harbor to the cold MidWest and I became a weekend captain and sportfisherman. Several years ago we both had had enough of the cold and yearned to be near the water again, so we began to look for a boat to live on in a warm climate. Our search for the perfect boat was both fun and frustrating, but one day after a failed survey on what we thought was “THE” boat, I was wandering the docks in Shelter Island and ran into this fellow named Jim, told him that I had a 60’ slip in Port Aransas, TX and I wanted to fill it NOW. His first question was “Why are you looking for a boat to keep in Texas when you are in California?” To make a long story short, Jim immediately called Jerry at JM YACHTS (he didn’t tell me that he used to be a broker for Jerry) and in a very short time, together they found us the right boat, and we found ourselves living our dream in Port Aransas. Laura found a job in her field almost immediately and I opened a yacht service business which included captaining a 64’ luxury yacht - Life Was Good! Our friendship with Jim (who, by the way, brokers occassionally from his home in Mexico for JM YACHTS), Jerry and Karol flourished and in August 2007, I embarked on a new direction in my career that has turned into a great passion for me as a yacht broker for JM YACHTS. My motto is the same as the name of one of the boats that I maintain, “N-Joy-Life” and I am ready to help my customers find the boat of their dreams and claim my motto as their own.

Member Gulf Coast Yacht Brokers Association, Member Yacht Brokers Association of America

Email - dave@jmyachts.com dave@jmyachts.com

Jules Roels

My love of the water started when I was very young. I grew up around sport boats and homemade hydroplanes on a bank of the Fox River. Two teenage summers were spent helping my boss build a 40 foot ferrocement sloop (remember those?) in the parking lot of his restaurant. We launched her shortly before her sea trial in the Race to Mackinac Island on Lake Michigan.
The real world of university, marriage and a corporate career intervened for several years punctuated by Lake Michigan day sails and annual trips to the Caribbean. As my wife and I plotted a course to escape from the Chicago climate, we were faced with a choice of buying some property in Jamaica or a capable boat with an ocean view wherever we took her. The sunsets viewed from our cockpit here in south Texas are proof that hard work and a good plan pays off. And now that I have joined JM YACHTS as a Yacht Broker, my plan is to put the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired to match our customers in the Coastal Bend of Texas to help them reach their boating goals..

Member Yacht Brokers Association of America

Email - jules@jmyachts.com jules@jmyachts.com