THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

Family Business trying to re-emphasize the customer

T

he Day at the Docks is a good time to show something new to thousands of visitors. And this year at the annual waterfront festival, Everingham Bros. Bait Co. not only has new stuff but a new attitude.
. . Buck Everingham said his company will help sponser next Sunday's all-day event, just as it has all 21 years of the fleet's open house. But this year, the Everinghams will have a booth featuring historic pictures of the bait operation, people and boats, plus collector T-shirts, hats and other items with the Everingham logo.
. . The booth actually symbolizes a new customer-oriented attitude that Buck and his wife, Arlene, want in place this summer at the company's bait barges in San Diego Bay and Mission Bay. Employees will be outfitted in company hats and shirts made by Doug Moranville's Branding Iron in Pacific Beach.
. . "for the last three years we've been working on customer service," Arlene Everingham said. "Even though we're the only one out there, we want to treat customers right."
. . To that end, the Everinghams sent all their employees to customer service training class.
. . "We want to provide good service to fishermen," Buck said. "We go through a lot of trouble to make bait, so we want our people to be clean and presentable. We want it to be like going to Sea World."

. . Buck Everingham also revealed this week that the company has developed some new bait boxes that are sea lion-proof. That will lead to more "cured" bait, or bait that has settled down and hasn't been harassed 24 hours a day by hungry sea lions.
. . At one time, it got so bad that the sea lions were punching through the planks of the boxes to get at the bait. They could destroy 80 percent of the catch, but the losses are down to 5 percent since the family redesigned the bait boxes.
. . But that didn't stop the clever sea lions from getting under the boxes and blowing air into them to spook the bait. They freaked out the anchovies or sardines and sent them through the cracks of the bait boxes, also called receivers, into the waiting mouths of the sea dogs.
. . "We've built someting to stop the sea lions from aerating the boxes like that," said Buck, adding that, like other systems the firm has built, the system is a family and company secret. "With this new system, we're going to outfit all the receivers and offer cured bait to not just the long-range fleet, but the one-day fleet, too."
. . Next up for the Everinghams is a Web Site, not only for the business, but for Buck's invention, the Armalis, a knot cincher that he's marketing.
. . He said the bait is excellent right now, and he's awaiting a repeat fishing season like the last. He said the anchovies are 5 to 6 inches, and the sardines a bit bigger, in the 6 and 7 inch class.