About La Conner Maritime Service

Our founder, the late Edward “Maritime Ed” Oczkewicz, was a do-it-yourselfer at heart, and loved finding solutions to make things easier and more fun for his customers. This held true whether designing a piece of commercial fishing equipment, or upgrading a yacht.

Ed established Maritime Fabrications in 1978, in his parents’ backyard in Marysville, WA, with a renovated chicken coop for an office. His goal: provide the Puget Sound and Alaska salmon fishing fleets with quality equipment for deck operations. Projects varied from building deck gear to outfitting boats, including some yacht work.

As the company grew, it moved to Conway, then La Conner, WA (La Conner Maritime Service) and for many years included a seasonal location in Naknek, Alaska, to service the Bristol Bay salmon gillnet fleet. The reputation for quality and reliability grew with the continued output of innovative deck equipment and value added-services for the fishing fleet, as well as new-construction commercial fishing boats for the west coast crab and Alaska salmon fisheries. Product innovation was driven by Ed and Maritime employees’ experience as crewmen and skippers of their own boats.

Ed’s four sons all worked in the business at various times while growing up, and two of them carry on Ed’s legacy with careers in the family business. La Conner Maritime’s success is built upon the talents and abilities of many dedicated, passionate individuals who enjoy helping solve boat problems. Our mission is to: