Rapids transit: Bill Medlin has guided Confluence Watersports through trials as harrowing as the white water its boats are built to handle.

• Author: Gray, Tim
• Position: Feature

Bill Medlin wasn't expecting the call. As he waited for a flight at New York's LaGuardia airport, he had his cell phone on, but he was preoccupied. As chief operating officer and head of manufacturing for Confluence Watersports Co. in Trinity, near High Point, he was headed to Vermont to tell the 50 employees of the company's canoe factory there that the plant would close.

He hated the task. The plant's owner, Mad River Canoe, and Medlin's old company had merged to form Confluence, which makes canoes, kayaks, sailboats and paddle-sports equipment. He had spent six months in Vermont, trying to make the plant more profitable. Do this and try that, he had coaxed workers, and you'll save your jobs. Now, he was returning to tell them they would lose them after all.

His phone rang. It was Kelley Woolsey, senior vice president for sales and marketing. Confluence's CEO had announced he was resigning. "Jim Schubauer," Woolsey said, "has something he wants to ask you, and I want you to know you've got my full support." After a moment, Schubauer, Confluence's chairman, came on the line. "Bill, we'd like you to be CEO."

Medlin spent the next nine hours -- his flight was delayed -- wandering around the airport lost in thought. He repeatedly called his wife, Sue, back home. Confluence, he knew, faced challenges as treacherous as the wildest stretch of white water. If he took the job, he would have to save the $25.5 milliona-year company from heavy debt, a tough economy and even the vicissitudes of the weather--poor paddling weather nationwide was sapping sales. He'd have to close the Vermont plant and move production to North Carolina. He'd have to persuade lenders and investors to refinance debt and contribute more equity or face bankruptcy.

Medlin, 49, prayed, too, as he paced the airport. A deeply religious Quaker, he had plans of his own that had nothing to do with business. He had been working toward a master's so he could teach college theology. Becoming CEO would delay his heavenly dreams for the earthly pursuit of profits.

Medlin took the job. And since becoming CEO in May 2001, his work has been something of a religious mission. It has demanded the patience of Job and the persuasiveness of a prophet but also the cunning of a capitalist. As Chief Financial Officer Mike Hawes puts it, "We're not out of the woods yet, but we're finally seeing something besides trees."

Confluence, formed in 1998, made a mistake as common as it is confining: It took on too much debt. Prospects had looked great. The company was created when Trinity-based Wilderness Systems, a kayak and sailboat maker, bought Vermont-based Mad River Canoe, famous among paddlers for its innovative boats. (Mad River also brought its Voyageur subsidiary, a maker of paddies, life vests and other equipment.) Six months later, Confluence bought Colorado-based Wave Sport, which makes white-water kayaks. Separately, the three were well-established and well-respected. As one, they seemed poised to benefit from the extreme-sports boom that had taken snowboarding from obscurity to the Olympics in a decade.

Wilderness Systems CEO Andy Zimmerman ended up as the boss. He and John Sheppard, a paddling buddy, had...