If you’ve walked onto a foot ferry or taken a dinner cruise or whale-watching tour anywhere in the Puget Sound region, you’ve likely been on an aluminum boat built by local company All American Marine. AAM has a dozen boats operating in the Puget Sound and many more around the country. Even more likely, as you stepped aboard, you took the wondrous machine beneath your feet for granted.
But if you walked into AAM’s 57,000-square-foot building on Hilton Avenue in Bellingham and saw those beautiful boats arising from the shop floor, you’d realize what modern marvels of engineering and craftsmanship they are. The shop — though you can’t call it that because it’s more like an aerospace manufacturing facility — includes four cavernous bays housing giant, gleaming aluminum vessels in various stages of assembly. In one bay, the 108-foot monohull Harbor Breeze, with three decks and a 350-passenger capacity, looms high overhead (more on that boat later). In another, a 77-foot research vessel being built for the University of North Carolina Wilmington is positioned upside down for efficient welding; a “rotisserie” at the front and back will soon roll it over for installation of the pilot house and decking. In another bay, you can stroll beneath the twin hulls of a 65-foot catamaran to view the chines and hydrofoil “wing” that partially lifts the hulls out of the water, producing a boat that delivers more speed with less fuel. The robust hydrofoil is shaped like an airplane’s wing, providing the same lift through water as a plane’s wings do through air.
Hydrofoils supercharge growth
AAM has built high-speed, hydrofoil-assisted aluminum catamarans since 1999, when it gained exclusive North American building rights to the New Zealand design. That type of boat is AAM’s bread and butter. The company also specializes in hybrid-electric ferries, tour boats and research vessels, said Ron Wille, president and chief operating officer. AAM is known for clean-propulsion vessels, including hydrogen fuel cell, hybrid, and battery-electric. The company has 80 full-time employees and gross sales north of $20 million. Hiring of skilled trades is ongoing.
Like its vessels, AAM’s growth, especially over the past 25 years, has been supercharged. AAM was founded in 1987 in Fairhaven as a builder of aluminum fishing boats. It’s come a long way since then. Now (as of this magazine’s press time), it is to launch the first US-built parallel-hybrid ferry (that 350-passenger ferry mentioned earlier), which is headed for Harbor Breeze Cruises in Long Beach, California. Parallel means the vessel can be driven by electric motors, diesel engines or both at once. That gives operators the option of using quiet, zero-emission operation in a harbor or diesel assist for longer range. Batteries can be charged while connected to shore power or via its engines while underway.
“Our current Harbor Breeze build is the first of its kind that’s set up in this configuration,” Wille said.
Crafting vessels
AAM leadership is happy to be known nationally for its zero-emission and hydro-propulsion commercial aluminum vessels — and locally as a significant waterfront presence.
“We create and sustain family-wage maritime jobs in Whatcom County,” Wille said. “We’re proud to be a major employer and anchor business in Bellingham, fabricating almost entirely in-house. We don’t manufacture engines or doors or carpet here, but we install all of it and fabricate all the aluminum.”
And what fabrication it is. Massive rectangular plates of aluminum come in one door, and finished commercial aluminum boats roll out the other. In between, computer numerical control routers cut the plate into parts while writing instructions for welding right onto the parts. The lion’s share of labor within AAM is welding and fabrication, Wille said.
That’s why AAM resembles an aluminum manufacturing business or aerospace facility more than a traditional shipyard, said Daniel Zech, business development manager.
“We analyze every part and piece that goes into a boat,” said Bronson Lamb, marketing manager. “We use the lightest, best parts. Weight matters. The lighter we make boats, the less energy they use. Efficiency is in our DNA here.”
Visiting clients have commented on AAM’s output.
“One of our competitors built six boats over the last seven years,” Wille said. “We built 20.”
Ever forward
AAM moved into its current, purpose-built facility in 2017.
“This building has enabled us to be more efficient,” Wille said. “The Port of Bellingham has been a fantastic partner.”
AAM’s waterfront location allows finished vessels to be loaded onto a waiting 150-foot trailer and then launched at Squalicum Harbor’s public ramp — at “oh-dark-thirty, high tide,” Wille said.
Today, the majority of AAM’s business are those aluminum, hydrofoil-assisted, diesel-powered catamarans that use a third less fuel than the industry standard, Lamb said. But projects currently occupying AAM bays show variety — including the 80-foot passenger vessel with a quad water-jet propulsion system that can do 34 knots. That one is headed for cruise duty with Phillips Cruises & Tours in Alaska, which takes folks up close to view glaciers. Wille said AAM delivered one vessel like that to Phillips in May 2025, and within 60 days the company ordered another.
AAM has built multiple boats for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over the years. Notable research vessels built since 2018 include vessels for customers such as Duke University, University of Hawaii, California Polytechnic State University and, again, NOAA. The boat for Cal Poly, North Wind, was awarded Ship of the Year for 2025 by the publication Professional Mariner.
“Our people here are building some of the best boats in the world,” Wille said. “It’s my honor to help lead them.”
Other newsworthy AAM events include the 2018 launch of the large-capacity 128-foot tour boat Enhydra, a hybrid-propulsion milestone for the US market; the 2021 launch of the 70-foot Sea Change, the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell commercial ferry; and the 2023 installation of two new CNC router tables and a 550-ton CNC press brake into the facility.
Wille joined AAM in 2018 as director of business development, coming from AAM customer Kenai Fjords Tours in Seward, Alaska. He gained his current title of president and chief operating officer in 2021. That year, AAM was purchased by Bryton Marine Group, North America’s largest private, family-owned builder of aluminum boats. “We went from working for one family to working for another, and it was an exceptionally smooth transition,” Wille said. Besides AAM, Bryton Marine Group brands include Alumacraft, BRIX Marine, Duckworth, EagleCraft, KingFisher Boats, Weldcraft, and Freshwater Marina in Campbell River, BC.
AAM has produced 20 aluminum vessels since 2018 and 100 total since its 1987 founding. Today, the company’s boats skim waters along the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii and throughout the country. That includes boats that patrol, research and cruise.
So, next time you step aboard a foot ferry or excursion boat, think about the craftsmanship beneath your feet — and the Bellingham folks who built it.
To view the timeline graphic for All American Marine, go to the Home page and click on Current issue, then flip to Page 24 in the magazine.