Mid-Life Career Change: From Corporate World to Sport Fishing Captain

More Editorial by Carol Bareuther
January 2006 Issue

Some men have mid-life crises. Others, like Mark Lamborn, the new owner/skipper of the St. Thomas-based charter sports fishing boat, Prowler, have mid-life career changes.

A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Lamborn worked the last twenty years as a respiratory therapist and clinical sales specialist. “I specialized in pediatrics, infants and children, setting up home ventilator programs. Often, I had a caseload of 70 kids and worked 100-hour weeks due to being on call,” says Lamborn.

Yet, Lamborn always made time for sports fishing. “My parents owned a boat on the Chesapeake. After I got out of school, I started running boats out of Ocean City, Maryland. Every weekend for 20 years and all 6 weeks of my vacation each year, I spent running private yachts like a 32-foot Trojan, 39-foot Topaz and a 50-foot Viking, chasing marlin and tuna.”

Lamborn participated in many tournaments, too, such as the White Marlin Open held out of Ocean City, the Virginia Beach Red, White and Blue and the Mid-Atlantic $500 out of New Jersey. The year 2003 was particularly a banner one. He captained the winning boat in the Ocean City Tuna Tournament’s Single Fish Division with a whopping 220-pound big eye tuna and he was at the helm of the winning boat in the Rolex/IGFA Offshore Championship.

The seed for the idea to fish professionally in the Virgin Islands was sewn over a decade ago. “In 1993, I came down and went out on a charter aboard Prowler. Bill McCauley owned the boat and he is from the same area of the states that I am. After that, I always knew I’d eventually move in this direction. Then last year, after 20 years in the corporate scene, taking the world on my shoulders watching children die, I knew it was time to make a change,” Lamborn says.

In preparation, he began evaluating charter operations and found that Prowler was for sale. “The four-year financials looked good and I saw that St. Thomas had a strong tourism industry,” Lamborn said.

He put much of his belongings in storage, sold his house and moved to the Virgin Islands in April 2005.

Starting any new business is a challenge and Lamborn has had his share of ups and downs.

“We were busy in April and May, lots of tuna, dolphin and wahoo off the south side. Then, we were the first of the local fleet to catch a blue marlin for the year,” he says.

He adds, “Marlin season saw us with 26 hook-ups and 15 fish landed. We could have done more, but it was frustrating. I had a major breakdown on July 7 and had to rebuild my port engine and starboard transmission. That took six weeks and took me out of some of the prime fishing time.”

When Lamborn isn’t running the boat, he’s marketing it and doing the bookings himself. “One thing I’d recommend for someone else making this transition is not to do it alone. Many of the other charter boats are run by a couple where someone handles the shoreside operations,” he says.

Still, in spite of the challenges, Lamborn is optimistic about the future.

“Here, I am in a world class fishery competing against some of the best in the world. It’s an adrenalin rush just to be out on the water here each day.”