BC

Brunswick Corporation

A global maker of recreational boats and marine engines, Brunswick builds Sea Ray and Boston Whaler boats along with the Mercury Marine outboard and sterndrive engines that power them, and runs Freedom Boat Club, the world's largest boat-club network. It began in 1845 when Swiss woodworker John Brunswick set up a Cincinnati carriage shop that soon pivoted to billiards tables — so a company that once built bowling equipment and phonographs now dominates the water. Fittingly, its 1961 pivot to marine began with the acquisition of Mercury Marine.