For the last two years, Bill Kreysler has been chair of the Napa County Workforce Investment Board (WIB; www.napaworkforce.org), which he joined in 2005. “Our mission is to help folks looking for work find work, and to help employers looking for qualified employees,” he says. “It’s a great service, particularly for small businesses that don’t have in-house human resources staff. Unfortunately, it’s underused—probably because small business people are either too busy to take the time to look into it or are suspicious of government programs. Too bad, in this case.”
An avid sailor, he’s also founder and president of Kreysler & Associates, an award winning, American Canyon-based custom fabrication shop that designs, engineers and manufactures composite products for architecture, sculpture and industrial applications (www.kreysler.com).
Would you describe yourself as more of a feeler or thinker?
I’ve been accused of both. I guess you might say I think about things ‘til it feels right to make a decision. Sometimes this takes a long time, and I’m accused of over-thinking. Sometimes the answer is obvious—or at least seems that way—so I react quickly and am accused of being impulsive or too intuitive.
What animal are you most like?
Hopefully human. It would be reassuring.
Share a favorite sailing story.
I was 16, crewing on a Star class boat for a guy in San Diego, where I grew up. He promised to take me to the North American Championships in Cleveland that fall, but later, an old friend of his from Cleveland offered to crew, so I lost my job. One week before the race, he called and said a guy from Oakland needed a crew. I met Don Trask at the Cleveland airport, and we went on to win the regatta with the highest score (actually lowest in sailing) in the event’s history—a record that still stands, I believe.
I sailed with Don for a few more years. Our best performance after that first one was placing third in the World Championships in Copenhagen in 1967. Finally, when I was 21, I moved to San Rafael to work for Don. We started Performance Sailcraft and built Star class boats, around 10,000 Lasers and a couple hundred J-24s. That’s what brought me to the Bay Area and introduced me to fiberglass, which is now the industry I’ve worked in my whole life.
When and why did you found Kreysler & Associates?
When Performance Sailcraft was sold, I needed to look for a job or start my own business. After 10 years building sailboats, I’d had enough of making work out of what I’d rather do for fun. Today, our company motto is “Anything But Boats.”
Do you have a lifelong dream or ambition?
To leave this world better off. I’m not talking about world peace, and I’m not smart enough to discover a cure. I’m just hoping that things I do have value to someone and that they last. It’s why I like what I do—making things. All I have to do is make sure they have a positive value in some way.
How comfortable are you with uncertainty?
Pretty much everything I do carries a large degree of uncertainty, but I suspect you could say that for most folks. Uncertainty is a fact of life one needs to learn to embrace. Designing a life of certainty would be like eating hamburger three times a day, every day.
If you were to write a book, what would its title be?
Craftsmanship in the Digital Age
If you could ask God any single question, what would it be?
Where are you?
What food do you hate?
Can’t think of any I would turn down if I were hungry enough, but liver isn’t on the top 100 list.
What’s the biggest mistake you made starting out in business?
Not long after I started my company, I got a good job for Lucasfilm working on “Return of the Jedi.” After the job ended, I burned through all my profits and had to lay almost everyone off. I ended up back where I was before the project started, smarter and much more humble. “Hubris,” I think the Greeks call it. Anyway, it was a difficult but durable lesson.
If you could do something very daring without fear, what would you do?
Daring and fear seem to go together. What I’d like to do that’s daring would be to sail my Finn around Cape Horn. I assure you, I’d be scared to death…might try it someday, though.
What’s your favorite quote?
“Don’t go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
