The Port Townsend Boat Haven is home to large and small businesses catering to marine trades needs, with a mix of people who are young to the profession and those with 30 years and more of experience on a working waterfront.

Leif Erickson is one of those businesspeople. After working at the largest marine trades outfits Port Townsend has had to offer, he's now back to where he started, working on outboard motors.

His outboard motor repair shop, at 315 10th St., near the main Boat Haven entrance at Sims Way, has a great view of people coming and going. Erickson shares the space with Peter Chaffee’s welding business.

“It’s nice being down here, because I’ve been here so long. All these people are my friends," said Erickson, 64.

He has worked around the Port of Port Townsend for more than 20 years, served as Port District 3 commissioner from 2009 to 2013, and continues to serve on the board of the Port Townsend Marine Trades Association.

Erickson grew up in Bellevue and went on to study forestry at the University of Washington, graduating in 1977.

“When I first started in this business, I was going to school at UW and would ride my bike down Westlake Avenue every day, and one day there was a ‘help wanted’ sign in a window,” he said. That’s how he started working on outboard motors at Westlake Marine.

“A guy took me under his tutelage and taught me how to work on outboard motors,” Erickson said.

He also raced outboard boats and worked on hydroplane teams for decades. “I really like boat racing. It’s my hobby,” he said. The sign outside his business has an APBA (American Power Boat Association)-class stock outboard race boat on it; he guessed the engine is about a 30 horsepower.

He was hired as a mechanic at Kvichak Marine in Ballard and worked his way into a supervisory position there. About 20 years ago, he left Kvichak and came to Port Townsend to work at Admiral Marine Works Inc. as a mechanic. When Admiral relocated to Port Angeles, Erickson joined ill-fated Falcon Marine as head of engineering. After Falcon Marine's owner left and the business failed, Erickson went back to work for Admiral, commuting to Port Angeles. He also started doing his own consulting and project management. Later, he worked for many years at Townsend Bay Marine – located in what had been Admiral and then Falcon headquarters. TBM closed in 2014.

“So I was just sitting around doing nothing,” Erickson said, which is why he started the outboard repair business.

He said two larger Port Townsend businesses that do outboard motor repair, Westside Marine and Port Townsend Honda and Marine, sometimes send him jobs they don’t have time for.

He works on “mostly small outboards, up to 30 horse, some bigger ones,” he said. “The older, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

He had repair work up until January 2016, which tells him a lot of people are still running small outboards, and “part of that is I’m a pretty good value.” This time of year, he’s turning his attention to working on motors he plans to sell; he also buys and sells used outboards.

Asked if he has any advice for outboard-motor owners, Erickson said to keep up on maintenance, and also to buy good-quality gas, available at the Boat Haven fuel dock, aka the Fishin' Hole, and at Cenex in Chimacum, instead of a branded gas station.

"If you buy gas at [a branded gas station], you get 10 percent ethanol. It doesn't store well," he said.

Erickson is no fan of the politics that lead to branded gas stations pumping a required level of ethanol alcohol, even if it does generate repair needs. He said the ethanol doesn't affect cars as much as small engines. "Cars are OK, but they've had to improve the quality of their fuel systems," he said.

Dew forms inside gas tanks, and the ethanol draws water into the gas, which is bad for outboards, lawnmowers, generators, water pumps and other engines that sit unused. "Hoses degrade, carburetor floats come apart," he said.

Erickson has no employees, but he would like to pass along his outboard motor repair knowledge.

"I would really like to mentor somebody. That's how I got started in this business."

He's mentored people in the past, but "they find other jobs so quickly," he said. "People are so busy around here. If they can turn a bolt loose and tight, they're hired."