Sometime early next year, the Snow & Co. boatyard in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood will roll out its 180th boat.

It’s a major milestone for a family-owned company that only started building boats in 2012 — and an exception in an industry better known for closures and consolidation.

Part of that success is down to owner Brett Snow’s willingness to take chances.

On a recent morning in Snow’s capacious shop just off the Lake Washington Ship Canal, workers were assembling a 41-foot workboat for the U.S. Navy.

It’s one of around two dozen Snow is building on a multimillion-dollar contract the company won, audaciously, in 2017, when the industry was cooling and Snow was just a 20-person outfit building fishing boats.

Bidding for the Navy job “was ambitious for us,” admits Snow, 59, who sta

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