As with many other volunteers in the Lightning Class, you might not be aware of all that volunteer Mark Schnieder does for the Class. He operates largely in the background, with his number one priority being to help the Class President in whatever way he can. Given that, there are several key roles that Mark has consistently filled over the years…..
Mark started sailing as a child on his dad’s Lightning, and was skippering by age ten. He bought his first Lightning during his junior year in college – circa 1980 – and has been active in the Class ever since.
Mark lives in the Philadelphia area, and is a member of Riverton Yacht Club. He has been a long-time fleet captain; was a key sparkplug in revitalizing the fleet many years ago; and helps to keep it going to this day.
His first major contribution at the Class level began in 2013 when John Faus was Class President. Mark saw John doing a lot of “grunt work”, and recognized an opportunity to take some of it off John’s plate. In particular, Mark began helping John load and unload containers of boats to be shipped overseas and back for Worlds, or special container shipments intended to grow fleets in Europe and South America. Initially the containers were loaded right at the port docks, but Mark saw a better way – his manufacturing facility was large enough to store the double-deck rigs and the empty containers, and Mark would put together crews to do the loading and unloading. Over time he and his teams became very efficient, and have at times loaded as many as seven containers in one session!
Since then, Mark has continued to help each new President. While he has found that each may have different objectives, they all need help, as he says, “getting boats on the water”. Which brings us to the second key way in which Mark helps the Class – matching prospective buyers with boats. As soon as he hears of a person interested in buying a Lighting, he gets in touch with them to find out what they want, and their target price. He’ll tell them what’s on the website, and other boats that he knows of, and tries to make the perfect match. He will often even help deliver the boat of their choice right to them. Especially with new people coming into the Class, it’s important to get them into a good boat based on their expectations. Mark helps maintain the Boats-For-Sale information on the Class website: loading photos, reinstating ads when they time out, and advising folks on ad copy when they first post their boat. Mark estimates that he’s facilitated the sale of 50-60 boats since he began his match-making efforts.
Mark is helping to facilitate the flow of new boats as well. Late in 2024, he placed an order with Allen Boat Company for four new Lightnings, in anticipation of an order from Peru for the PanAms. That deal eventually fell through, but Mark kept his order in place, and is now facilitating the sale of those boats, and putting in new orders with Tom, to help ensure the constant flow of new boats into the Class. Mark was one of the folks supporting the idea of the new molds, and was instrumental in getting unused Nickels molds sent to Greece to see if boat building there could be a viable business opportunity.
Mark’s official title with the Class is VP Logistics, which he shares with Tom Starck. Tom handles all the scheduling and shipping logistics, and Mark handles the loading and unloading. Mark estimates that 90% of Lightning containers go through his NJ facility.
I asked Mark why he does what he does, and his answer was simple – because it needs to be done. He’s a man of action, owns and runs his own business, and is used to just getting things done – it’s in his DNA to help move programs along. We are so lucky to have Mark working tirelessly on our behalf - as Dave Starck says: “Mark’s love and dedication to the Lightning Class is difficult to measure. All I can say is that I’m grateful beyond words that’s he’s always available to me. Thank you Mark!”
