Lou Sandoval is co-founder/co-owner of Karma Yacht Sales, the Lake Michigan Beneteau dealership based in Chicago. It’s a full-service dealership offering new-boat sales, brokerage and service.
Sandoval, 48, is on the board of the Yacht Brokers Association of America and he is vice chairman of the diversity committee of the Recreational Boating Leadership Council. He is a board member at the Chicago Yacht Club and chairman of the venerable Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac.
Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Sandoval fell in love with boating while earning a sailing merit badge at the Owassippe Scout Camp in Michigan. He credits Scouting for giving him foundational exposure to the sport of sailing, which among other activities shaped his love for outdoor recreation.
Sandoval’s early professional career in the biomedical industry took him to the Pacific Northwest, where he sailed Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean. He was later transferred to Miami, where sailing year-round became the norm for this transplanted Northerner and he became more deeply involved in the racing circuit.
Sandoval moved back to Chicago in 1997 and jumped headfirst into the sailing community by purchasing his first sailboat — a 27-foot 1978 AMF Paceship — with two friends and his brother. He joined the Chicago Yacht Club and joined many of its committees in order to help promote club membership and the sport of sailing.
In 2000 Sandoval and two boat partners purchased their first new boat — a 2000 Beneteau First 33.7 — and named it Karma. He’s now on his third Beneteau, his second First 36.7. He races it in the largest one-design fleet in North America, one that Karma Yacht Sales helped build on Lake Michigan.
“I am as passionate about the brand as the first day I learned about it,” he says. READ MORE
* Article courtesy of Trade Only Today
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