From campus life to catastrophe recovery, Darrell Hanson (B.B.A.’70) built his success on leadership, grit and lessons he learned at Western.
Long before he was a successful entrepreneur and marina owner in Florida, Darrell was a college student seeking a change of pace. His decision to transfer to Western Michigan University didn’t just launch his business career; it taught him how to lead through adversity and rise stronger after setbacks.
Just a five-hour drive from Darrell’s hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, Western’s acceptance of his previously earned credits made the transition smooth and set him up to make the most out of his undergraduate experience.
“It was a fun school. The kids were all fun, and everybody just seemed to get along. It was a really nice place to go to school,” Darrell said.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in the summer of 1970, Darrell returned to Madison, where he quickly stepped into the world of business. He managed a store in a newly built mall, owned several college bars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and spent over 17 years working as a wholesaler for Anheuser-Busch.
“We ended up with three bars or nightclubs along the campus. One was a Western-type bar, because that was really popular there for a while,” he said. “We did just about every kind of entertainment, and it was very interesting to see how that whole industry works.”
Darrell’s career brought him to Florida next, where he took on his most ambitious business venture yet: restoring a rundown waterfront marina in the heart of Matanzas Bay. Under his leadership, Salty Sam’s Marina evolved to include restaurants, charter boats and storage facilities, run by a loyal crew of 100 employees.
“We purchased this marina because we were boaters and thought it'd be a lot of fun. It was an old marina, and it needed a lot of work, so we rebuilt it all,” he said.
Then disaster struck, and everything had to be rebuilt... again. A devastating hurricane caused massive flooding and destruction in Fort Myers Beach, and Darrell’s leadership was put to the test.
Weathering the storm
“When you hear the word disaster, and you see it on TV, you think, ‘Yeah, that’s a disaster,’” Darrell said. “Well, we witnessed disaster firsthand here. It was totally unbelievable.
“A 29-foot wave came through and it settled in at probably about 15 feet,” he continued. “The entire dock floated off the pilings until it hit one of our restaurants, and all our concrete docks were just mangled everywhere. Boats were scattered above water, below water, in trees, on top of buildings.”
Despite the devastation, Darrell and his team persevered, working tirelessly to clean up and resurrect the marina. While some of his team members lost their homes, Darrell kept them all employed and did his best to provide them with meals and additional support.
“It was really difficult trying to put it all back together,” he said, “but we have a great team, and they did an outstanding job.”
Since that first hurricane, the team has weathered multiple storms, using each experience to build smarter strategies for preparation and recovery to ensure visitors can enjoy the marina for many years to come. “We’ve learned from experience—we rent trucks and load them up with everything we can and then bring it all back once we’ve cleaned up the damage,” he said.
Darrell credits the foundation he built at Western for helping him stay strong in business and in life. “Sometimes when you’re in college and taking classes, you don’t realize how all of that will benefit you in the future,” he shared. “Every job or business you get into, it’s a little bit different, but some of the things are the same. If you own a business, you need to be pretty good at marketing and pretty good at accounting, and most of all, you need to be a leader and hope you bring that to your employees, helping them to grow and elevate.”
“A lot of mine have gone on to do some great things over the years,” he added. “I’m really proud of that.”
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