MiniJet boats seem most at home when they are moving quickly across the water. Their ability to operate smoothly in the shallows make them a practical choice for many different applications. Courtesy Photo
BERWICK – If travel and international mobility means that the phrase “You can’t get there from here,” really doesn’t have a lot of meaning anymore; just ask Jamie Greenfield, who grew up in New Zealand before relocating to Eastern Ontario with a stop in Red Deer along the way.
You’d have to wonder as well, if that phrase was seen as kind of a challenge which resulted in the development of Greenfield’s company, MiniJet, a producer of small, aluminum, jet-powered boats that “allows you to enjoy a new style of boating and reach places never before thought possible. If that isn’t a response to a challenge, I don’t know what is.
Greenfield is the founder of the company which began operations in 2015. He says it was a classic hobby turned into a business scenario. He had been building boats since 2005-2006 but came to Canada with the idea of trying something different. Unfortunately, the only work he could find at the time was building aluminum boats in Red Deer, Alberta.
“I got into the jet boating scene, learned to weld,” says Greenfield. “And during that time started building the first mini jets as they later came to be known. And basically, I think I built three in three years, just for myself and one friend and so you know I saw the potential for a business. When we moved up to Ottawa, I opened MiniJet. Just Right Place, Right Time, I guess.”
While the company started in 2015, until 2017 Greenfield had a day job and ran his business during the evenings and on weekends in a rented garage in Gatineau, Quebec. He purchased a home in Clarence Creek and operated out of that location until 2019. In 2018 he began to work at MiniJet on a full-time basis, and within six months had hired the company’s first employee.
In late 2019, early 2020 the company moved to their current location in Berwick, Ontario because they needed more space. “That’s been fantastic,” says Greenfield, “We’re ten-strong now and kind of running out of space again, so we were planning to stay where we are and basically build up at the same location. It’ll be, you know, a new building with probably four times the space we have now and some specialized equipment that we’re currently farming out.”
MiniJet doesn’t currently have a showroom, per se, but people are welcome to come in for a shop tour, see what is under development and watch some videos and look though images of what the company has done to this point and see all the options that are available.
MiniJet basically has three “product lines”, three facets to the business, one of them being an E-commerce parts store. They also offer a DIY product line where you can purchase all the parts for making your own boat at home including the hull. “So, we offer it in various stages,” explains Greenfield, “that, you know, some people are experienced, while others they want to build the entire thing themselves. Other times we’ll weld the hull to a point where they can basically bolt on the engine and seats and, and those kinds of things.
And then the third facet is complete turnkey manufacturing, meaning that the motor’s in, seats are in, that’s 100 per cent, you show up, take the keys and you’re ready to drive.”
It is pretty much up to the individual to choose what they want, but one thing is clear, these are performance watercrafts. According to Greenfield, their slowest model is about 42 miles an hour (67 km/hr) while their fastest can reach about 70 miles per hour (112 km/hr).
Life is all about choices, and that carries over to how potential clients can contact MiniJet. “We’re happy to deal with people how they want to be dealt with; not everyone’s up on par with the internet so we do have a great website (minijet.ca) and we have email and phone as well: sales@minijet.ca is the email and phone number is 613-605-2628.
“We haven’t been in the community here very long and it’s been a great place to grow, and I guess it’s pretty excited for what’s coming.”
You never know what you might find in Eastern Ontario, it might surprise you. You might also discover that whoever said you can’t get there from here was mistaken.
If you would like to have a light shined on your business, please contact us at: editor@etceterapublications.ca or call us at 613-448-2321.
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Terry Tinkess is a professional photographer, educator and journalist. He has been making a living with a camera and keyboard since 1999 and has been featured in such publications as The Ottawa Citizen, Cornwall Standard Freeholder, The Globe and Mail, The Miami Herald, Ottawa Construction News, The Ontario Construction Report, Ontario Home Builder Magazine, Reed Construction Data, Canadian Potato Business and most recently, The Record and Eastern Ontario AgriNews. Terry lives in Ingleside, Ontario with his wife Brenda, Mia the anxious Pittie and cats Wally and Chubbers.