Dave Irish Student Sponsorship Award
The Dave Irish Student Sponsorship Award is a $15,000 sponsorship awarded to one Marine Trades Institute student in either the Marine Service Technology Program or the Comprehensive Career Boat Building Program. The sponsorship funding will be divided into three equal disbursements and credited to the student’s tuition account each semester. Upon graduation, the student who is awarded the sponsorship agrees to work for Irish Boat Shop for a period of one year with pay and benefits.
If you have not yet completed the core application, please do that before applying for the Dave Irish Sponsorship.
A Note About the Irish Boat Shop:
Dave Irish and the Irish Boat Shop have provided service for recreational boaters in Harbor Springs since 1961, on Lake Charlevoix since 1971, and in Traverse City since 2018. Their modern, comprehensive facilities in the communities offer a wide range of services, sales, and strength of experience. The business of Irish Boat Shop is to promote recreational boating by delivering quality and value in boats and services while meeting their obligations to their customers, their employees, their communities, and the environment.
From an early age, Dave Irish was in his element in the water. His early jobs included teaching sailing and working on boats in what was then his family’s sideline business. He entered the Air Force in 1958 and left military service in 1960 to return to Harbor Springs and care for his ailing father.
Dave was widely known in the sailing community, and with the help of family and the encouragement of boating friends, he founded the Irish Boat Shop. Over the following 61 years he built it into a successful, thriving business with almost 100 employees staffing their three locations. Dave Irish passed away on November 30, 2020. Dave liked messing around with boats, and he particularly enjoyed the company of people who owned and played with boats. It is in this spirit that Irish Boat Shop founded this sponsorship award in 2023.
