Clear the Decks - Express Dek - KEYS LIFE MAGAZINE

Finally, he could clear his mind. The noise, the complications, the stress all drifted away as he drove toward the Keys. Was all of it necessary? Was it just how things were? Or could something be simpler — and better?

Michael Martino had made that drive more times than he could count, and every time, the answer felt closer. Four years ago, he stopped making it a round trip. He moved to the Keys, drawn by the water, the people, and a quiet conviction that a simpler life was worth building — even if he hadn’t quite figured out what that looked like yet.

The answer came from an unlikely place: a bad experience with a boat deck.

Mike had hired a company to re-deck his boat. What was promised as a six-week turnaround stretched into weeks of silence and zero progress. When he finally got answers, they weren’t good ones. “It made me feel like I didn’t matter as a customer,” Mike recalls.

The one bright spot in the entire ordeal had been Daniel Hart — the technician who came out to do the initial boat scan. Professional, personable, and thorough, Dan was everything the rest of the process wasn’t. So when Mike wanted answers, Dan was the one he called.

Dan walked Mike through the reality of how the industry operated: a scanning technician here, a third-party manufacturer there, a shipping chain connecting them all. Three separate companies, three separate points of failure — and when something went wrong, you waited all over again.

Mike couldn’t understand why no one had simplified the process. Scan it. Cut it. Install it. Someone needed to clear the decks of middlemen and extra steps — why not them? Dan was immediately on board.

Mike got the new business model running, and Dan soon joined as partner. Together, they built Express Dek, a fully mobile, one-stop operation where scanning, cutting, and installation all happen under one roof — or more accurately, inside one trailer that comes to you. No warehouses, no middlemen, no waiting.

The results speak for themselves. What started in the Keys in 2023 has expanded to six franchise locations, a testament to a model that simply works. But Mike and Dan remain boots on the ground here at home, personally invested in every local customer.

“Everyone down here treats us like friends and family,” Mike says. “They trust us, and we get to build real relationships.”

Rather than pushing one product on every customer like big-name companies, Mike and Dan give customers options and listen carefully to provide the right solutions. Their flagship material, EVA/closed cell foam, is soft, customizable, and available in a range of colors to suit any boat’s personality. For those wanting a more premium finish, Express Dek recently introduced EverCor — a polymer-cork blend is already exceeding expectations. EverCor doesn’t scratch, burn, or get hot. It’s built to last twenty years.

The focus on quality extends to their home lives. Mike’s two sons, nine and twelve, are growing up the Keys way — fishing, afternoons at Dog Beach, and any excuse to get out on the water. Four years ago, Mike would have missed most of it. Now, he’s there for the games, the dinners, the Sunday mornings at church. Dan is in the same current — two young daughters, two dogs, and a life built around being present. Both men were deliberate about this, simplifying their business to improve their family life.