Ron Schults graduated from high school in Saint Joseph, Michigan in 1974 where he was born and raised. Ron attended Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan, graduating with honors in 1978. He founded The Abonmarche Group in 1979 to provide engineering, architectural, surveying, landscape architecture, and planning services to municipal, private, institutional, commercial, and industrial clients.
Abonmarche’s corporate office is in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Regional offices are located in Manistee, Michigan; South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana. An international office is located in Singapore. In addition, they have 13 international representative offices so they can provide professional services worldwide. Abonmarche’s combined staff consists of over 100 professionals. They maintain modern, state-of-the-art architectural, engineering, and planning equipment, such as computer aided design and drafting (CADD) systems, and complete computerized surveying instruments, including GPS.
The Marina / Waterfront Development division provides technical consulting services on public and private projects both domestically and internationally. Currently, Abonmarche boast projects in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. Their team can perform technical oceanographic and coastal analyses, design recreation/ waterfront master plans, landside marina service facilities, sand transport movement, structural design of breakwater and shoreline protection systems, and consult on marina operations and management. They can also provide development services including cash flow analysis and financing assistance.
Ron’s sailing resume contains world wide ports of call all over the globe. In 1987 Ron and a partner had a Tanaya 55 built in Taiwan. He sailed that boat throughout the Pacific Ocean with stops in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China. Ron has also cruised extensively in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea. Locally Ron is a regular racer in the Chicago–Mac Race, the oldest fresh water sailboat race in the world. Boats race the 333 miles from Chicago to Mackinac Island. Many continue on to Port Huron, Michigan the next week to race to the island up Lake Huron from Port Huron, Michigan. Ron’s boat, the Wellenreiter IV, has been the “Boat of the Year” in the Saint Joseph River Yacht Club Sail Racing Fleet for the past 2 years and finished high in his section in his last boat, a Morgan 42, for several years. The Wellenreiter has competed in the Tri-State Regatta, racing every Labor Day weekend from Chicago, Illinois to Saint Joseph Michigan, and then to Michigan City, Indiana for many years.
In 2005 Ron sold all but the real estate portion of Abonmarche after the tragic and untimely death of his wife in an automobile accident. After getting over the initial shock of losing his wife and the mother of their 3 and 5 year old children, Ron and a few close friends started a grief healing center in Saint Joseph, through a partnership with Hospice at Home called Lory’s Place. Specializing in peer group support for children the Center has quickly grown to be the central location for schools and community people to turn to when deaths occurs to loved ones before their time. An Anticipatory Grief Group for the terminally ill and their loved ones has been added.
Since opening on November 15, 2004, hundreds of participants from southwestern Michigan, as well as from northwest Indiana, have taken the courageous step of accessing the bereavement resource services of Lory’s Place. We have also been blessed with the presence of 45 caring, trained volunteer facilitators, an active and hard-working advisory board, and a crew (volunteers) of 40 helpful men and women. The capital campaign of $750,000 has been successfully reached - only possible as a result of the huge-hearted, generous people of out community and across the United States. In order to provide the helpful services of Lory's Place at no cost to the participants, an annual budget of $250,000 is raised with ongoing fundraisers, grant awards, private donations and memorial gifts.
Ron and his crew of the Wellenreiter competed in the NHRA Championship in Annapolis, transporting the boat by truck and motorhome over 700 miles to be used in the regatta. They will represent Lory’s Place again in 2007 at the National Championships in Annapolis, MD.
