About Us
About VIP Marinas
Our Vision is to create destination marinas where people make positive memories that last a lifetime.
VIP Marinas is an industry leader in the operation of world class marinas throughout the southern United States. Since the acquisition of our first marina in 2009, we have grown to 13 premier properties and counting. Backed by a management team with over 75 years’ experience in real estate and marina management, we are passionate about delivering exceptional customer experiences on the water. Our formula is simple: we buy irreplaceable properties, invest to bring them up to world class facilities, and continually delight our customers with a maniacal focus on customer service.
Our culture of over-the-top customer service is enabled by our fun-loving and hard-working staff who build each facility into a tight knit community where all our customers are treated like family. As a result, our marinas have repeatedly been awarded top Marina of the Year honors and we boast tremendous long-term retention amongst our marina members.
VIP Marinas is well-capitalized, and we are a tried and true marina operator with a leading track record for closing acquisitions quickly and successfully. One of the things that sets us apart is our independent ownership, which puts our owner-operator 100% in control of decision making, growth, and strategy for the company. We are able to move swiftly and maintain a hands-on, “small company” feel with the resources and scale of a large corporation.
Below you will find listings for each of our VIP Marinas properties. Please take a look around and discover the VIP difference. While looking for a marina, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us. You can contact us very easily by chatting with us in the bottom right of our website or by going to our contact page. You will see that you will be treated as a VIP every step of the way. We look forward to seeing you at a VIP Marina very soon!
Come visit us today and experience the VIP difference!
Our Management Team
Austin Cameron
Co-Owner, Founder, and CEO
Austin founded VIP Marinas in 2009 with the purchase of his first marina on Lake Travis in Austin, TX. Since that time, he has grown the company to 13 marinas nationally and a statewide boat dealership in Texas. As CEO, Austin is responsible for setting the strategic vision of the company and overseeing all aspects of performance, including a heavy focus on culture, customer service, growth, and acquisitions.
Austin’s love of the water began as a child spending summers at his grandfather’s lake house in Oklahoma. From his first time on skis at 2.5 years old, to now spending months of the year boating in Florida and the Bahamas with his family, all of his favorite memories have taken place on the water. His mission is to share his love of the water by creating destination marinas where people make positive memories that last a lifetime.
Not a typical business owner, Austin has rolled up his sleeves for every step of marina operations along the way. From cleaning bathrooms to meet the “VIP gold standard” to scuba-diving 80 feet underwater to repair docks, he believes marinas are a hands-on business. The owner should be knowledgeable and involved in the community, but his most important job is to support and develop strong local leadership teams who in turn take great care of the customers. At 3000 slips and counting, every marina member still has his personal cell phone number; however, he seldom receives calls thanks to the amazing local teams at each of the marinas.
Prior to founding VIP Marinas, Austin developed over 900 single-family homes in Texas and invested extensively in rental properties, manufactured housing, and self-storage facilities. Austin earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance with an emphasis on Real Estate from Texas Christian University.
Jenny Cameron
Co-Owner
In 2021, Jenny made the decision to leave a 20-year career in the healthcare sector to focus full time on building VIP Marinas into a multi-generational family business together with her husband. Her involvement in the marina industry began when she met Austin in 2016 and became a capital partner and advisor as he grew the business from four to 13 marinas. Today, she works hand-in-hand with Austin to set the strategic vision for the company and oversees key areas of the company including legal affairs, insurance, and business development activities.
Jenny brings to the marina business more than 20 years of executive leadership experience, most recently as a senior executive at a Fortune 20 healthcare company. Holding various senior executive leadership positions over 16 years at Elevance Health (formerly Anthem, Inc.), Jenny oversaw more than $1 billion in mergers and acquisitions transactions, led the business development team in bringing in more than $8 billion in annualized new Medicaid revenue, and had profit & loss responsibility for a multi-state health plan region representing over $500 million in revenue. Prior to Elevance, Jenny was a management consultant in Deloitte’s healthcare practice for five years.
Jenny earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business with a concentration in Spanish. An avid scuba diver, her love of all things in and around water began in childhood and has only grown as the family business has allowed her to blur the lines between work and play. When Jenny is not working at marinas, she spends her time being a customer of them as she, Austin, and their two young children cruise Florida, the East Coast, and Caribbean working and researching marina acquisitions from their boat, aptly named the Corporate Office.
Felecia Ongley, CMM
Chief Operating Officer / Operating Partner
As Chief Operating Officer of VIP Marinas, Felecia is responsible for all aspects of operations for VIP’s portfolio of marinas, including oversight and development of team members, setting company culture, and ensuring exceptional customer experiences. Felecia and her husband Dan also serve as Operating Partners of the marinas on Possum Kingdom Lake. Felecia’s journey in the marina industry began in 2012, though she has been successfully executing alongside Austin’s vision for nearly 20 years, dating back to their prior real estate company together.
Felecia knew that to be successful in the marina industry she must learn everything about the business as quickly as possible. She began working the ship store by day and doing accounting by night. She worked alongside the service mechanics driving the tractor when they needed boats moved, running the cash register with the store clerks, fueling boats and pumping out boats with dockhands, stocking inventory, cranking docks, and learning the financials. She very quickly realized the marina was a large machine with many moving parts. After a year, she was promoted to General Manager of Bluff Creek Marina on Possum Kingdom Lake. In 2016, she was promoted to Regional Manager of VIP Marinas, overseeing operations of multiple marinas across Texas and Oklahoma. In 2020, she was promoted again to Chief Operating Officer of VIP Marinas with oversight of VIP’s growing national portfolio.
Felecia is passionate about the marina industry. She believes a marina should be far more than a “boat parking lot,” and strives to make each of our marinas a home-away-from-home where members find community and friends become family members. She creates a culture of customer service and builds marina teams that pride themselves on servant leadership. She believes the success of VIP comes from a team that is passionate about what they do. She gets excited with each acquisition and looks forward to making the company’s vision of the marinas come to life. She feels strongly that “VIP” is not just the name of our company; it is what every customer should feel like when they walk on our docks.
Felecia earned her Bachelor of Science from Tarleton State University. Outside of the marina business, one of her greatest joys is being Mimi to her growing flock of grandchildren.
Hunter Cameron
Operating Partner / Investor / Strategic Advisor
Hunter Cameron is the Operating Partner for Marina Bay Harbor Marina and Surfside Marina. In addition to his Operating Partner roles, Hunter is a key investor and strategic advisor for the VIP Marinas Corporation with ownership positions in many of the VIP Marinas.
Hunter has more than 25 years of experience leading teams and businesses to great success. He spent over 20 years working at the Stryker Corporation where he had many different leadership roles including 5 years as the Craniomaxillofacial Sr. Director of North American Sales, 2.5 years as the Craniomaxillofacial Sr. Director of Strategic Development (led the Marketing, Medical Education, Business Development, Professional Affairs departments), and 2.5 years as the Sr. Director of TMJ Concepts.
Hunter has made a career out of transforming struggling business into successful powerhouses that deliver best in class financial results. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Texas Tech University, a Master of Business Administration from Rice University, and completed the Harvard Business School Global Leadership Program.
Today, Hunter lives in Houston with his wife and two children. He loves leading teams, operating businesses, and spending time outdoors with his family.
Dan Ongley, CMM
Regional Service Director / Operating Partner
As Regional Service Director of VIP Marinas, Dan oversees marine service operations for all VIP facilities that have service shops. In this role, he focuses on optimization of the service shops, including staff training and development, systems and processes, and inventory management. Dan and his wife Felecia also serve as Operating Partners of the marinas on Possum Kingdom Lake.
Dan joined the VIP Marinas family in 2015 as Operating Partner and Service Manager of Bluff Creek Marina on Possum Kingdom Lake. Dan brought with him long-time experience as an entrepreneur and business owner. Prior to joining VIP, he owned a petroleum trucking company for over 20 years and was a hands-on owner, growing that to a highly successful company. In July 2015, the Ongleys decided to make a life-changing move and sold their company, becoming investors in Bluff Creek Marina and subsequently The Cliffs Marina. In 2016, Dan was promoted to General Manager of Bluff Creek Marina and his duties were expanded to include The Cliffs Marina in 2019. In 2021, he was promoted to Regional Service Director of VIP Marinas, and he continues his close oversight of the Possum Kingdom Lake marinas as Operating Partner.
Dan’s extensive knowledge of customer service and business relations have been a huge asset to the marina business. His love of the water and passion for fishing help him appreciate firsthand the importance of a great experience for our service customers. He enjoys assisting customers in making their service experiences the best they can be, and he’s always happy to chat with them about fishing.
Audrey Willmot, CMM
Director of Operations
As Director of Operations for VIP Marinas, Audrey assists in evaluating monthly accounting reporting, identifying variances and arrange various appropriate solutions for teammates and provide support to new and existing marinas to help drive consistency and company initiatives.
Audrey started her career in the Marine Industry in 2005 after graduating from the University of South Florida. She devoted the following 15 years as General Manager at a full-service, 344-slip marina and boatyard, located on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway. Most recently she served as the Vice President of Integrations and Training for a large marina owner/operator, leading integrations, and training for over 40 new acquisitions and over 60 marina conversions to new marina software.
Audrey is a native Floridian, born and raised in Fort Pierce, Florida, the Sailfish Capital of the World. Her passion for the boating lifestyle undoubtedly shapes the way in which she operates and the experience she provides to our field team and our members.
Tammy VanValen
HR/Benefits and Payroll Administrator
Tammy joined the VIP Marinas team in 2017 but she has worked with Austin for years in his various business endeavors. She has been a water lover and boating enthusiast her whole life, making her the position of HR/Benefits and Payroll Administrator a perfect fit for her.
Although she was born in Texas, Tammy grew up in New York State where she started her career in bookkeeping and then accounting before returning to Texas in 1997. Tammy and her husband have owned and operated their own construction company since 1992; they love spending time with their five children and two grandchildren and frequently go boating and fishing with their family.
Tammy has a great work ethic and a gift for teaching new team members the VIP ways; she looks forward to future growth and development of the VIP Marina family.
Kathy Engstrom
Corporate Executive Assistant
Kathy started her career in 1996 after graduating from Michigan State University. She worked in a variety of marketing and sales roles before taking some time off to raise her three children who are now 19, 17, and 11. After spending four years working in the insurance and mortgage industry, Kathy joined the VIP Marinas team in 2018. Growing up in Michigan, she spent lots of time boating on Lake Michigan, as well as all of the small inland lakes near her hometown, and Kathy feels right at home on the water.
Kathy has lived in the Lake Travis area for 24 years and has really enjoyed learning the marina business and the Lake Travis views that come with it.
She says she learns something new every day in her role as the Corporate Executive Assistant and is looking forward to growing with the company.
Giving Back
At VIP Marinas, we believe that giving back to our communities and serving those less fortunate are a vital part of our DNA. Through volunteerism, fundraising, and donation of a portion of our proceeds, we are proud to support a variety of great organizations in their missions to make a positive impact on the world. Some of the key partners VIP Marinas supports include:
Folds of Honor
Folds of Honor provides educational scholarships to the children and spouses of our fallen and disabled American military service members – the heroes who stand guard over our freedom. VIP Marinas is proud to partner with this wonderful organization to raise funds and awareness. Each year, we lead fundraising efforts across each of our marinas and VIP Marinas matches all customer contributions dollar for dollar.
Mission of Hope
As an organization following Jesus Christ, Mission of Hope exists to bring life transformation to every man, woman, and child. With campuses in the Caribbean and Central America, Mission of Hope partners with local churches to transform lives through church advancement, nutrition, education, and medical care. When Hurricane Dorian devastated portions of the Bahamas in 2019, VIP Marinas was proud to sponsor a ship to the Abacos to provide relief services, medical care, nutritional aid, and spiritual support. VIP Marinas is pleased to support this worthy cause through ongoing donations and volunteerism.
Port O’Connor Toy Run
The Toy Run had its beginning in 2002 and since then has expanded to a brigade of boats running the 72 miles down the Intracoastal Waterway from Freeport, TX to Port O’Connor, delivering enough toys to serve thousands of children all along the Texas Gulf Coast each Christmas.
Tulsa Boys Home
For 102 years, Tulsa Boys’ Home has provided the highest quality residential care for struggling boys and helped them turn their lives around. The Tulsa Boys’ Home’s passionate staff and professional counselors work closely with every individual boy to guide him to receive healing and become a respectful, responsible young man.
Holy Cross Anglican School
Holy Cross Anglican School serves some of the poorest families on the beautiful island of Ambergris Caye in Belize. The school provides education, meals, dental care, and so much more to its many students in a Christ-centered environment. On VIP Marinas’ annual company trip several years ago, our leadership team was privileged to visit and volunteer at the school and have continued to provide financial assistance through fundraising and donation from our family of marinas.