Northern Lights - Issue 35 - March 2025
KEYS DIVE SHOP EXPANDS TO NEW BEULAH BUSINESS
Venture North Financing Supports New Watery Enterprise
by AMY LANE
A tale of two climates: (Left) A recent trip to Beulah gave Bodie Billips a chance to check out the progress on Dad’s soon-to-be-opened business, Beulah Outdoors; (Right) Warmer days on the boat with mom and dad - Grace and Eric – back in Florida.
He’s run successful dive shops in the Florida Keys for over a dozen years, helping people of all ages and abilities discover the world under the waves.
Now, Eric Billips is bringing his passion and business acumen back to his native Michigan, opening a shop, aided by Venture North Funding & Development, that will offer scuba diving and more to customers of all levels and interests – a welcomed addition in the small village of Beulah and in Benzie County.
“It’s very exciting,” said Betsy Evans, Venture North business development manager and coach. “I think it’s going to be really beneficial for the entire downtown and for Benzie County.”
Everything Scuba+!
Located on Beulah’s main street, Beulah Outdoors will do and offer “everything scuba,” Billips said, as well as cater to other outdoor pursuits with apparel and accessories for activities like skiing, hunting and beachgoing. It will also be a hub for diving explorations as near as adjacent Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan and farther like the Keys, where Billips plans to lead all-inclusive trips pairing lodging and diving.
But what excites the multi-credentialed instructor and U.S. Coast Guard-certified captain the most, are his plans to work with youth and veterans as
he has in the Keys, opening up the underwater world to their benefit. For youth, Billips is looking to start a day camp, supported by nonprofit donations and teaching about sea and Great Lakes life and threats, as well as offering scuba certification. “It will be a cool, conservation-based camp but one of the benefits is that you get certified,” he said.
Billips has also worked with Idaho-based nonprofit Higher Ground to help veterans with disabilities and connect them with beneficial water therapy and activities in the Keys; he hopes to do the same in Benzie.
“What gets me excited, is how I’m going to help the community,” Billips said. “This is my community now, and I’m really proud to be a part of it.”
Opening Underwater World with Community Partners
Helping to make Beulah Outdoors a reality, has been local support. Billips received a loan from Venture North – financing that came through the Community Development Block Grant loan program, a federal program administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, or MEDC, and utilized locally by Benzie County to help small businesses that are creating jobs and need loan capital for inventory, equipment, working capital and more.
In addition to Venture North loan committee action, loans under the Community Development Block Grant loan program require approval by the Benzie County Board of Commissioners and then the MEDC. Venture North manages the program for the county, working with businesses and providing oversight and reporting.
Venture North has “been a wonderful partner in getting these dollars into our communities to support these folks in Benzie County,” said county administrator Katie Zeits.
She said Beulah Outdoors brings diversity in the downtown and helps build vibrancy. “Eric…seems eager to serve Benzie County. My first impression of him was that he’s got what it takes and he’ll be successful,” Zeits said.
“When you get into conversation with him and hear about the offerings, and how it’s so cool to be diving into our lakes and Lake Michigan…we’re really excited to get him started on this and get a following in Benzie County.”
Bodie Billips is ready to go - a certified diver! - with skills he and the whole family will soon be using in the saltless waters of northern Michigan.
A 1,648 Mile Path Back to Northern Michigan
Moving with his family from the Keys, Billips is returning to an area he’d grown to love in early years, taking family trips from Southeast Michigan to snowmobile, ice fish and enjoy what the county had to offer.
“The Benzie County area was always dear to my heart, growing up. I always told myself, if I ever go back to Michigan, I’m going to that area,” he said.
Billips left Michigan in 2008 after working in the construction industry and headed to the Keys for what he thought would be a three-month break as a scuba instructor. He said he fell in love with “teaching people how to dive, opening up this new world under the waves,” and three months turned into three years.
When he reached a point where he decided he needed to do more in the scuba industry or make a career change, Billips, who said he has an “entrepreneurial brain,” found his way in 2012 to buying an Islamorada dive shop. Then, he bought another. And he created the branding “Scuba Town USA” for those dive shops and varied businesses all housed together and geared toward divers – lodging, food, drink, entertainment, shopping, beach, pool and dive-related activities at one location that’s now within Marriott’s Three Waters Resort and Marina.
Billips’ Islamorada Dive Center is a full-service Professional Association of Diving Instructors scuba diving shop, offering daily guided scuba diving trips, instruction, spearfishing, shark encounters and private dive charters. It’s where he met wife Grace, a Michigan native who hired on as an intern at the dive shop. In August 2023, Grace, who for years had summered at Benzie County’s Watervale, visited Beulah with her mother, taking a video of the village and liking what she saw, Eric Billips said. He and Grace returned to Beulah in May 2024 for a visit, and decided the area was where they wanted to live and raise their upcoming baby.
The new location will also be home base for outdoor adventures by Eric’s son, Bodie.
“My son, Bodie, age 12, is a great student/athlete in the Keys as well as a certified diver,” Billips said. “He’ll be joining me throughout the year and will also love northern Michigan’s outdoor adventures, including fishing in summer for trout and other species.”
Billips started keeping his eye on real estate, saw a building with potential come up for sale, and bought it without ever stepping onto the property. Continuing to own his dive shops in the Keys and opening one in Michigan, he’s an entrepreneur making what some might see as an unlikely leap.
“When I tell people that I’m expanding to Michigan…going from the Florida Keys whose average temperature is 84, to Michigan…who does that? Nobody,” Billips said.
“I feel like there’s a need. I think it’s going to be a cool thing, and I think a lot of people are going to take advantage of learning a hobby or sport that they thought was not accessible, and it is.”
“I’ve never had the type of positive experience that I had with Venture North. It just felt so intimate, that they really wanted to see me succeed.”
Eric Billips, Beulah Outdoors
Priceless Support from Venture North’s Betsy Evans
After he bought his building, Billips connected with Venture North’s Evans, who helped him secure the $45,000 loan for scuba equipment purchases, furniture and fixtures. The Community Development Block Grant loan was not the first financing source explored but Evans identified it as one with better terms and a lower interest rate. “She got me in a better situation I didn’t know about,” Billips said. “How do you put a price tag on something like that.”
Evans and others at Venture North, a Community Development Financial Institution, have “been fantastic,” Billips said. “I feel very very fortunate, very blessed, to have been introduced.”
He said that in all the years he’s been a business owner and had loans, “I’ve never had the type of positive experience that I had with Venture North. It just felt so intimate, that they really wanted to see me succeed.
“They were part of this warrior team that was trying to get me across the finish line if you will. I couldn’t recommend them more.”
Big Dreams, Exciting Plans – Backed by Experience and Drive!
Evans said Billips is knowledgeable and has drive and commitment for all he wants to achieve through Beulah Outdoors. “I think he’s going to hit the ground running,” she said. “He’ll bring the business acumen to run a successful business and improve the retail part of downtown Beulah but he also brings his passion and his energy to improve the community. I think he’s going to be great.”
Billips hopes to open by May 1 and plans several types of classes, from introduction to the sport, to certifications. He’s hired four employees, and instructors include himself and one from the Keys. Wife Grace, also certified as an instructor, will help run the shop, handling apparel and inventory and other areas.
Even as he opens Beulah Outdoors, Billips has bigger dreams in the area he now calls home.
“I’d like to have a real big outdoors store in Benzie County somewhere,” Billips said, bringing together scuba, skiing, hunting and fishing and maybe even serving as a place out of which charter fishing captains would operate trips.
“That’s my dream,” he said. “Hopefully it comes true.”
A great time had by all! Billips’ Kids’ Camp celebrates in Islamorada, Florida.
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
