Advanced Textiles Expo^® 2026, hosted by Advanced Textiles Association (ATA) Nov. 3–5, 2026, included education for marine fabricators throughout its entire schedule. From classroom learning to hands-on demonstrations, attendees who serve the marine market found many opportunities to hone their skills and grow their businesses.

Operating a business

Each morning before the show floor opened, Advanced Textiles Expo hosted classroom education sessions for all attendees. Several offerings in this year’s lineup were hosted by and catered to marine fabricators.

“Built to Last” was presented by Charlene Clark, IFM, owner of Signature CanvasMakers LLC, board member of the ATA Board of Directors and immediate past chair of the Marine Fabricators Association (MFA) advisory board.

Clark outlined what makes a business valuable and gave attendees an interactive experience: She provided Business Value Scorecards, where those in the session could grade themselves on a scale of 1 to 5 for how transferable, scalable and less owner-dependent their businesses are — 1 being reactive/owner-dependent and 5 being repeatable/measurable/transferable — as it relates to the business’s strategic vision, people, processes, data/measurables and financial footing.

“When you are a lead person in your company, you spend much of your time working in the business. But in order to grow, we need to be able to work on it,” Clark said.

Jeff Newkirk, MFC, owner, Precision Custom Canvas and chair of ATA Canada, and Jeff Viehmeyer, owner of Alameda Canvas & Coverings, led a session “Shopflow to Workflow.”

The session explored how to set up and organize your shop so that it works with your shopflow, the flow of your business and your workflow, or the specific tasks required to complete your work.

“Organization is the most important factor in setting up your shop to succeed,” said Newkirk.

At smaller shops like Viehmeyer’s, thoughtful organization is especially essential.

“Everything in our shop has to have multiple uses,” he said.

Making great products

“Shade Above Water, Shade On Land: Bridging Boat Shade and Land Sails” was co-presented by Johannes Lombard, marketing manager of Canvas Designers Inc., and Paul Levesque and Brydon Roe, project manager and owner, respectively, of Shade Sails Canada.

The session began with a freewheeling discussion where the presenters took time to hear what the attendees were looking for and the challenges their businesses are facing related to shade on land, sea and both.

The speakers used that information to tailor their session; they showed various projects on their websites, as well as photos and videos in the presentation, answering questions from the audience and talking through unique fabrication and installation challenges. Speakers passed out various types of shade hardware to help attendees get the feel for the gear that they are working with.

Mike Boatman, owner of Boatman Marine Canvas, presented “Covering the Waves: Crafting custom trailerable boat covers.” He walked through every step of creating a trailerable boat cover, with photos demonstrating various techniques as well as myriad questions asked throughout and answered by the speaker.

Attendees shared ideas they’ve used in the fabrication process as well; the session was an opportunity to learn from each other so everyone can make high-quality boat covers for their customers.

“Every time [the customers] are on the water, they’re creating memories with family and friends. We cover a boat, and yeah, obviously we’re protecting a boat, but we’re also protecting the memories that it creates,” said Boatman. “So I say let’s continue to help our customers forge future memories, produce present memories and preserve past memories.”

Kinesthetic learning

On the show floor, the Hands-On Learning Booth gave attendees a chance to educate themselves about different fabrication practices while presenters utilized “show, don’t tell” methodology.

The informal, interactive sessions kept people engaged and answered questions about the real-life challenges fabricators are experiencing in their shops today.

One such session, “Patterning with Canvex: Tips and Techniques for Achieving the Perfect Fit,” was presented by Jess Flegel, production manager at Oyster Creek Canvas. She discussed the importance of developing a plan for working with Canvex before diving in; what you are making, who it’s for, how they will use it and whether you will make this project again in the future all impact how to move forward with a project.

After that outline, Flegel used the booth’s sewing machine in place of a boat to move through each step of using the material, fielding questions about her work as she completed each step and allowing attendees to inspect her work after she was done.

Hands-on learning closed out Nov. 5 with the annual MFA Roadshow, a highlight for anyone who does business in this market. In three back-to-back sessions, presenters shared their knowledge about how to do certain projects and answered questions from fellow fabricators about their own challenges.

Next year’s expo will be held Oct. 26–28, 2027, in Baltimore, Md.