Key Figures · Companies · Performance shop, race team

Team Butch

A Michigan watercraft dealer, also called Butch's Jet Ski Shop, that registered the TEAM BUTCH mark in 1988 and ran riders under that name; it closed after 22 years.

• a year printed above a fact on this page

Printed above the facts, 1987 and 1988. 2 facts have no year printed above them and mark no box.

---

What it made and sold

1988 · Likely

Passages from Personal Watercraft Illustrated of February 1988, read through the Internet Archive's search and not as an article, show an advertisement in which Team Butch advertises what it calls world championship equipment and invites dealer inquiries.

Sources: PWI February 1988 trade probes

Patents and trademarks

1987 · Likely

Passages from the Official Gazette of the Patent and Trademark Office, read through the Internet Archive's search and not as whole pages, show the marks BUTCH'S and TEAM BUTCH published on 25 August 1987 for George-Mill, Inc., doing business as Butch's Jet Ski Shop, with repair among the services of a TEAM BUTCH mark filed in March 1987.

Sources: Official Gazette Butch marks 1987

1987 and 1988 · Confirmed

The trademark register records TEAM BUTCH, serial 73661098, filed on 15 May 1987 and registered on 9 August 1988 to George-Mill, Inc., a Michigan corporation, for single-person recreational jet boats and their replacement parts, trailers for them and accessories; the registration was cancelled on 16 May 2009. A BUTCH'S mark for the same kind of goods, filed the same day, was registered on 7 June 1988 and cancelled on 14 March 2009. The registrant claims first use of both on 1 January 1981.

Sources: USPTO goods sweep Oct 2026

On the race sheets

Likely

The same item says the shop's riders won many championships over its 22 years and names nine of them, without a list of titles. BRP's release of December 2011 on Steve Laham's induction into the hall of fame of the IJSBA names Butch's Jet Ski Shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and credits Team Butch with national and world championships of the IJSBA, again without a list. No held result sheet prints the team name (searched the archive's mirror and research cache, 2026-10-16).

Sources: PWI Team Butch news 2001; BRP release on Laham 2011

The business on record

Likely

Personal Watercraft Illustrated's news item, captured on 5 April 2001 and printing no date of its own, reports that Team Butch, also called Butch's Jet Ski Shop, had closed. It says the shop had been an authorised dealer for Kawasaki, Yamaha and Sea-Doo watercraft, that it first opened in 1979 and closed after a 22-year history, and that Steve Laham, its original owner, sold it in 1999.

Sources: PWI Team Butch news 2001

Names as printed

Butch's Jet Ski Shop (PWI Team Butch news 2001); George-Mill, Inc. (Official Gazette Butch marks 1987)

Elsewhere in the archive

• History chapter: The aftermarket: shops, dealers and teams
• Organisation: International Jet Sports Boating Association
• Era: The early years, in print
• Era: The makers and their machines

What the archive has not read (3)

• No held result sheet prints Team Butch, and none dates any title the documents credit to its riders (searched the archive's mirror and research cache, 2026-10-16).
• No document outside the 2001 news item dates the opening in 1979 or the closing, and the item prints no date of its own; the capture of 5 April 2001 is the latest date it can carry (searched the archive's mirror and research cache, 2026-10-16).
• The full Gazette pages are not held, so the 1987 search passages cannot be matched line by line to each mark's first-use dates; the record uses the register's dates instead (searched the archive's mirror and research cache, 2026-10-16).

Documents cited on this page

• PWI Team Butch news 2001 (web.archive.org): Team Butch Closes Its Doors (Personal Watercraft Illustrated online news, Wayback capture of 5 April 2001), Personal Watercraft Illustrated (watercraft.com), 2001; editorial, medium. A news item on the magazine's site reporting the closure of Team Butch, or Butch's Jet Ski Shop: first opened in 1979, its original owner, Steve Laham, its sale in 1999 and its riders. Captured on 5 April 2001; the page prints no date of its own. Medium as period trade press.
• PWI February 1988 trade probes (archive.org): Personal Watercraft Illustrated volume 2 number 1 of 1988 (read through archive.org's full-text search for trade names), Personal Watercraft Illustrated, read through the Internet Archive's full-text search, 1988; enthusiast media, medium. A second set of OCR passages from the same emptied item as the PWI February 1988 search text, one query per trade name: a Team Butch advertisement, a reference to a team backed by Performance Jet Ski, a Jetco catalogue offer and an Ocean Pro advertisement. Short passages with the OCR's errors, not articles. Medium; the phone numbers in the passages are replaced in the held copy. The link opens the item's archive.org page; the passages were read through the full-text search, as the held copy says.
• Official Gazette Butch marks 1987 (archive.org): Official Gazette of the Patent and Trademark Office, Trademarks, 1987 and 1988: BUTCH'S and TEAM BUTCH (read through archive.org's full-text search), United States Patent and Trademark Office, read through the Internet Archive's full-text search, 1987-08-25; government, medium. Search results from four microfilmed issues of the Gazette, 25 August 1987 to 17 May 1988, printing the marks BUTCH'S and TEAM BUTCH against a corporation doing business as Butch's Jet Ski Shop, with the goods classes. Medium rather than high because only OCR passages were read, not the gazette pages, so the first-use dates printed beside the serial numbers cannot be assigned to one entry with certainty and are not used. The entries name no person. The link opens the first of the four items; the held copy names all four.
• USPTO goods sweep Oct 2026 (tmsearch.uspto.gov): USPTO tmsearch records, goods-text sweep for watercraft under-hull and pump parts marks (read 2026-10-06), United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2026-10-06; government, high. Our extract of USPTO's own trademark search records, read on 2026-10-06 through the search's JSON endpoint with a browser user agent. It prints the six goods-text queries, the rule by which 29 marks were kept from the 85 records returned, and each kept mark's dates, status, owner as printed and goods. High for what the register records. The count it supports is a count of what these queries returned, not of every mark in the trade.
• BRP release on Laham 2011 (prnewswire.com): BRP's Steve Laham inducted to the IJSBA Hall of Fame (BRP press release, PR Newswire), BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products), distributed by PR Newswire, 2011-12-01; manufacturer primary, medium. BRP's release on its own executive's induction into the IJSBA hall of fame, with his years at Butch's Jet Ski Shop and his BRP posts. Medium for the posts and the induction; its praise, and the quoted praise of the association's managing director, are the release's words and no page repeats them. PR Newswire's phone numbers are replaced in the held copy.

Changes to this page

• 2026-10-18: Wording on the Team Butch page that described how the archive read or kept its sources now says what the archive holds.

Cite this page

“Team Butch”, BaddJet archive, https://baddjetarchive.com/key-figures/companies/team-butch/

Add the date you read it.

• On Key Figures, companies by name
• Previous company: Tau Ceti
• Next company: UMI Racing