Olivier Vigoureux is IMM’s Guadeloupe Shipyard Director.

He has been sailing for over 40 years and is a fast boat and multihull specialist with over 250,000 miles offshore. He was in technical preparation (hardware and rig specialist) for Jules Verne Trophy on Maxi Cat Orange 1 and 2.
Olivier was a boat captain for China Team in 2007 (hardware and rig specialist). He was delivery and race crew on numerous vessels including Mari Cha 3 and Mari Cha 4, and then was the Captain of the trimaran Paradox for 5 years.

IMM Guadeloupe has been lucky to have Olivier at its helm for over 7 years.

Jean-Michel is IMM’s Senior Project Manager and Co-Founder

Much like that of Fabrice Maitre, Jean-Michel’s professional background is firmly rooted in working with the complex systems of sailing yachts. He started his career in 1987, first as a skipper, and then a chief engineer on various sailing yachts up to 45m.

After studying fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, Jean-Michel combined his scientific background and his love for sailing to work as Technical Systems Design Manager for a La Ciotat-based naval engineering firm. Starting in 2001, he completed all technical drawings and designs for new build and refit projects on behalf of this drawing office. After five years in La Ciotat, Jean-Michel headed to Marseille, where he worked alongside Fabrice on a number of megayacht refit projects at International Technic Marine, where he remained for five years.

In 2011, Jean-Michel joined IMM as Project Manager in France before crossing the Atlantic and moving to Guadeloupe, to further establish the Caribbean base of IMM as a highly respected and capable location from which to carry out superyacht refit and repair projects.

Fabrice Maitre first stepped into the world of yacht refit and repair in 1984, working in the rigging department of a longstanding local shipyard in Brittany. The following year, he headed south to the Côte d’Azur, and over the next eight years, he captained a range of yachts, managing their refits as well as new build projects until 1993.
At that point, Fabrice’s career became largely land-based, managing dozens of large yacht refits and taking on technical duties that were challenging but rewarding. He set up the yacht refit department of a large and successful facility currently still in operation in La Ciotat. Beginning in 2006, Fabrice tackled the most challenging refit project management jobs of his career thus far, for International Technic Marine (ITM): the seven-month refit of 92m M/Y Tatoosh, followed by the seven-month refit of 126m M/Y Octopus, and other significant megayacht refit projects.

In 2007, Fabrice established IMM to project manage some of the most complex and technically challenging superyacht refit and maintenance projects in the business. The work took him around the world, from the South of France to Guadeloupe and Martinique, where he was joined by Jean-Michel Beron and Norina Edelman. The partners made a strategic decision to develop a technical base in Guadeloupe, from which they would be able to carry out European-standard refit and repair work on yachts from within the Caribbean as well as other remote locations. Fabrice’s core ethos of maintaining excellence in superyacht refit is what founded IMM, and it is what continues to drive the growth and success of the company today.

Before joining the yachting industry, Norina Edelman was a practicing lawyer in Washington DC, working on a range of challenging criminal and corporate litigation cases. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2003.

Taking the jump into a new life, Norina began her work with IMM in 2009 at the start of the company’s development. Since that time, Norina has been a key player in the IMM team, managing the non-technical aspects of the business. Her background in consulting and international law means that her fiscal and project management skills perfectly complement the technical expertise of business partner, Fabrice Maitre.