Fred Kiekhaefer, president of Mercury Racing in Fond du Lac, WI, today announced that he will be stepping down as president of that division effective January 1, 2013. Mercury outboards was originally founded by Fred's legendary father, Carl Kiekhaefer in 1939. It was not Kiekhaefer's initial intention to get into the outboard engine business, rather to manufacture magnetic milk separators for Wisconsin's dairy industry. Early on, however, Kiekhaefer purchased 300 defective outboard motors (for scrap), rebuilt the engines and then sold them putting him into the outboard motor business.