RV Capital of the World by Al Hesselbart

Author:Al Hesselbart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: INscribe Digital
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

A 1974 Maple Leaf travel trailer. This was the first trailer to feature a power slide-out room addition. Courtesy of Seth Pingel.

In 1976, Bobby Higgins of Elkhart and his Higgins-Delta Corporation received a trademark to begin manufacturing several models of Delta brand type-C motor homes. The company started quickly but did not survive the effects of the second fuel crisis.

CHAPTER 5

The “RV University” Develops

As the RV industry began to recover in the 1980s from the disaster that was the two fuel and economic crises of the 1970s, the pattern of company creation began to change quite dramatically. Most of the companies that we know today have been started not by daring entrepreneurs with personal dreams but by industry veterans who had served an “executive apprenticeship” with the earlier manufacturers. In today’s world, very rarely does a new name appear in a leadership position with a start-up RV company. The hundreds of companies with successful records of making all kinds of recreational vehicles have provided an “RV University” where hundreds of executives have gained invaluable training in how to create and grow an RV company. Investors have recognized this available pool of leaders and are building companies with strong, experienced leadership.

Financier and investor Bill Warrick purchased the failing Mallard Coach company in 1979 and moved it from its historic base in Wisconsin to a new home in Nappanee. There, he recruited industry veteran manager Don Pletcher to rebuild Mallard completely from the ground up. Pletcher had an extensive background of successful experience in RV company management. His family had owned the small Fleetwing Traveler trailer company that had been acquired by Coachmen, and he had also worked for and gained a reputation for success at Coachmen, so when Warrick wanted winning experience to rebuild Mallard, he chose Don Pletcher. Pletcher and his team were highly successful in developing the new revitalized Mallard Coach into a well-respected builder of high-quality RVs. The company gained a respectable market share on a national basis. The Mallard world ended for Pletcher when Warrick received “an offer he couldn’t refuse” and sold the company in December 1986 to an East Coast investment banking group that was looking for profit and cared very little for customers and quality. Pletcher stayed with Mallard until the end of the fiscal year and then resigned as CEO. Without Pletcher and his leadership team, Mallard Coach failed and went out of business in less than a year. The Mallard Coach name was later acquired by California-based Fleetwood Enterprises and resurrected as a brand of entry-level trailers.

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