Dad spent fifty years in the automobile business before retiring over a decade ago. I worked my way through Woodbury College selling cars in West Los Angeles thirty-three years ago. Since that time, I have worked in several car dealerships performing a variety of sales and management functions. Almost half of my experience was as the General Sales Manager for Dunham Olds-Cadillac-Isuzu, here in Eugene. In late 1995, dad and I decided we wanted to open up our RV business. We had taken a few RVs in trade over the years and personally purchased a motor home. We felt we had a grasp of what was involved, trading cars and trucks for trailers and campers.

We started with the idea of doing RV consignments and used truck sales. We found a perfect location here in Eugene, which we still occupy. However, we quickly found out nobody wanted to finance used trucks, but they would new RVs. After investigating available product lines and securing wholesale financing, we opened for business in March of 1996.



At first, we tried trailers and motor homes. Our business exploded and grew beyond our wildest dreams. By 1999, we employed 54 people, occupied three locations and had a full time "road crew" who sold units from Oregon to Georgia. That year we retailed $22,500,000 in RV's! However, like many other businesses in our industry, growing too fast proved to almost be a fatal mistake. As the 1999's ended, we were faced with $10,000,000 of inventory in a very soft and depressed market. The manufacturers of motor homes kept building newer and "improved" products while we were left with out-dated units. In the fall of 2001, we watched as one dealership after another closed their doors forever. Those were tough days, but you know, my dad always looks for the good in everything. With a positive attitude, hard work, and daily prayer, we took on a task that virtually everyone said would fail. Martha (my dear wife) and I worked seven days a week and sometimes 14 hours days, trying to get out from beneath those motor homes and heavy Alpenlite and Teton 5th wheels. One by one, they finally sold. Little by little, we managed to make our way back into the niche we liked best. We loved truck campers, most RV people do not want to "bother" with them because they don't understand them. We also thought selling the #1 Ultra-Lite trailer made sense while everyone else continued to sell the conventional products. We took on and fell in love with Airstreams. To this day, they are our passion along with some of the finest recreation vehicles to be found in the RV Industry.

I think I can honestly say that our lives (my generation) are the best they have ever been. Everyone in our family is healthy, we have been blessed with a business that is doing great! We're happy campers! We love what we do, it’s in our blood!

Sincerely,
George M. Sutton III