RVBusiness, January/February 2021

OEM SHOWCASE B Y G A R Y G E R A R D PHOTO BY GARY GERARD Travel Lite COO and General Manager Ryan Rebar L poses in front of the new Rove Lite with team members CFO Jaime Timmins National Sales Manager Keith Lessner Purchasing Manager Gidget Hightshoe and Chief Production Officer P J Reidenbach New Management Team Unveils Travel Lite 20 Works to Re Emerge as Humble Strong Player S yracuse Ind based Travel Lite RV is attempting to reintroduce itself as a strong player in the truck camper and small towable travel trailer markets after flying under the radar for the past year a time during which management and ownership underwent significant changes Travel Lite COO and General Manger Ryan Rebar likes to call the resulting transformation Travel Lite 20 Travel Lite has gone through in the last couple of years a lot of ups and downs Rebar said with remarkable candor The entire world knows we were out of business We shut our doors We laid everybody off Weve had all sorts of legal issues Weve just had every sort of bad spitball thrown at us that we possibly could have Travel Lite RV was founded in New Paris Ind in 1989 by the late Larry Johns whose son Dustin took over the company in January 2015 In 2018 Travel Lite purchased seven lots in the Syracuse 6 13 Technology Industrial Park The company spent 5 million to construct four buildings to house a factory with two production lines an RV repair shop a dealership and fiberglass facility Operations were relocated there from New Paris and local newspaper reports at the time stated the company would create 120 new jobs But by summer of 2019 Johns and his investors publicly stated the company was undergoing a restructuring and all Travel Lite employees were laid off In September of that year Johns announced he was taking a leave of absence and in October Rebar with nearly 20 years experience in the RV business at Thor Motor Coach and Forest River Inc was hired as COO By January of this year Johns had returned to work and production resumed at Travel Lite with 35 workers on two production lines But by May Johns plagued by legal problems of his own left the company and is no longer part of ownership Travel Lite is now owned by a group of local investors who Rebar described as very hands off We meet with them once a month and go over housekeeping stuff and financials Rebar told RVBusiness that throughout all the turmoil he and the team at Travel Lite were firmly committed to re establishing the companys reputation in the RV industry but have avoided any public fanfare until now Ive held off on any kind of press releases getting with anybody doing anything on purpose by design he said I didnt want to come out of the gate with Check out how awesome Travel Lite is now when we still have a lot of people out there that still have some disdain Customers dealers and vendors all had to be taken care of Rebar said adding that he didnt feel comfortable making any waves in the industry until those people could see all that Travel Lite has done to rectify its problems I didnt want to come out of the chute saying Check out all this great stuff that were doing when we left all these people hanging he said So today weve caught up with most of our vendors Weve taken care of most of the back warranty stuff Weve taken care of a lot of the retail customers and weve got a lot of the dealers cleaned up on promises that were made just things that were never fulfilled Rebar said the company is in a good place right now and he feels comfortable that his team has done so many things right that it was time to start talking about the future of the company He was quick to express gratitude and appreciation to all the vendors and partners who he described as wonderful throughout the restructuring 36 RVBusiness J A N U A R Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 The interior of the new Rove Lite travel trailer by Travel Lite RV