RVBusiness, September/October 2018

MotorHome from page 54 Public Domain from page 205 aimed at service technicians instead of the public His idea is for boat dealers to connect the boating lifestyle to the technicians they hire by getting them to feel a deeper sense of motivation and satisfaction in their work Dealers he maintained should strive to make techs feel that their work is important in the lives of their customers People who feel a human connection to their work he said are happy team members more productive and dont think about leaving RVBusiness Senior Editor Bob Ashley is a Central Indiana based freelance writer editor and a 25 year newspaper veteran who has focused on the RV industry and national recreation issues for the past 24 years He received the 2013 Distinguished Service in RV Journalism award from the RV Industry Association RVIA 210 RVBusiness S E P T E M B E R O C T O B E R 2 0 1 8 Infamous bank robber Willie Sutton once opined that he robbed banks because thats where the money is A corollary might be that Goshen Ind police had to set up a special squad to deal with a rash of RV thefts from manufacturers because northern Indiana is where the RVs are Northern Indiana companies produce more than 80 of motorized and towable RVs in the U S up by nearly a third from before the Great Recession when a number of nowclosed West Coast manufacturers prospered Goshen cops reported that thefts from RV manufacturers of everything from TVs to finished units had been on the increase in recent months according to the Associated Press In one case police arrested a man in the midst of burglarizing a Forest River Inc plant and in another Michigan State Police reported recovering 17 travel trailers stolen from northern Indiana after receiving a report from detectives in LaGrange County Bipartisan groups in Congress have introduced legislation aimed at reducing the National Park Services NPS 12 billion maintenance backlog Based on a proposal by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke both a Senate bill introduced in June and a House bill filed in July would dedicate revenue from energy production on public lands to fixing up the national parks RVB Bold as that might have seemed at the time said Schneider MotorHome stories regarding the underpowered and overloaded Toyota micro mini drew a predictable reaction A loss of ad dollars plenty of grumbling on the part of those whose companies made money at various levels from the units and a concurrent concern over declining sales of the popular units It was relatively soon thereafter however that payload capacities were improved through the manufacturing process and thus made safer to avoid some of the potential issues that come with overloading vehicles At the same time MotorHome played a huge role in disseminating information about tires and axle loading as well as gross vehicle weight ratings gross combined weight ratings and other concerns that were to an extent taken for granted in the towable market explained former AGI Publisher Bob Livingston He first went to work for TL Enterprises in 1971 and now in his second year of semi retirement serves as a consultant contributor for Good Sams publications while traveling the country with his wife Lynne in a Grand Design Reflection fifth wheel We set the standard by teaching people how to handle tire chassis and axle overloading said Livingston based today out of an upscale Southern California RV resort I think we actually brought a lot of that to light over the years And that actually helped improve the motorized and towable segment of the industry to become much more sophisticated and to take those factors into consideration when building safer RVs Livingston said MotorHome also played a strong hand in moderating a national fuel economy dialogue that surfaced in the 1970s and 80s with extensive technical hands on testing of units that involved carburetion distributor recalibration plus work with headers exhaust systems and various aftermarket products We were the best technical source for motorhomes at the time and probably are today added Livingston who foresees a gradual move toward smaller coaches in the market in general due to manufacturers ability to create more livability in smaller coaches RVB Bob Livingston