MC Fireside Chats – May 21st, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. That almost didn’t happen ’cause I was in the wrong place. But thank you guys all for being here. I appreciate it. I think Sharah was trying to play a joke on me or something. ’cause this episode says May 14th. We’re just trying to see if I was paying attention to my toes.

But welcome everybody. I appreciate everybody being here. Today we have a couple good discussions in place. We have a couple of recurring guests here, as always. Mike Harrison from CRR Hospitality. Ali, welcome back, from Spacious Skies Campgrounds. Jeff, you’re there too. You’re a little, you’re flickering in and out, like a ghost. You’re okay.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. I, pretty much.

Mike Harrison: It’s a virtual background. Same thing happens to me. It’s a setting in Restream that it just. 

Brian Searl: But I understand you Mike, but like Jeff should have a budget for a background. Heidi with Utility Supply Group is here. Welcome Heidi. It’s been a while. We haven’t seen each other since the show.

And then Jim’s here as well. So do we want to go, just go around the room and introduce ourselves briefly and we’ll obviously spend more time diving into Jim and Heidi’s stories today. But Mike, you wanna start? 

Mike Harrison: Sure. Mike Harrison with CRR Hospitality. We are owners and operators of luxury upscale RV and glamping resorts, as well as do third party and consulting.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Mike. Ali? 

Ali Rasmussen: I’m Allie Rasmussen, co-founder of Spacious Skies Campgrounds. We also own and operate campgrounds on the East coast from Maine to Georgia. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. You excited for the season? 

Ali Rasmussen: Pumped, like really pumped. Looks really good.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Great to hear. Jeff. 

Jeff Hoffman: Yes. I’m Jeff Hoffman and I have Camp Strategy, which is a consulting firm that specializes in the campground business and it’s work that I really enjoy trying to help camp owners get profitable. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here as always, Jeff. Heidi, do you want to introduce yourself and tell us just briefly a little bit about Utility Supply Group?

Heidi Doyle: Yeah, I’m Heidi with Utility Supply Group. We are an electrical distributor for the outdoor hospitality industry, think RV parks, campgrounds, also marinas, and any kind of resort glamping or an RV resort. And we dig a little deeper than just putting products out on the shelf. We work hard with the National Electric Code.

I’m on the UL one-seven code. And so any kind of power outlets, I help decide if they are safe or not. Like if you buy a new hair dryer, you’ll see that it’s UL listed. I work on the same type of code. But it’s just for power outlets and so we just try to dig a little bit deeper and work a little harder for this industry.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Heidi. I’m excited to dive into a little bit more about

Heidi Doyle: Thank you.

Brian Searl: Can I call it USG, is that fair? Or do I have to say the whole thing?

Heidi Doyle: That’s what, yeah, that’s what a lot of people do. 

Brian Searl: Okay. It was just in your name title, so I wanted to make sure it was okay for me to do that.

Jim Omstrom, did I pronounce that right? 

Jim Omstrom: You did. I’m impressed. Brian. Thanks for having me. Nice to meet everyone. I’m co-founder of Open Road Resorts. We own a handful of campgrounds across the us, a couple in Dallas, Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Just acquired one in Wyoming just outside of West Yellowstone and Omaha, Nebraska.

So we own a couple of campgrounds and looking forward to getting the number one. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Very cool. I’ve definitely seen your brand a lot of different places as you continue to acquire park. So excited to hear a little bit about what you’re all about and your backstory in a few minutes here. Mike, Ali, Jeff, for our recurring guests, is there anything that’s come across your desk in the last month or so or longer that you guys feel like we should talk about or is important for us?

We obviously have Memorial Day coming up, the season starting, but anything that’s notable that you guys wanna touch on before we get to our special guests?

No, everybody’s gonna be quiet. Nothing happened at all. 

Mike Harrison: It’s the same topics. AI continues to grow and grow and the generational camping report they just did the presentation an hour before this one. And I don’t even wanna say this out loud ’cause like Sharah, can you mute Brian for a moment, please?

Just mute him. But 30% of. Campers have already used AI for search, and they expect that to go to three fourths of campers using AI for search when looking for a campground to stay in. So insider perks, which is obviously not modern campground, but an affiliate certainly is ahead of that curve.

But it’s something that, we need to continue to stay on top of and be ahead of as clearly the, generative search and all how Google’s, prioritizing search. That’s all going to change forever over the next year to three. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, we’ll touch on that a little bit later in the show.

And I have them on my list as this brief video to show what Google introduced yesterday with related to AI search. But I wanna get to our special guests first. Anything from you, Ali or Jeff? 

Jeff Hoffman: Just that the more I have used AI to research projects and just in general, I am. It is learning at a massive rate.

It is so much better than it was what, a year ago. And it improves daily. So especially as I keep training it. So Brian, you were correct. 

Ali Rasmussen: Be careful.

Jeff Hoffman: That hurts. But

Brian Searl: I just talk really fast and sometimes I happen to get one or two things right, that’s all. 

Ali Rasmussen: If we’re on the topic of AI without searching in my inbox, I wouldn’t be able to tell you who it was or what group.

But something came across my desk that is built within Chat GPT. Somebody, built a little demo for one of our locations as like a little like itinerary and trip planner, almost a little travel agent.

Brian Searl: Oh, cool.

Ali Rasmussen: And it had, it was just something, I used Chat GPT. Constantly. But I didn’t realize that you could whatever it is built within Chat GPT. It occupies a space in the left hand menu where Dolly, the other things aren’t.

Brian Searl: It’s probably a custom assistant 

Ali Rasmussen: Okay great. Because I was like, oh, I wonder if I don’t have to pay for this, which is terrible. Like if I can figure out how to do it myself, I’m always gonna do that. But I thought that was really neat and something that I know that our guests would really be interested in.

Not on the topic of AI. I know that there have been a lot of emails swirling around from OHI today in regards to the Credit Card Competition Act and like making our voices heard from our industry and, campground ownership in particular because it affects us in a unique way in comparison to, all the other industries that accept credit card. I did wanna bring that up in case I was sitting in somebody’s inbox who may be listening, who maybe, feel compelled to contact their representatives.

Brian Searl: Do you want to touch on that briefly? ’cause you’re on the board of OHI, right?

Ali Rasmussen: I am on the board.

Brian Searl: Do you wanna just touch up for the people who are watching, some who know what it is, some who maybe don’t know why it’s so important? 

Ali Rasmussen: Yeah, absolutely. The Credit Card Competition Act, which is a bipartisan bill, is on the table in a more significant way, like a real way, than ever before.

And it intends to address this duopoly that has been created by visa and MasterCard which has allowed them to drive up the fees associated with swiping credit cards. And it affects us as been as business owners. It affects consumers certainly. But OHI did some research to find that credit card fees are at minimum a top five expense for a campground owner. If not, worse than that.

In my own sample size of 15 properties, I can say it is definitely a significant expense. And there’s only so much that one can do to like negotiate. You barely can. We have our booking software and some booking softwares.

You are allowed to, pick your processor. Some you cannot, you are bound. And as the client we in many ways have our hands tied and it’s just started running away. And in our case in particular, I find it interesting that we will accept a swipe from a guest credit card when they book online, right?

Which has a different set of fees associated with it than paying for something in person. And then there is the capacity for someone to make a change to their booking or cancel it and then rebook and it’s swipe fee. And we do not get those fees back, even if we are refunding our guest.

And so it just, it drives it up. This bill intends to combat like this duopoly feature and do what it says, increased competition, which in history has been favorable for the consumer and soapbox. 

Brian Searl: Is there a place for the people who didn’t get the OHI email or maybe aren’t members of OHI, is there a place they can go?

Mike Harrison: Yeah, Jeff and I actually lobbied in DC twice on this. There’s a rare picture of Jeff in a suit. If anybody wants to see it. 

Jeff Hoffman: I believe you’re in a suit too, Mike. 

Ali Rasmussen: I wore a suit then too, guys. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, mine’s not as rare. But if you go to OHI’s LinkedIn page or their Facebook page, they have the links.

We should probably include it in the audience chat here. And then anybody who’s watching this Modern Campground should go in and it literally takes 60 seconds to click the link, fill out your information, and click submit to make sure that you are, providing your voice.

And it doesn’t just have to be RV parks, right? The Credit Card Competition Act is for every industry in the world, in the country, I should say, in this case. That has credit cards that uses MasterCard and Visa. And whether it’s a glamping operation or a storage operation or if you own other businesses and it’s a gas station, the Retail Association of America is obviously helping with this as well.

They’re the main leader of the lobbyists. They have a far bigger voice than we do. But it’s not just for RV parks. It’s a national issue that you should share out as much as you can. 

Jeff Hoffman: And there is a priority because it’s coming before the Senate today. So if you.

Brian Searl: What time? Do we stop the show and go?

Jeff Hoffman: If they can just send it, it’s not gonna move that quickly. But yes, definitely contact your senators and let them know that you would be in favor of this bill. And Ali, I just got out the exec meeting and I should have brought up that point myself. So thank you for bringing that up. 

Ali Rasmussen: I’ll do your homework for you. 

Jeff Hoffman: And for covering my butt.

Brian Searl: What don’t we how do you guys feel about this, Jim and Heidi?

How does it impact your businesses? Just briefly, the credit card stuff? 

Heidi Doyle: We generally have large purchases. So someone orders, let’s say a hundred pedestals or they’re doing an expansion. We have a lot of maybe $80-$90,000 purchases and we, with something like that, would pass that on to the customer, the credit card charges.

Brian Searl: Yeah. Huge.

Heidi Doyle: The piece with that would be passed on. But also a lot of times they’ll send a check in. We reserve the inventory, they’ll send in a check and we’ll take payment that way. So it depends. Am I frozen for all of you? 

Brian Searl: No. You work. Yeah, you look fine.

Heidi Doyle: On my picture I’m frozen anyway. So, the smaller orders, replacement parts are one and two pedestals, something a little bit smaller. We just eat that. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I will admit, like from my perspective too, something has to change. Like I will admit there’s 10% of me that’s I really like my credit card rewards and all my pot moist and miles and traveling for free for sure.

But also it’s everywhere. We try to shift clients to like ECH on Stripe ’cause it’s so much cheaper. But the credit card fees that even the third party big systems that a lot of people use, like AVID pay or bill.com, like they take a big chunk out of our, not as much as the credit card fees, but they take a big chunk out of our payments too. There’s no real way to escape. Some of this stuff. 

Ali Rasmussen: It’s the cause of doing business, that’s for sure. We like being able to accept credit cards. Just to say, I think that you’ve probably absorbed some messaging that is counter, right. You just brought up the topic of rewards like the payout and Jeff, maybe you have the bullet points on this, but that is a false argument from what I understand, where it’s like the payout in rewards each year, like pales, pale, 

Brian Searl: Small. Yeah. 

Ali Rasmussen: So like when the credit card companies are coming back with that is an argument that’s pretty jerky from what I understand. 

Brian Searl: For sure. And they’ve completely devalued those programs and all that stuff. To be fair, I did say it was 10%, a very small amount, but a hundred percent agree with you.

Yeah. We can’t have those it’s not definitely not a reason to do anything about this. Jim, did you wanna, do you have anything to add? 

Jim disappeared. That’s a pretty good hack. I don’t know what happened to Jim. No, but okay. Hopefully Jim wasn’t too upset by the credit card thing and maybe he left to go fill out the form and he’s coming back.

We’ll assume that’s what he’s doing. But yeah, like for sure if anybody’s out there again, Mike said, OHI’s LinkedIn page, OHI’s Facebook page. Go there, check out the link again, if you’re at all involved in the outdoor hospitality industry, not just an RV park, campground owner, glamping resort owner, but anybody like Heidi with a Utility Supply Group or a vendor or anybody who’s involved this impacts everybody who accepts credit cards in any form of capacity, small business, large business, whatever.

Let’s go do what we can to help move this forward in the right direction. All right we’ll start with you, Heidi, with Utility Supply Groups. So like obviously longstanding you have known Wade Elliot for years.

Heidi Doyle: Yeah.

Brian Searl: Obviously he’s not involved in the company anymore, but just saying like the Utility Supply Group has been around the industry for a long time has had a big impact on it. Talk to us a little bit about the unique things that Utility Supply Group does for the industry. 

Heidi Doyle: Sure. So you are right, been around quite a long time. I believe this will be the 26th year and Wade started it as outdoor hospitality electrical distributorship. So it never has really morphed from something else.

And we’ve never done anything to advertise other than some type of trade show or conference. We don’t put up a little garage sale or we don’t go into stores to put our products. We don’t go from campground to campground in a car and try to get our names out that way. So trade shows and conferences are really how we meet people.

It’s also the only place where we can go in one spot and meet up to maybe 80 campgrounds. So that’s one of the great things about that. We also have a huge base of loyal fans and customers and people who will just walk right up to our booth or call and say, yep, I’m placing my annual order. And so they’re happy to come back to us year after year.

That is always something that makes us feel like we’re doing the right thing. We also don’t just sell something. That was a big thing that Wade set into us. We aren’t just here to sell you something. We want to help you make sure it’s the right thing. Maybe you’ve never ordered this product before, or maybe it’s someone new to the industry, new to owning a park or being new to their role as the maintenance manager, this is us trying to help you make sure that you have the right product.

So that you don’t get it, realize it’s wrong, we have to ship it back. And then more credit card fees, as you mentioned. And so the idea here is to be more of a resource than just someone selling something to a customer. We were talking about the, excuse me, I was talking about the National Electric Code and the NFPA 1194, which is the governing body for Campgrounds and RV parks. We also dig really closely into that. And so when a customer has a question about it, we’re happy to be a resource for that. 

Brian Searl: So for the people out there who haven’t caught you at a trade show recently, like I know you offer a number of different things the unique things that you offer that really you feel park owners should pay attention to, if you wanted to tell that.

Heidi Doyle: Of course. Yeah, of course. Pedestals anything that’s a power outlet. So a pedestal or a surface mount box. Anything that would take power from your utility company to that site. So distribution panels, transformers, if they’re needed, wire, and any amenities that you want at the site. Maybe lighting.

The other thing is that something that’s unique to us since EV charging became an issue for some campgrounds and a way to make money for others, we have different products that can help so that campers don’t try to plug their RV into the 50 and an EV electric vehicle charger into the 30. So it keeps that double dipping from happening and products that are metered. Metering has become a big thing. Not that it ever wasn’t, but it has become front and center with, of course, expenses for utilities getting so high.

If there’s a campground that can get an expense back, sub-metering where you charge your camper for their specific electrical usage, that’s huge. And so we help people learn how to do that and whether they use a meter like I’ll call it a dumb meter opposed to a smart meter where they have to physically go out and read the meter. Send someone out or they do it themselves, or they would use a product where they have it, where it comes back to their reservation system, that information is wirelessly transmitted and it makes it pretty seamless.

Brian Searl: All right. Awesome.

Heidi Doyle: I think that’s about it. 

Brian Searl: That’s a good overview. I appreciate it. Mike or Ali or Jeff, do any of you guys meter electric at your parks? 

Jeff Hoffman: I would suggest that every park meter at some of them. We do seasonal and monthly. I have seen campgrounds where they do it on a daily basis if they go over a predetermined fee, number of kilowatts used during their stay, which gets back at some of the units that have two air conditioning units and all kinds of other electronics.

But generally they have internal mechanisms that limit what they’re gonna draw. But yeah, we, at least I do, I always recommend metering.

Heidi Doyle: A lot of campgrounds that are underpowered. Maybe they’re older or maybe they’re in a location where they physically can’t get power. The utility company doesn’t have it to give. And when we have a metered pedestal that the campers see and realize that they have to pay for their utility usage, they tend to use less. And of course that means less money. But it also means less of a strain on the infrastructure. So they don’t use as much of course, but less trouble down the line if everybody’s got, like you mentioned, two air conditioners going and the windows open and whatever it might be less strain on that infrastructure.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. Heidi, do you see your company, I know you, you’re very involved in electrical, but do you ever see yourselves coming out with water metering that would blend in with your meters? 

Heidi Doyle: So we don’t sell anything that’s wireless. We don’t do wire. Is that what you’re referring to, is something that’s wireless?

Jeff Hoffman: Yes. 

Heidi Doyle: Okay. Yep. We like many products that are currently on the market, we decided we’re not software people and so we’re gonna leave that to the people that are. We like, Energy’s product. We’ve dabbled a little bit with marine sink. There’s a difference between metering and monitoring. There are a monitoring system is one where campgrounds will put these in to make sure that they’re charging enough for their sites.

So let’s say it’s my park and I’m not planning to charge my customer for each kilowatt they’re using, but I wanna make sure that I’m charging enough for that overnight site. If the kilowatt usage is much higher than I’m expecting, then I need to charge more for that site. So that’s more of a monitoring situation.

And then a metering situation needs to be exact. You need to be able to accurately count those kilowatts to charge the customer back. Getting to your question about the water metering we have just like meters, we have dumb meters for water, even gas too. But right now there isn’t much of a seamless product that does what the electric metering systems do.

Brian Searl: Yeah. That’s your opening, Heidi. You could be a billionaire. 

Heidi Doyle: Again, we’re not software. I can’t even figure AI out, remember?

Brian Searl: Jeff will be your software person. Jeff knows all the technology. 

Mike Harrison: Jeff, if you need someone, I don’t wanna mention them on the call, but reach out to me. I’ve got a contact for you.

Jeff Hoffman: No I’m sure you do. I was just wondering if they were involved because I do see eventually where we’re gonna be metering water and sewer and electric. Because water is going to be one of the things that’s going to be increasing dramatically. I know that my area, they put the sewers in 1910. And they are in violation of everything the EPA stands for. So once they replace those, my swer belt is gonna go through the roof and I believe that’s gonna happen in a lot of places.

Heidi Doyle: I know that Wild Energy had a product going, I don’t.

Brian Searl: That’s what I was gonna say.

Heidi Doyle: I dunno if he’s selling it or not yet.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah I deal with him a couple times.

Brian Searl: He said he was, I dunno if he ever got it approved, but he was working on one

Heidi Doyle: Okay.

Brian Searl: With hydro. 

Heidi Doyle: Mike does a nice job, a really nice job with his software and their tech support is great, but I don’t know if he is selling that water product or not at this time. It looked promising. I don’t know if it’s out in the wild yet. 

Jeff Hoffman: No, we do work with them, but yeah, it’s just something that I think is coming. So I. 

Brian Searl: All right. I wanna make sure we give Jim enough time here ’cause he was gracious enough to join us from Open Roads. Welcome back Jim. Hopefully you don’t disappear when I ask you another question.

No it’s my fault if you disappear twice. But welcome back. So tell us a little bit about Open Roads Resorts. Let’s start, I wanna start at the beginning, like the early years, how did Open Road Resorts even come about? 

Jim Omstrom: Sure, yeah. Blame my business partner Chase for that. It’s called a midlife crisis. We’ve been good friends for almost 20 years now and back in 18 we started thinking about just different entrepreneurial paths. We can go down and fell into RV parks and we’ve been investing in the public space and knew the RV OEMs and dealers and suppliers really well.

And a friend had mentioned who’s a lender RV Park. So was just digging in and we’ve always been into, I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Chase, outside of Scottsdale, grew up camping and hiking and, biking and hunting and skiing. So we loved the outdoor lifestyle and just started digging into RV parks.

Thought it was really interesting. The two of us bought our first park in Dallas and he went full time ’cause he lives down in Dallas to operate, manage, learn how, just the ins and outs of the parks, how to expand and everything. And quickly bought three more parks and took a pause during covid just given how things were, results took a big step, function higher and evaluations didn’t make a ton of sense.

So we paused and expanded the parks, went through that process, got a little bit better on the operational side of things, started to expand the team. And then last year we ended up partnering with L Catterton, which is a consumer private equity fund. THOR Industries, which is an R-V-O-E-M.

They own Airstream, Jayco, a handful of other brands. And we’ve been close friends of that management team for a long time. So we’re fortunate to partner with them as well. And then two other family offices. So now we’re, we wanna say in smart growth mode, but we’re in growth mode and we’re all looking for additional parks that make sense and fit into, our brand of really clean, safe, highly amenitized, family friendly parks across the us.

So that’s what we’re focused on now and just trying to build a brand. 

Brian Searl: We’ll talk about that brand first. 

Heidi Doyle: And what was the name of that partnership? Could you repeat that partnership name please? 

Jim Omstrom: THOR Industries. 

Heidi Doyle: Not THOR. Did you say L Catera or something? 

Jim Omstrom: Yes. L Catterton. 

Heidi Doyle: Catterton. Thank you.

Jim Omstrom: Yes, you’re welcome.

Heidi Doyle: I’ve not heard of that. 

Brian Searl: Talk to us a little bit about the brand ’cause that’s what I think doesn’t interest me above all else. But it’s definitely, everybody has an interesting story when it comes to how their brand was formed and what they wanted to achieve from it in the early days and then how that kind of vision has evolved.

So just talk us through some kind of what your vision is for that, and then I hope like some of my other guests will allow me to stop talking and they’ll have great questions for you too. 

Jim Omstrom: Sounds good. Yeah, chase and I came up with the brand back in, I guess it was late 19 or early 2020, and we were sort putting pen to paper and coming up with different logos and we went through a whole host of different things and we’re asking friends and family what they thought and started going through a naming exercise as well.

And similar, came up with a hundred of them and trash 99 of them and really love the Open Road Resorts and what it means. Hitting the open road and getting in your RV and, piling the family in and going for a trip.

So we came up with that and now the goal is really, when we got in the industry and started really digging in, the one thing we kept hearing over and from, different industry participants on the RV park side, the OEM side, the supplier side, et cetera. And just talking to RVs was people experience or have a really inconsistent experience across parks.

So when we set out to acquire parks and what we do now the goal is, each one, our park outside of West Yellowstone is gonna feel and look very different than a park in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But we wanna have those kind of consistent attributes across the parks and, we want people to have a consistent experience when they check in.

They’re gonna have a really friendly front desk staff, really friendly, general manager, really clean, a really safe highly amenitized park and it’s just a great experience. So that’s what the brand means and stands for and what we’re trying to build over time. 

Brian Searl: Where do you, unless somebody else has a question before I ask another one. Mike, Ali, Jeff, anybody? Nope. You guys, you just gonna let me run with the whole show. Okay. All right. It’s not gonna be as good. Sorry for the audience. Tell me where you see Open Road Resorts going. If you had your, if everything lined into place, which we all know it never does with entrepreneurship but if everything fell into place the way you wanted it to, where would you see Open Road Resorts in 10 years, let’s say?

Jim Omstrom: That’s a great question. Our goal is just to continue to build the brand, continue to build our team. We have a great team in place right now and we’re continuing to add to it. We wanna continue to acquire great parks and great locations, as does everyone else. But our goal is to continue to build a brand and build a network of parks across the country.

Brian Searl: How do you approach the operational aspect of it? Obviously each park brings its own challenges, as you were talking about, a little bit with your different locations. From a different audience to the different types of people who would stay there to the different types of staff that you have to recruit to, obviously location.

So how do you differentiate and segment and approach that from an operational perspective? 

Jim Omstrom: Sure, yeah. We’ve been hiring on that side of the team and we continue to add to it just as we continue to build. And, I think a lot of people that came in the industry the past few years have realized that, it’s not just plug and play, you just leave it as is.

These are very operationally intensive businesses, especially if you wanna give the customer a great experience. So we continue to build out the operational side of things as we do everything in house. So we’re adding, team members, head of operations, and then we’re gonna start adding, team members underneath that.

But we have a GM at each park who staffs up the actual park. We work directly with the general managers as is our head of operations. And then go from there, but it’s a big task. I’d love to hear what you know, Ali and Mike and Jeff have to say on how they break things down on the operational side.

Ali Rasmussen: Yeah. For sure the reality of it being a much different beast than any other form of hospitality or real estate management or property management in general has been the lesson we’ve all learned, right?

We have a general manager at every property. We have done a lot of experimenting over the years. There have been like some, two properties under one general manager attempts or, our earliest idea was to have our regional managers oversee a number of GMs, but they would also be the GM of their home campground. And that didn’t work out, but we really, we gave it our best shot.

We now have, general managers that we have our portfolio split into three regions and they report to their regional directors who report to me. And we used to have a few layers within there as well, and we have definitely trimmed. So they’re, I am defacto, director of operations and COO and this and that.

And we intentionally trimmed because I think that you are doing it in a linear way versus us doing it cart before horse where it was like, we gotta build up this whole team. And then it’s, a real corporate structure and what you end up losing at the beginning is like a whole lot of control, so now we’re back to control.

Jim Omstrom: Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s interesting to hear that you had gone with the regional manager also managing a park and then back. That’s helpful to know. 

Ali Rasmussen: Yeah, we do have senior general managers as well, and they, it’s like general manager plus some ownership of something that affects, or that benefits the whole, so we still, we can’t get away from wearing many hats.

Jim Omstrom: Exactly. 

Heidi Doyle: I like how you tried one thing and that didn’t work, tried something else, great to just keep revolving and being kinda like a chameleon.

Ali Rasmussen: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: That’s what you have to do. We talked about that on the show before with Ali, but on other shows as well. Key tenet of entrepreneurship, right? You gotta be able to fail. 

Jeff Hoffman: Yep. And if you wanna scale up as you grow, you have to have that foundation in place as you grow so that you don’t fall apart as you start reaching a critical mass. Things are a lot easier, I’m gonna go back to the old guy, things are a lot easier now than they were when I had parks all over the nation in that you have cloud-based PMS systems and accounting systems and all of that.

You don’t actually have to visit the properties. You can look at security cameras. So that’s made it a lot better. But the one thing you’ve gotta do is make sure that you build your business correctly so that it’s compartmentalized so that not everything has to run through you. Because if you do that, eventually you’re gonna fail because you’re just gonna run out of hours in the day. And that’s speaking from experience. 

Brian Searl: I wanna know what you mean by it’s easier now, Jeff. Is this like the Jordan LeBron debate? Where was harder and Jordan played and.

Jeff Hoffman: I would say data is a lot easier to obtain than it was back, even say seven years ago. You’re so much more advanced. We were using our own server and having to come in and through it wasn’t even called anywhere back then, it was, we had to have our own little network that logged into our server to share data.

Now you can do that almost seamlessly on everything. What hasn’t changed? And this is where everybody struggles, is finding the right person in the right place. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Jeff Hoffman: That’s gonna be your struggle forever. By building the accountability and structure, that’s the only way you’re gonna make it through it.

Mike Harrison: And, so Jim I would recommend, having done this for 30 years and overseeing regions of hotels and 21 hotels at one point, and then, having scaling this, the answer to your question is, what works or doesn’t work for us isn’t necessarily going to work for you. Because there is no perfect scenario, there’s no similar scenario. Every situation is unique.

Having an opportunity to have dual GMs at hotels and properties, I’ve seen it work extremely successful, and I’ve seen it utterly fail. And, it always comes down.

Ali Rasmussen: Depends on the individual to Jeff’s point. 

Mike Harrison: It does, and also to the properties and how they’re set up.

Ali Rasmussen: True.

Mike Harrison: I’ve seen area managers succeed. I’ve seen area managers fail. I’ve seen corporate directors of operations and VPs of operation. And so I think, and we pivot based on our circumstance at CRR depending on what we’re doing. So I think it’s, you gotta, without sounding like we’re preaching and clearly you know this, but you balance what your revenue stream is and what you can afford from a support structure, from a corporate office based on what your income is, versus what you can layer into the property and, set your structure around that.

Or as you’re scaling, where you’re gonna stabilize in a year, two years, and you’re layering in the property staff and the leadership staff ahead of time. Ali and I have both gone through the same growing pains and the same time, fulfillment. Where what we did four years ago isn’t the same we did two years ago, isn’t the same that we’re doing today.

As you’re growing and scaling, it’s a very different model than when you stabilize. So I’m sure that wasn’t very helpful whatsoever.

Jim Omstrom: No, it was. 

Ali Rasmussen: I have a question, Jim.

Jim Omstrom: Sure.

Ali Rasmussen: So when your announcement came out that you had partnered with L Catterton and THOR and all. To hear the THOR connection I found really interesting.

’cause I don’t know, it is very possible that there are other like partnerships out there, but I hadn’t heard of one yet. Could you tell us like, more about how that, came to be how that, is structured, whatever you can share. ‘Cause it’s really interesting to have the manufacturer and the, the campground brand in partnership.

Jim Omstrom: Sure. Yeah. So before we got into campgrounds both Chase and I were public equity investors. So we we knew the THOR management team for a long time prior to 2018. When we started looking at campgrounds and bought our first one Dallas Northeast just outside of Dallas, we reached out to Bob Martin at THOR and mentioned it to him and were like, about six months after he bought, we were like, we love this space. It’s a lot of fun. The guests are great, our team’s awesome.

We were gonna look to expand and we would love to have kind of a like non-official advisory board we’ll put together. And just, I pick people’s brains that we think are really smart and could be helpful over time. And he was like, I love that.

And he had mentioned to us, the issues with the inconsistent experiences across, RV parks. And he’s a big camper as well, and told us some of his experiences and he said, I’d love to, help in any way I can. So over the years we maintained that relationship and, we talked to him once a quarter, every couple months and just explain what we’re doing, what we’re acquiring, what we’re seeing, et cetera.

And then when we decided, what path do we want to go down, slow growth the two of us, or do you wanna look to the partner with some other groups and accelerate the growth of the brand. We’d reached out to the THOR team and explained what we were thinking about and how we were having conversations with Catterton, a few other groups.

And they thought it was really interesting to become strategic partners and owners of the business as they could shape some of the campground experience for our guests and potentially test out some new things at different parts. They’ve been great partners and, no, it’s been awesome so far. So we’re testing

Ali Rasmussen: That’s awesome.

Jim Omstrom: All different things. This summer at Red Rock, we’re doing a kind of a camp within a camp at our park outside of West Yellowstone. We’re doing, it’s an Airstream only section a small camp Airstream, they call it, at Yellowstone. So we’re activating a space for Airstream guests.

So we’re starting to test out different, interesting things within the partnership. So we’re excited to see what happens. 

Ali Rasmussen: That’s really cool. ’cause I am in the RVIA Campground coalition, the RVIA, they’re trying to, I think, Heidi, you’re, are you familiar? Are you on that as well?

Yeah. Or they’re trying to get all of the sides of the industry, and talking in the same room. And I know that one of the things that is hot with like some of the executive directors of the state associations is rigs coming out that are like huge and souped up and require all this additional, like electric.

And they’re surpassing like the, I guess like what Heidi you were just talking about, like the electric load or, that is you able to be delivered at the site level. Like it is a mismatch almost with, especially these older legacy campgrounds. And so that is an interesting topic, right?

Like, how can we, ensure that the products coming out and the campgrounds like infrastructure can keep up with everything. And so I find that interesting, so.

Heidi Doyle: It’s a great idea to have all of those groups of people together. Wade Elliot still has communication with, I guess I don’t know the bigwigs at THOR, and as the last time he spoke with them, I believe it would be 2022. I’m thinking they had no plans to make an RV that would have a hundred amp plug, that would need a hundred amp receptacle, which would be like, they don’t even make them. And so for us, we would need time to be able to produce a product that could, fit a hundred amp plug and nobody’s doing any of that right now, until we hear from THOR that they’re planning on creating one. So we better plan on creating something. Nothing right now. 

Brian Searl: It’ll be interesting for me to think. Sorry, go ahead. I didn’t mean to cut you off, I apologize.

Heidi Doyle: That’s fine.

Brian Searl: I would be interested to see how, generally speaking, electricity and the reliability as it relates to campgrounds, but everything changes in the United States in the next 20, 30 years. Because this is all for my side, I’m in my little AI bubble, right?

But this is all you hear from the AI side, like Elon saying this, and Google CEO, Microsoft CEO, they’re all investing in nuclear power plants and AI’s gonna run outta power and it’s eating all this stuff. And you gotta you have to think that investment in power will have some downstream effect on.

Everything else that consumes power too, right? Positively or negatively, who knows? But there has to be something that gives, right? 

And I would think that if all that money is pouring into it, that eventually would downstream benefit campgrounds in some way. Like it’ll take longer to get there. 

Heidi Doyle: We have a lot of different solar options and some of them are just to provide a couple of outlets in a tent area so that people who are tenting can plug in their phone to charge.

Some have it in an area where they have a dog park just to provide lighting. It’s not a huge RV park thing right now. It could be, but nobody is doing something where it’s all solar, where all of their property is being energized by a solar. And so. 

Brian Searl: That’s I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but there’s a guy on our show last week who has a huge resort outside of, I wanna say Big Sur in California, has like a sushi restaurant and all kinds of stuff completely powered by solar. So there is at least one person. 

Heidi Doyle: Yep. And so he, I’m aware of him. He is one of the only ones and he had a ton of funding from, I believe it’s the state of California and or grants maybe. But there are probably, I don’t know, there’s probably gonna have to be a lot of people that might turn to that.

Brian Searl: Yeah. I mean it makes sense. Anything else we wanna talk about for electric or anything else that we missed for Jim that you wanted to say about Open Roads? I wanna spend just a couple minutes and talk about this AI mode ’cause it’s important for people to recognize this happening. 

Jim Omstrom: No, that’s it for me. I appreciate you guys letting me tell the story. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I and we’d love to have you back on the show too. I’m sure we’ll have multiple conversations. We’re excited to see where you guys grow and as you continue to acquire and what you do with the brand. And I’m sure you’re gonna have a really amazing growth story like you already do, but it’s gonna be, it’s gonna get any better.

Jim Omstrom: I appreciate that, Brian. 

Brian Searl: Let’s talk briefly, like Jessica, there’s a video that you can share over there. I don’t wanna watch this whole thing. I’ve got it queued up in the middle of a cut. So if you just select that YouTube one, this is Google IO that was yesterday. They announced a ton of stuff, but I’ve just got it queued up here for AI mode. So just take a look at this for a couple seconds and then we’ll talk about it. 

Video Presentation: Google Search is bringing generative AI to more people than any other product in the world. In our biggest markets, like the US and India, AI oil views are driving over 10% growth in the types of queries that show them.

What’s particularly exciting is that this growth increases over time. We are introducing an all new AI mode. It’s a total re-imagining of search. With more advanced reasoning, you can ask AI mode longer and more complex queries. 

We’re excited to start rolling out AI mode for everyone in the US starting today. Over time, we’ll graduate many of AI mode’s cutting edge features and capabilities directly into the core search experience. That starts today as we bring the same models that power AI mode to power AI overviews. So you can bring your hardest questions right to the search box. AI on search, transform with Gemini 2.5 at score, 

like having my very own sports analyst write and search, search figured out that the best way to present this information is a graph and it created it.

Complex analysis and data visualization is coming this summer for sports and financial questions. Using your camera search can see what and give you helpful information as you go back and forth in real time. We’re bringing Project Mariners agent capabilities into AI mode. Search can take work off my plate while still under my control search, helps me skip a bunch of steps linking me right to finish checking out tickets secured.

With AI mode, we are bringing a new level of intelligence to help you shop Google. Search dynamically generates a browsable mosaic of images and some shoppable products personalized just for me to create a try-on experience that works at scale, we need a deep understanding of the human body and how clothing looks on it. To do this, we build a custom image generation model specifically trained profession and it’s back. 

This is the future of Google search, a search that goes beyond information to intelligence. Our goal is to make. 

Brian Searl: Okay, you can pause it, Jessica. 

Video Presentation: Personal, proactive. 

Brian Searl: So this is something we’ve been talking about. Obviously in my little AI bubble for a long time, right? Google’s been yeah, you can stop screen sharing. For a while. Google’s been slowly marching toward this. Many of you have seen the AI overviews that appear at the top of search results. They haven’t really hit the campground industry vertical too hard yet, but they’re coming for it pretty quick, especially after these announcements yesterday.

But AI mode is something completely different. This is the complete removal of the 10 blue links. This is taking over the whole page and giving every single user a different page based on whatever they’re asking. So this is apparently was started to roll out yesterday. I’m in Canada, so I tried on a VPN, I couldn’t see it on my end.

I’ve had access to it in labs for a while. But I can’t see it on regular Google search yet. But it’s coming very fast. And I think that this, from what they’re talking about, not just replacing the search page, but using things like geeky long conversation, but Project Mariner that can actually go out and do things for you on the web, including store your credit card number, Visa and MasterCard are playing into this, I know we don’t like those guys right now, but they’re playing into this stuff where they’re gonna tokenize your credit card and allow agents to use it to purchase things on your behalf. That’s coming for campground reservations. Maybe not as quickly as hotel reservations, depending on our booking systems like Camp Spot and New Book and ResNexus and so on and so forth.

Get on board with some of these things, but eventually the consumer’s gonna go to search and it’s gonna do the whole journey for them or Chat GPT and it’s gonna do the whole journey for them. And that’s gonna change how your website’s used. It’s gonna change how people look at photos, how they interact.

The conversion numbers on your website are hopefully gonna go up even though your traffic goes down. But all this stuff is coming very quickly and you guys have to pay attention to this as operators. I know a lot of you on this call, if not most of you know, all this stuff already, but for the people who are watching this stuff is gonna dramatically impact how people discover you and find your park and want to go camp with you.

So any thoughts? ’cause I know I can ramble on about AI forever. I just need to probably shut up. As Mike said, somebody needs to mute me. But is there any thoughts that you guys have as you look at this and how you approach it from a discoverability marketing standpoint at your properties? 

Heidi Doyle: I’d like to ask what we might use instead of keywords or hashtags. I know hashtags are going along the wayside, but is there a different prompt or searchable slang that we might use to do the same thing that you did when searching for campgrounds or RV parks? Or electrical.

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think what’s, sorry there’s somebody at my door and my vicious Yorkie is going to answer it for me.

So I think you’re gonna see what you do in Chat GPT become more frequent. Like people are gonna type longer complete sentences instead of keywords. And that’s especially gonna be true when it comes to voice. Alexa’s rolling this out on all the speakers. So is Google announced yesterday, they’re gonna put it on your TV and put it on your watch, you’re gonna put it on your car and Android Auto, all the things, right?

And so I think at some point it’s not gonna matter what we type. And I think that was our safety net. I think Mike and I, and maybe Ali and I have talked about this before, but that was, I think maybe Stacy have talked about it before Ali, but this was our safety net for a while, was like people will not change their behavior.

They’ll still go to Chat GPT and type RV park, San Antonio or whatever in the search box. But Google announced yesterday they’re gonna take that query and split it off into 20 different searches, basically rewriting it into completely different keywords now. And Chat GPT announced that a few weeks ago too.

So it’s basically the end of any attempt you have at targeting keywords whatsoever. And it’s all based on content psychology, all the things that are new and different. And so it’s still something we’re feeling out, but I think that’s your answer. Like maybe too much long-winded Heidi. But I don’t think.

Heidi Doyle: No, it’s good information, thank you. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna be something the consumer needs to figure out. I think the AI is gonna figure it out and give better answers. 

Heidi Doyle: Okay.

Jim Omstrom: Brian, I think this, it’s an interesting topic and we’ve been talking about this and exploring it internally over the past few weeks.

And I’d love to know if Ali or Mike or you or Jeff or Heidi have looked into this, but we are looking into, and we’re introduced to a couple of groups that, I don’t know if SEO is the right word, but focus on it’s, call it AI SEO.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Jim Omstrom: And we’re starting to have initial conversations just to see what they have to say about it. But have you looked into that at all? Because a lot of people are, and I think Mike, throughout the stat earlier about the percentage of using AI now and where it’s going in the future has anyone looked into that yet in terms of how do you get to the, if I go in the Chat GPT or Orkrock or any of them right now and type in, fill me a list of the best RV parks outside of, Savannah, Georgia, or pick an area will, has anyone looked in how you get on that list within AI?

Brian Searl: Hey, Ali. I obviously I have an answer, but. 

Ali Rasmussen: I think, my answer is contingent on your answer, since you are who I consult with regarding stuff like this. I don’t know if Mike has a different answer. 

Mike Harrison: The answer is yes. And if the answer to your question, Savannah Lakes RV Resort will come up as the best RV resort.

Oh, sorry, maybe, sorry, I forgot there was somebody else who actually has a property here too.

Brian Searl: I’m gonna step away. You guys can battle it out.

Mike Harrison: One of those two, one of those two will come up. But yes, Brian, we’re both customers of Insider Perks and, he was well ahead of this curve.

And traditional SEO, and we have these conversations all the time, it’s still important because yeah, people are still, like Brian just mentioned, the migration to ai, isn’t gonna happen just in the next week. And I know Google’s changing their search, but people are still gonna do the traditional search in the Google search box, it requires training.

And so there’ll be this balance of both still doing traditional SEO and the AI search, the generative search and all those other different ways that people are looking. And your website provider, your SEO provider, whomever you’re using needs to be educated on it, otherwise you will not show up.

It’s just like how mobile and laptop or mobile and PC changed over the years when you know how many percent of your online bookings, PC used to be 80% and mobile is 10 or 20, and now it’s gone like this where mobile’s now 70% and, your PC is 30. That’s exactly how Google versus AI search will change over the course of the next whatever years it equals. So Brian can give you the technical answer. 

Brian Searl: I think that the easy answer without getting too technical is, you’re right Mike, as which traditional SEO being blended with AI but there are some things that cross over, right? We know brand is important. We’ve already talked about Open Roads Resort, Spacious Skies has a great brand. CRR has a great brand. Camp Strategy. Has a starting of a great brand. Seem to be king of the world, Jeff. You’ll get there like you’re new. Come on, be fair. Obviously Utility Supply Group has a strong brand, right? But the brand and so things, think about things like press releases, conversations about your brand around social media.

Not what you’re putting out, but what people are saying about you on the different social media networks. Those things help AI trust your brand more. Backlinks are still important. Like they’re not as important to AI but they’re a trust signal to AI. And so there’s lots of studies that show those work well.

So backlinks brand and then the architecture of your site is very critical. There are so many people who just pay attention to the prettiness of their site and forget all about, you have to have fast hosting. You gotta make sure your images load quickly. All that stuff is really expensive. But also things like, and this is a little geeky ’cause they can’t avoid it, but it’s like schema markup.

Is like what you’re telling those robots on the back end of your page that you are. The easiest example is like instead of listing you have a playground, how does the AI or Google’s traditional bot even know that’s a playground that you have available for kids to play on for free versus when you’re selling outside of a Home Depot store or something like that, right?

There are ways that you can structure that markup to give Google and AI search more information about that. So just thinking through that stuff and mostly focusing on the user experience and trying to figure out, as we all are, like, I’ve been in this for two and a half years studying this stuff like crazy obsessively and if you put a gun to Sam Altman’s head, he wouldn’t be able to tell you how AI ranks certain things that it ranks in search.

But there are ways we know you can get included. There are ways we know that are best practices on your website and those are the things you need to start with the fundamentals. And you’ll probably be ahead of, I’m guessing 90, 95% of the rest of the campground industry if you do for a while, anyway. Did that help?

Heidi Doyle: I asked Chat GPT for the best RV resorts outside of Savannah, Georgia. First one was Creek Fire, RV Resort. Then Redgate Farms. Third one is Spacious Skies. 

Mike Harrison: I just asked too. The first one’s Redgate and the second one’s Hilton Head, Spacious.Skies doesn’t even show up. And we show up number five.

Brian Searl: See? 

Ali Rasmussen: See there’s that gun to Sam’s head. That doesn’t help. 

Brian Searl: This is where your keyword.

Jeff Hoffman: So what it means is you guys both, need to work on your marketing and

Ali Rasmussen: We should call our website developer.

Jeff Hoffman: And view who your markets are. 

Brian Searl: This is the why, like keyword ranking and all that personalization is important because it’s gonna start personalizing. Everything’s gonna be different for every person. Chat GPT’s memory is showing Mike something different than it’ll show Ali. Then it’ll show Heidi. Then it’ll show Jim or Jeff. And so that’s why the best practices on your site and the fundamental things are critical, and that’s why you’re gonna end up with less traffic on your website because you’re not gonna have all the looky-loos who aren’t for you when they get there. They’re more likely to convert is where we see it going.

Jeff Hoffman: I think ’cause in your own AI, you can build your camper profile.

Brian Searl: Yeah. Without even telling it. 

Jeff Hoffman: And it’s only gonna show you the parks that have full hot got deluxe with x, X. So it definitely is gonna change. You know what, I’ve got a three o’clock. I didn’t realize it was that late. 

Brian Searl: That’s alright. Yeah. Mike just waved at us. He was like, I’m going we should wrap up. So we do a hard stop here. Final thoughts from anybody? Heidi, do you wanna start and then just show, tell us where we can learn more about Utility Supply Group briefly. Your website here. 

Heidi Doyle: First of all, thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this learning and great to see people again. Final thoughts, you can get to know USG better by looking in Woodall’s. We have ads every month. We’re very excited about a lot of the information you can learn there. We do a little bit in social media.

We’re trying to get our marketing person to do a little bit more, so I’m hoping we can advance that a little bit or just ask. We’re happy to provide any information that we can. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here, Heidi. Ali.

Heidi Doyle: Thank you.

Brian Searl: Where can they find out more about Spacious Skies? 

Ali Rasmussen: Yeah it’s spaciousskiescampgrounds.com of course. And then we’re all over social media as well. And yeah, I mean we’re in a really exciting phase right now where we , my questions over partnerships and whatnot, Jim, are more personal since we are doing a pretty broad marketing campaign right now with the intention of finding a new partner to recap our current partners out.

And it’s been a really fascinating exercise with record engagement as far as I understand and some amazing conversations have been coming out of it. So like it’s really been fun for spacious skies and where we’re gonna be at the end of the season is I think gonna tell us a lot about our future.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here as always, Ali, Jeff, where can they find out more about Camp Strategy? 

Jeff Hoffman: You can go to campstrategy.com. That’s our website. You can always make an appointment through there or my number’s there. And I dearly love to talk about campgrounds. It won’t cost you a thing.

Brian Searl: Awesome. And Jim, last but not least. 

Jim Omstrom: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It’s nice to meet everyone. openroadresorts.com and you find all the information there on all the, all of our parks. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you guys for being here and I appreciate you joining me for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

If you’re not sick of hearing me talk, you can come back and watch my second podcast Outwired in about 50 or so minutes with Scott Bahr and Greg Emmert. We’re gonna be deep diving into the types of people who typically stay at RV parks, and there’s a lot that Scott feels like some people are missing when they’re just targeting the traditional type of RV Park guest.

So we’re gonna do a deep dive into that with some data. We’re also gonna do more into the AI announcements and things that Google came out with too. We’ll see you later if you’re not sick and tired of me. Otherwise, have a great week and we’ll see you next week. Take care.

Jeff Hoffman: Thank you, Brian.

Heidi Doyle: Thank you, Brian.

Jim Omstrom: It was nice seeing everybody again. Bye.