MC Fireside Chats – May 22nd, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searl, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks. Empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside [00:01:00] Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be back with you. Maybe I’m excited to be back with you. I was on vacation, we’ll just go with the first thing and you can pretend you didn’t hear the second, but excited to be here for our fourth week episode focusing on the RV industry.

We normally have a full panel of recurring guests. They’re all in some really important meeting that I wasn’t invited to because as you all know who watch the show, I’m not important, but we do have amazing special guests here to talk to you today. I’m going to go around and just let everybody introduce themselves briefly and then we’re going to talk about some RV industry and some cool things.

Greg, you want to go first? 

Greg Wallman: Yeah, I’m the owner and president of Spacecraft Manufacturing. We’re probably one of the coolest RV companies that nobody knows about. We’ve been around for 62 years now, and we’re the only full custom manufacturer of travel trailers fifth wheels, and semis in the U. S. 

Brian Searl: Now, after you’re on the show, and by the way, I think at least two people watch the show, so what will be the tagline after every, after the two people know about you? Will you still be able to say you’re the coolest company nobody knows about, or? 

Greg Wallman: I think so. We’ve been trying for 60 years. We’re just a little bit [00:02:00] obscure.

We only build six to eight a year no. 

Brian Searl: All right, cool. All right, we’ll still have you have that unknown thing. Jeff, 

Jeff Wertz: Hi, I’m Jeff Wertz, National Sales Manager with Spartan RV Chassis. We’re located in Charlotte, Michigan. We’ve been building Class A diesel RV chassis for almost 40 years now.

Brian Searl: Awesome. And Devon? 

Devon Wilson: Hey, I’m Devon Wilson, CEO and founder of RV Snap Pad. RV Snap Pads are essentially permanent jack pads for your RV. We equate them to like shoes for your RV in the same way your shoes on your feet protect your feet. Give you grip and stability. Snap pads do the same thing for your stabilizing system on your RV.

We’ve pretty new compared to Greg and Jeff. We’ve only been in the market for eight and a half years, but grown in leaps and bounds. Pretty happy, pretty proud. 

Brian Searl: Eight and a half years is pretty impressive. So companies come and go right? Quicker it seems like these days.

So that’s, so let’s start with you, right? We’ve got you here. Last but not least, [00:03:00] right? Just introducing yourself. Sure. Yep. I think I wanna dive into what you’ve got going on with Snappa and all the products and services and things like that. Let’s take a step back and say, why SNAP Ads?

So why eight and a half, nine years ago, or if it took more to get the idea off the ground. Where did it come from? 

Devon Wilson: Yeah, so the background, it’s really funny. Some people don’t know this about us, but we’re not all big campers. It was just a business idea that we thought we’d run with because we could get it started for relatively inexpensive and see if people actually gave a damn about it.

And fortunately they do. My father actually came up with one of the key, I won’t use the name, but leveling blocks that are in the market right now. It’s been around for probably 30 years. And at the time Circumstances happened where he didn’t actually get to enjoy the fruits of his labor with that product.

It’s still around today. It’s still done very well, but it actually came up. We were talking about different business ideas around the dinner table, and he mentioned that the patent had actually run up. on that run out on that product. So we reviewed that product and then decided that we wanted to go a different direction.

We thought there [00:04:00] was some more innovation we could do with RV leveling. So when we started designing this product, we came up with adhesives and magnets and all kinds of things, but eventually landed on kind of the mechanical attachment of a rubber lip. So you just use the weight of the RV, you lower the leveling system, snaps into place, and you’re good to go, permanently attached.

Yeah, we came up with the. IDN category for a permanently attached jack pad and gave it a try, and fortunately it did seem that people actually do give a damn, and been running with it ever since. 

Brian Searl: So I’m sure, and again, I was talking to these guys before the show, I told them I was ignorant in some of the things RV, right?

But so obviously the people who own RVs are going to understand this and the importance of it and obviously it’s very easy to understand the importance of leveling out your RV. But if I’m a campground owner who regularly talks to my campers who might be wanting to tell them about your product or if I’m somebody who doesn’t own an RV, what is the importance of having this in addition to the built in leveling that comes with RVs?

Devon Wilson: Yeah. So again, it actually protects like the metal landing foot. There’s usually what people use as blocks of wood or pieces of plastic, things of that [00:05:00] nature. The recycled rubber actually grips and conforms to the terrain that you’re leveling on. So again, gives you more grip, more stability.

The rubber actually acts as a vibration dampener as well. So when people are walking around the RV it dampens the movement a little bit. So it makes it a little bit more stable. And then it’s the, like the protection aspect I mentioned. So it’s those three keys which is why why people have opted to actually use it.

Brian Searl: Okay. So walk us through, you started, you said you were telling me before the show, I think you started with one product and now you have, I can’t remember the number of SKUs you said you have now. 

Devon Wilson: Over, over 50 SKUs. Yeah. The interesting part with the RV industry is when we first started, we didn’t realize how many different leveling systems there were out there and different systems, different leveling system combinations.

So when we first got into this, we thought it was only going to be a few, but as we’ve continued to grow what we did was we released what we thought was the most popular one. And as we received comments and questions from potential customers, we would build waitlists for certain different, certain types.

And as those waitlists hit critical [00:06:00] mass, we decided to design new pads for that. specific leveling system or that specific foot that contacts the ground. And we’ve just been building that way. There’s not 54 different types. There’s 54 different combinations, essentially, and growing.

Every year there’s different combinations that are out there. We view them all, Lippert is obviously the giant that keeps coming out with new ones or switching it up or but there’s other loading systems, BAL, HWH Equalizer, the list goes on and on.

We’re just keeping an eye on what’s coming out and yeah, just producing what we can for, the majority of the market. 

Brian Searl: Now you talked about it, we were talking about it again, we probably should have a shorter conversation before the show so not to keep saying we talked about this before the show, but talk to me through some of your distribution channels, right?

Because there’s obviously, one would imagine that this would be mostly direct to consumer, but I can definitely see, as you can, already use lots of other use cases. 

Devon Wilson: Yeah, so we started direct to consumer, obviously we needed to prove there was demand for the market, and as we continued to sell to customers, they would eventually take their [00:07:00] RVs in for, servicing, and then that’s actually where some of the dealers started calling us up, saying they What the heck are these things on the bottom of their leveling systems?

And so we’d explain it to them. And then we started getting selling direct to consumer in addition to DTC. And then once we started getting in more and more dealers the distributors took notice and now we’re in out of all the major distributors in North America. Unfortunately, since then, we’re actually, this year, we’re in Germany now, which is something we weren’t planning on doing, but it’s just grown organically that way.

And so we’ve, and then the next step for us is now we’re eyeballing big box retailers. Like I mentioned, Brian, we’re looking to get into Canadian Tire. It’s Greg and Jeff, you may not be familiar with Canadian Tire, but it’s obviously a Canadian giant 500 locations in Canada. That’s the next step for us.

Brian Searl: Yeah, so Canadian Tire is like a Target or a Walmart or something like that in the United States. I’m, just a carrier of everything. Definitely a great place to be in. I wasn’t familiar with it when I moved up here either. But, [00:08:00] so as you look toward kind of the future of your company, right?

Is there, are we on autopilot? Are we just continuing to release new SKUs when necessary? Are we expanding to new countries? Is there more innovation to be done here? 

Devon Wilson: Yeah, all the above. Definitely not on autopilot. Definitely not on autopilot. We’re in growth mode, still trying to remain profitable while in growth mode though, so that’s sometimes a fine line, but fortunately we are profitable and we’re always coming up with new innovations.

We’re starting to get more into the accessories, so we can try to have more offerings for our customers right now. Essentially, when you buy a snap pad, you buy a set of snap pads that are compatible and that’s essentially it. We obviously want to have more offerings for SnapPad users, so we are going to get into some more accessories.

You’re looking, thinking like chalks blocks, ramps, things of that nature, and we’re going to try to put a little spin on it. So always trying to innovate at least a little bit, not just do the same thing that’s out there. A lot of these products are. Super cheap, sourced from China, so that’s we’re going the opposite way where we’re trying to [00:09:00] actually do, domestically made, quality product with some innovation to it.

We’ve got probably 10 different things in the hopper. It’s 36 months or more worth of product launches that are already scheduled, but again, we’re just trying to be careful, make sure we don’t get in over our skis as far as trying to do too much too fast.

Brian Searl: Without giving away anything that you have coming, right? What are, and I’m just asking you generically, what are some of the places that you feel are ripe for improvement or change or innovation in categories that you might or might not go into? 

Devon Wilson: Honestly, Brian, we’re hyper focused on the leveling category for us.

It’s a very specific pain point and we want to just be focused on what’s, what we’re good at. So I actually try to almost block out all the stuff that isn’t. In regard to leveling, we do have our sales staff that wants to sell chairs and a bunch of other stuff that we can just slap our brand on, but that’s really not the direction we want to go.

Because if you do that, you’re going to start competing with tons of other people. So for us, we’re going to hyper focus on the leveling system. We [00:10:00] just want to be, on The place everybody goes for premium leveling products. That’s where we want to get to and be the industry leader in that very specific niche category.

Brian Searl: Okay. So I’m sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you were, you mentioned ramps and things like that. So I thought you were already considering this. That’s why I had asked the question. 

Devon Wilson: So yeah like when I say ramps, I’m talking about like the, essentially the leveling ramps where people put kind of ramps in the name.

You can just call me an idiot. I’m fine. I know I am. Yeah, no, that’s what I meant by, yeah, it’s yeah, it’s still all things leveling. But yeah, again, we just want to put our spin on it and get away from the cheap international product and focus on something more premium that offers just a little bit more.

Brian Searl: Do you see differences in the, last question I think for now, but do you see differences in the European market in the size of their rigs, or the type that they’re driving, or are there ways that you adjust your product to fit that market, or is it the same? 

Devon Wilson: No, all the products that we’ve sold there have had to be adjusted, so we’ve had specific tools made for specific products there.

There are slight tweaks, but there [00:11:00] are differences. There’s also differences in regulations. And taxes and everything that goes along with it. So it’s definitely tricky to do that. We’re also eyeballing Australia right now, which has its own, considerations as well. So yeah, everything so far in a national has had its own its own tweak on the product, but so far so good.

Brian Searl: It sounds like you’ve got still a big untapped kind of growth market, especially overseas here that will serve you well for a number of years. 

Devon Wilson: Some cool stats is our last calculation. We’ve literally only penetrated about 1 percent of the market in North America, so that doesn’t include international markets.

And as of last calculation, so I think was in January we recycled over three and a half million pounds of of car tires. So we’re pretty proud of that stat. 

Brian Searl: Nice. Awesome. Alright feel free to stay we’re going to talk to Jeff, I think, next but if you have any input again, I told you guys before the show, this isn’t really turn based or anything like that, so I’d love to have you guys not make me talk, because we’ve talked about it many times Jeff, Product Business Manager at Spartan RV, is going to talk to us about [00:12:00] all kinds of cool advancements in RV chassis technology that I’m learning so much today.

Jeff Wertz: All right. Yeah. Again, Spartan RV chassis. We build the Class A RV diesel chassis for several folks. We’ve been at it since 1986. So we do pride ourselves on our ride and handling. Our customer service and then bringing, innovation to the market. We brought the independent front suspension to market back in the mid 90s anyways.

And that on a lot of the high end coaches now today. One of the things that we’ve noticed customers have asked for all along is more automotive like features. You get in your car today a lot of cars and trucks have adaptive cruise control. We actually brought that to the Class A market in model year 17, so we’ve been producing that for a while, so you get in these coaches just an extra safety feature that’s there if you’re you want to cruise the [00:13:00] countryside and pay attention to the, what’s going on in the hills around you the adaptive cruise control works nice to, Help follow the car in front of you.

You set the pace that you want to or distance, I should say, that you’re going to follow that car. And then the Collision Mitigation System is actively looking out in front of you. It’s going to apply those brakes automatically if somebody steps in front of you that going slower than what you’re going.

The I know you asked Devon about the size of the vehicles there in Europe. I think you’ll find they’re probably generally quite a bit smaller than what we have here in the U. S. Products, we build up to 45 foot or chassis for 45 foot coaches. A lot of big horsepower big Gross vehicle weight chassis running around or coaches on the road, so we try and provide all those systems to keep that comfortable driving down the road.

Brian Searl: Alright, these are going to be interesting questions here. You guys can all get together for a beer after this and laugh at how ignorant some of my questions were. Alright. So when you say chassis, we’ve had someone on the show, I believe, who did a chassis [00:14:00] for electric RVs. It was just basically the bottom shell of it, right?

Okay. He was installing big electric batteries and things like that would help. So when you say chassis, you mean that part. But when you Are you talking about the whole thing around or just the bottom or what do you design specifically? 

Jeff Wertz: No, so just the bottom. So if you think of the chassis rails or a frame and then below the frame you’ve got suspensions, axles, tires.

We put all of that in there. We also put the powertrain in, so we’re going to have a diesel engine, automatic transmission that’s paired up with that, a cooling package. The product we build is drivable, so we do drive it around our lots, over to the hoist and gets it loaded on the trailers to go to the various COEMs that build on them.

We provide, as far as what goes inside the coach, the controls for the driver, so the throttle pedal, brake pedal. Steering column, steering wheel the gauge [00:15:00] package, which today is all digital. It’s basically a digital screen that we provide. It’s all customized for each of the OEMs. 

Brian Searl: So how, so if I’m an OEM coming to you and saying, I want to design something different.

What are the different options that you give people to swap in and out? Like we’re talking about the automated cruise control, some of the new tech that’s coming out, digital screens, not digital screens, how adaptable are you to provide different products to different people? And is there that much of a demand for difference or is it everybody needs this and that’s what we want?

Jeff Wertz: No. There, it’s, there’s different, so we’ll ask ’em, what size coach are they going after? Maybe they want a 35 foot coach, not a 45 foot coach. What kind of performance do they want on the highway? So are they happy just getting a product that’s gonna get from point A to point B?

Or they want to get there and maybe have to climb some hills in between. So they might wanna we range in three, from 360 horsepower to 605 horsepower. engine offerings, so significant differences there. And [00:16:00] then basic features as well various fuel tank sizes we provide. We’ll build the custom wheelbase depends on what that coach builder, how they want to lay out their their floor plan.

Brian Searl: And this is what I think I’m really trying to get to, and I’m glad I Like it sounded ignorant coming out of my mouth, but I did have an intention behind it, right? We have a lot of people who watch this show. I think it’s fair to say that our campground owners, operators in the outdoor hospitality space, but not necessarily the RV dealers.

There are some, right? But that’s not, it’s RV business, right? That’s their bread and butter. That’s their good thing. And so I think, I love the fact that you went there because I really want to talk to people and have them understand like what you’re talking about is basically the difference between price.

I want a low end or a high end or I want a long or a short or I want a, this motor or that motor or the use type that you want to have, if it’s, if it needs to go off road, if it just needs to go highway or short. Is that what you’re talking about? And it’s interesting to me to see how all this stuff comes together and the choices that are made.

Is it? And I don’t mean this as a [00:17:00] slight to anyone, not to you, but is it solely a decision based on price? Is it market demographics? Is it, how do they make these decisions? 

Jeff Wertz: No it’s all the above. The market, what they’re after, there’s certain, parts of the country that maybe roads are a little older, narrower, campgrounds are smaller and older so folks that want to go there might not be comfortable in a large unit, so they’re after a shorter unit anyways to be able to get in and out of those parks.

Brian Searl: Do you see, and we’ve had some people on the show before, on the RV Industry Show, talk about the shift from consumer purchasing demand recently to, from bigger rigs to smaller rigs, there’s been a lot of that demand at trade shows and things like that. Do you see that on your end? It’s reflective of some of the OEMs are wanting smaller?

Jeff Wertz: So we have seen that we’ve developed a few, I’ll say smaller chassis, shorter chassis that still have the higher content in them. On the flip side I’ve spoke to a few customers that have gone [00:18:00] that route and then realized, geez we maybe we shouldn’t have given up the the bath and a half for the single bath model.

We need to go back to the longer coach, but yeah, it’s certainly played a role. 

Brian Searl: Is there something, and I’m going to just put you on the spot randomly, maybe it’s nothing, right? Is there something that You know that you could build that would be super cool that no one has asked you for yet.

Jeff Wertz: There’s possibility. We’ve built some stuff in the past that isn’t isn’t on the market yet today. 

Brian Searl: You’re not willing to tell us though, I’m speculating. 

Devon Wilson: Oh, I’ll leave it. That might be a great question. Yeah, there you go. 

Brian Searl: Give it don’t give away anything in your product line, right?

But what I’m really asking for is other things that the consumers or the OEMs can look forward to saying, we can either put this in RV or we might be able to see this in RV. Is the technology changing that allows you to do things that you couldn’t do before? I’m really looking for where do you think this is headed and what are some cool things that you think we can look forward to in the future, even if they’re not things that you’re planning on doing right now.

Jeff Wertz: Yeah, if you [00:19:00] look again, in the automotive industry, a lot of features there’s cars that’ll basically self drive today or correct. We’re not there. There are features available out there for, self driving. Lane Departure Warning we can alert the driver that, hey, they’ve crossed one side of the lane without signaling.

But if you think in the future there’s certainly systems or technology that’s coming that may be able to help guide that coach down the road as well. 

Brian Searl: How far off do you think we are from that? Because we see the Teslas and we also see the Tesla semis and we see, right? Yeah. So they’ve done it big already.

Yep. Somebody has. So how far off do you think we are before seeing, before you can go into a dealer and see one or two models that are self driving? 

Jeff Wertz: Yeah, I would say it’s safe to say several years anyways. 

Brian Searl: Okay. That’s what I figured. Is it 10, 20? What do you think? We’re not going to hold you to that, I promise.

Jeff Wertz: Yeah, possibly less than 10. 

Brian Searl: We won’t call you up. We won’t call you up. I’ll be like, it’s been 11 years. You remember that show that you were on? That’s [00:20:00] right. Where’s it at? We were counting on you. Okay, anything else you want to tell us about your company or that you think we should know or that you’re excited to share?

Jeff Wertz: So one of the other things that sets us apart as far as the customer satisfaction, customer interaction, we have a owner’s training academy as well. So we have a group of product trainers that bring the coaches in. So if we bring seven to eight coaches a week, it’s a training class and we can help the educate the owners of the coach on general maintenance general operation of the coach and just get them more familiar with the system.

That’s a Class that they pay for, it sells out every year. We run over 20 of those each year. But everybody raves about that. They they learn a lot and share those experiences as well with their friends. 

Brian Searl: Do you have a guarantee where the once they go through your program, no campground has to worry about them crashing into the store?

Jeff Wertz: No such guarantee. 

Brian Searl: It seems, it definitely seems useful, right? Just from a campground owner [00:21:00] perspective, we hear all these stories all the time about the bad drivers who don’t know how the equipment they’re using, or how big it is, or how wide it is, or how to turn it, or hitting pedestals, or hitting trees, or whatever else.

It definitely seems is there an opportunity, do you think, to scale that to some kind of online, where you could do, More of that, or does it need to be in person for the hands on RV experience? 

Jeff Wertz: It doesn’t necessarily need to be in person. So part of the, you mentioned the driving part of that academy that when we hold them here at our factory there is we have certified instructors that provide some driving tips to folks.

Some of the other technologies that I didn’t talk about, but some of the OEMs have what they call 360 degree camera systems. So if you think of a bird’s eye view It will project the what’s the surrounding area around your coach while you’re driving it. So if you’re driving through the campground, you can see on the left there’s a, the neighbor’s picnic table, on the right’s the power hookup or, whatever it is around you.

So there’s certainly some technology out there to help aid with the driving. 

Brian Searl: I will tell you, I, I was in Europe, was where [00:22:00] I went on vacation for two and a half weeks and I rented a car over there, it was a Volkswagen, it was a brand new car from whatever one of their top tier car rental places is, right?

But I got in the car and it didn’t have a backup camera. I had all kinds of sensors that would tell me and beep like crazy if I came within two feet of something that I had to keep turning off because it was annoying, but I didn’t realize like I work from home every day and I didn’t realize like how used to or accustomed I had come to trusting a backup camera.

And how quickly that happens in your mind to where I really was like, I need to relearn how to look at my meters on the side cause I’ve been trusting this screen in front of me. And so it’s really interesting how quickly some of that technology takes over and you begin to trust it, isn’t it? 

Jeff Wertz: Oh, absolutely.

Brian Searl: Yeah. So yeah, I’m excited to see where the future goes. I’m a big geek. And that’s why I ask you some of those questions, but I’m really looking like people have asked me, when are you going to buy RV? My answer is two things. Number one, when I have the money. But two, when it’s self driving and then I can like work in the back and do all my stuff as [00:23:00] I ride across the country and see cool places.

I just want to get out at the Grand Canyon, get in work, get out in LA or wherever else, right? Get back in. That’s what I want. So I think we’re about 15, 20 years away from It’s down the road. But yeah it is just down the road if you think about it, right? I mean imagine It was, what, 24 years ago that Jeff Bezos was parking, packaging books in his garage, and that’s quick.

Alright, Greg, you’ve been sitting there so patiently with the coolest looking, maybe transformer spacecraft alien thing that probably isn’t. Tell us about your thing that no one knows about. 

Greg Wallman: Okay. First of all both of their teams are awesome. The snap on stuff I see on a lot of trailers and the Spartan chassis.

If you’re ever at a show where they have one sitting out, they’ve got one that’s done up like an American flag and it is cool because you could drive around it like a golf cart without a top on it. And I’ve wanted to get on one and just. Go out and drive around because they’re pretty awesome.

Brian Searl: So here’s your opportunity. Ask Jeff right now. 

Greg Wallman: I love seeing that [00:24:00] it shows. So 

Brian Searl: how come we don’t do this live on the show, by the way, Jeff, you should have brought a chat room. You just driven 

Jeff Wertz: That one’s on its way back to the campus right now. So

Greg Wallman: So I’ll zip through SpaceCraft real quick, give you a high level overview for most of the questions that we always get and then I would be happy to get grilled. So before 

Brian Searl: I grill you, before you even talk about that, I’m going to grill you first. Why SpaceCraft? Of all the cool names that you could have come up with, why something that is a little bit non descriptive, I think, of what you offer?

Greg Wallman: It’s a play on words. The etymology is crafting space. We try to use every cubic inch of a trailer and use everything from the basement up to the roof. If you go online and see some of the stuff, some of the videos we’re doing things that nobody else does and we’re trying to maximize every cubic inch of the trailer.

Okay, so it’s crafting space versus flying in space. 

Brian Searl: All right, you’re right, I have questions about [00:25:00] that, but go ahead and tell us about your company first. 

Greg Wallman: Okay spacecraft, we’re full custom, and that’s probably one of the hardest ideas for us to get across to people. Typically we say you dream it, we build it.

Each trailer is unique and we’re doing things that some people may never do and the rest of the industry might not get to for years or decades. Probably self ingratiating, but probably the highest quality in the industry. We’re certainly not perfect, but it’s the first word on our website and that’s what the team’s focused on.

We do anything from 35 feet up to 57 feet. We do bunk houses, which are like rolling hotels for the. Carnival Industry to travel trailers, fifth wheels, and semis. We’re about three years out right now, so everybody’s running to quality from everything that’s happened over the course of the last four years with COVID.

And then Pricing is another question that everybody asks. It’s a hard question since we’re full custom, but on our travel trailers and fifth wheels, a good rule of thumb for a starting budget range is 7, 000 to 8, 000 per linear foot, and on our semis, 8, 000 to 9, [00:26:00] 000 per linear foot. So just using 46 foot as an example, a fifth wheel would have a starting budget of 325 to 375, and a semi would be 375 to 425 is a good 

Brian Searl: I’m sorry to interrupt you, but what does that compare like to the regular general average of a fifth wheel that’s not custom made?

Greg Wallman: Gosh, for the low end probably four times as much and the high end probably twice as much except for some of our closer competitors. And then we’ve done our last two show trailers which were in Tampa the last two years. One of them was 12, 000 a foot and the other one was 15, 000 a foot.

So you can go well above those ranges with however you design the trailer. We’re probably one of the heavier units and I think that’s one of the reasons why we have a higher quality. I think Jeff would agree with that, that once you start taking a lot of weight out of a chassis there’s a negative correlation with the quality and capability.

On our semi units we run about 625 a foot and then on our [00:27:00] fifth wheel is about 500 pounds per foot. So at 40 feet, you’d be about 20, 000 pounds dry and 24, 000 pounds gross. So that’s heavy for the industry. Our biggest trailer we’ve made was about 55, 000 pounds for the gross trailer weight one that we sent overseas.

It had a lot of crazy stuff on it, but it was a lot of fun. We’re, one of the cool things about us is we have many onlys and many mosts. So to, to think about that water, for instance from a most perspective, we had one that had 600 gallons of water on it. We had one that had 800 total gallons of water solar, we did one of the show trailers had 10, 000 watts of solar on it which I think is one of the most from an OEM perspective.

We actually didn’t have to plug it in the entire show when we were in Tampa and found out. The following year that they had a bunch of electrical issues, and we didn’t even know about it because we weren’t plugged in. That one was designed to charge an electric vehicle off of the sun. So it was a completely untethered unit that [00:28:00] could charge an electric vehicle and keep that going indefinitely.

We did last year, we had a six by eight LED TV on the front of the trailer. And then three decks on the outside, a 12 by 8 party deck up top, and then a deck on the rear and a deck on the side. So it’s cool. We do things that people don’t do. The one behind me it was a 48 and a half foot unit.

The rear was a bedroom and a garage. So there was a Jeep Wrangler that went in the bottom and then the whole bedroom went up. The Jeep comes out and then the whole bedroom, the floor, the bed, nightstands, dresser, all comes down. And then one of those, I’m a Jeep Wrangler person. Yeah it’s pretty cool.

Then so our customer base Carnival, Hollywood Entertainment Industry, just regular residential. And then we’ve done a bunch of other stuff. We did a fully functioning veterinary hospital, which was really cool. Some we did some stuff for the Canadian government. We’ve done restrooms for golf courses mobile air traffic control.

We did a hear, hearing test unit for people to have a mobile unit there. People [00:29:00] haulers, but like I talked about the one behind me, we’re, We do car haulers, so we’ve had them where you do two motorcycles on top of a jeep and all sorts of cool, fun stuff. Again, it’s You Dream It, We Build It.

Focused on ten, six to ten annually. And then just to give people an idea, the last three years we did eleven semis, five fifth wheels, two bunk houses, and one office, which I think is nineteen over the course of three years. So just over that, that six mark, and we have 20 to 25 employees depending on the world of employment right now.

With a welding team, we do our own chassis. Sorry, Jeff. Fiberglass team, we do chop some of our own fiberglass. We have a fiberglass ceiling and roof that both have a lifetime warranty. One of the thing that sets us apart, a production team that puts it all together and a cabinet team that does the fine finish work and then the admin team that helps make it all happen.

Brian Searl: I don’t actually want to discuss this. This is not the most important question I have with all that. But what’s going to happen to lifetime warranties when people start living twice as long [00:30:00] because AI figures out how to make, are they all still going to be lifetime warranties, do you think? 

Greg Wallman: Potentially.

Fiberglass is going to last forever, 

Brian Searl: do we know that though? Has anyone been a lot? I’m just giving you a question. I don’t really want to discuss that. Okay, so I have a couple questions for you. You dream it, you build it, right? Unless you are not dreaming big enough and you just have toys, in which case you offer some kind of counseling, I assume, to say you’re Life in a completely different order.

Greg Wallman: The caveat, there’s a few caveats and taglines. So one is we do anything within the parameters of regulation, imagination, budget, and physics. And 

Brian Searl: regulation is a terrible thing. We need to get rid of that. 

Greg Wallman: Some argue both sides of that one but physics and budget is what typically gets people.

Brian Searl: Physics is another thing. We gotta toss that out. 

Greg Wallman: Yeah, it’s been around for a couple years. Yeah. And then the other thing is custom equals compromise. I joke with people, this isn’t the world of Harry Potter. We can’t fit a 50 foot trailer in 40 feet. There’s gonna talk to who?

Yeah. Cool. [00:31:00] Yep. Same thing. Not the Tardis, but 

Brian Searl: I want, it’s bigger on the inside. Come on, Greg. 

Greg Wallman: It’s pretty cool. We can make most anything happen. 

Brian Searl: That’s what I want to talk to you about. So I guess my first question is this, you talked about you have a three year wait which is impressive.

And I think we’ve had. Maybe not so much now, but especially during COVID, we had a lot of cabin manufacturers on who had the same thing three, four, five years, six years out. If you want to order a cabin, this is how long it’s going to take because there’s such huge demand for it. How do you balance being that niche quality manufacturer with the knowing you could make more money if you scale?

Greg Wallman: I guess a lot of it’s probably I’m weird. I have a very long term view of things and I know that I’m just I’m the third owner of the organization in 60 years, so I look at it and I’ve been here for six and a half years. So only 10 percent of the life of the company. I’m just trying not to screw it up.

I’m a steward of the team right now in the brain and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to put that in jeopardy. So just trying to look. Okay. Long term. So any growth that [00:32:00] we’re doing, we’re focused on technology, process, those kinds of things to, to increase productivity, but not at the sacrifice of quality.

So there’s a delicate balance there, but we always lead with quality first. 

Brian Searl: Okay. That’s what I figured your answer was going to be, but it’s always interesting to me how that, how different people perceive that balance, right? Because I for sure agree with you. Like I’m in my company, I’m a long term view or my company’s a long term view.

Thank you. I take the path of like good things are going to come to me if I focus on quality and people and all those kinds of things. And it may take 10 years to get there, but that 10 years is going to look a whole lot better than your one year because you rushed and put a product to market or whatever else that had quality issues or things like that.

Yeah, I definitely respect that. So talk to us a little bit about when you say everything is custom I know you just said you didn’t start the company, right? But what are some of the the things that you can, you said you use every square inch inside the trailer, right? Every cubic inch. Every cubic inch, okay.

What are some of the things that you think are typically [00:33:00] wasted space that consumers might find advantageous to taking advantage of that space in a normal standard RV? 

Greg Wallman: Some of them are personal preference. For instance, if you have a hallway going to a bedroom and then the bathroom is off to the side, that hallway is single use space versus if you put it as a pass through bathroom that hallway is used for room when you’re getting in and out of the shower, standing at the vanity, loading, unloading, washer, dryer, those kinds of things.

Most of our customers are full timers, so just a simple thing like that can be significant. Slides, we have a 57 foot trailer that’s out in the shop right now that’s going to have seven slides on it, so being able to integrate that into the overall build and different things. So we I don’t know how many dimensions we typically think in.

You’ve got the usual X, Y, Z axis, but then we have to do weight cost there’s all sorts of stuff that we’re looking at. Like in this, in that trailer that [00:34:00] has 7 in the rear, there’s opposing slides that are bunk beds. On one side, it’s 2 bunks. On the other side, it’s a top bunk, and then the bottom’s going to be a kennel that we designed for a Great Dane, so it’ll be a bunk for a dog.

There’s stuff that our customers have us do to integrate every part of their family into their build. 

Brian Searl: Okay what’s some of the craziest things you’ve ever done for someone, if you can tell us? 

Greg Wallman: There’s all sorts of cool stuff. There’s some awesome things online, some stuff we haven’t been able to post online.

The people just didn’t have it public. But the one that had 600 gallons of water on it was pretty crazy. It had two 65 inch TVs, a 100 inch TV, the 600 gallons of water that there were bidets on every toilet a jacuzzi tub, a clear ice cube maker a 13 foot custom couch leather that was white that I instructed the team not to touch Heated tile floors.

There, there was a 30 foot mast on that one that had a radar [00:35:00] driven security camera on it. So you could see a mile during the day, any movement, and then a half mile at night. That was fun to play with here at the factory looking for deer out in the field. That was fun. 

Brian Searl: What did you use that for?

Greg Wallman: It was basically a a tent for a very wealthy family that uses it a couple weeks out of the year to go out into a desert and have fun. Blow off steam. 

Brian Searl: Okay. That’s just interesting to me. Like I can imagine like somebody going deer hunting with that radar, sitting on top of their thing with a, like a rifle waiting for the radar beep, and then seeing if they can get as good as the military snipers, or, I don’t know.

Greg Wallman: The trailer we had in Tampa this last year had the eight by. 12 party deck up on top. And then the six by eight television screen. So it was basically a mobile entertainment venue. 

Brian Searl: It sounds as the campground owner who’s watching you on this call right now is I’m so glad you’re not a major manufacturer, Greg.[00:36:00] 

I don’t want to buy 10 foot party deck in my campground. 

Greg Wallman: So they’re going to use that. They’ve had it out on the ocean side. Some amazing views. They’re going to go to Courtside with it. They’re going to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, sitting on the front line, being able to just sit up on their deck and watch the hot air balloons take off.

Some NASCAR events and different things like that. So it’s, interestingly enough, it’s got a really cool use case and I think they’re going to have some amazing experiences on it. 

Brian Searl: That’s what I would want, right? Like I’m big into nature and I used to go tenting all the time when I was young and then I’m old and now I’m back and I could solve that right with the right equipment.

But still you get to a certain point where it’s an interesting balance between you can afford something that not necessarily is better, but that is different, like a luxury hotel or glamping or something like that. And it’s interesting to find that trade. I’m deeply involved in the industry and I would love to go camping more and RVing more but I would need that outdoor space, right?

I like having my deck in my backyard and so those kinds of things really, I think, help [00:37:00] move it toward more of a traditional home experience, right? And 

Greg Wallman: That’s one of the ways that we describe things to our customers, especially on our semi unit, because it has a Spartan esque feel to it.

It’s made with like 12 inch I beams and it’s solid. There’s a reason why it’s so heavy, but we usually tell people you can do pretty much anything that you would be able to do in a home. Or a commercial space within those units. Cause then you’ve got the air ride suspension of the semi axles.

And it’s a pretty good deal, that’s mobile. 

Brian Searl: Do you have, is there a snap pad for this, Kevin? 

Greg Wallman: I don’t know. 

Devon Wilson: I have to talk to Greg after. 

Greg Wallman: We and so another thing too like on that one behind me and even the 57 foot trailer that we’re working on, we’ve got four quadra landing gear.

And on our fifth wheels, we use big foot. So it’s just four pads per trailer, even a 57 footer. So I’d say that speaks well to our chassis and how [00:38:00] that is built. 

Brian Searl: So tell me, what’s something that you know you could do or think you could do on one of your rigs that no one has asked for yet, that you’re just thinking please somebody ask me for this because it would be so cool if I could build it?

Greg Wallman: Personally one that I’m really looking forward to doing and we’ve talked with a few customers, it just hasn’t come to fruition yet is Disabled unit. So for handicap whether so for instance the semi that you see behind me that one had no step inside. So it’s relatively easy to get over the hurdle of getting somebody from the ground up into the trailer.

And then just having one level inside allows you to do almost anything. I would love to be able to provide somebody with the ability to go out and see the world. When they thought maybe they were homebound. 

Brian Searl: That’s awesome. That’s definitely a better answer than I expected you to give. I thought you were going to go to tech or some kind of crazy self driving gizmo.

Which, by the way, in your mind, how far away is self driving? We asked Jeff. Is it [00:39:00] 10 to 20 meters?

Greg Wallman: I’d say it depends, which is one of my favorite answers. So it, it depends a little bit on what Tesla does. We have a couple of customers that have deposits in that want to be the first Tesla RV which I think will be really cool. So that’s probably the fastest path depending on that technology.

And I don’t, we don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like when it comes out. 

Brian Searl: I assume it would be software, right? Basically you would license the software or what? 

Greg Wallman: For us, it’s towable, so it would just be a matter of hooking up to the unit. The semi, as long as the semi is designed to pull the trailer and do the self driving within the context of that, then it would be capable of being part of our world as a towable unit.

Jeff’s world is a lot more complicated. We just have to hook up to a cool vehicle like his and let it pull us. 

Brian Searl: So let’s, this is interesting to me, guys. And we have about 15 minutes left, right? We’ve talked about all [00:40:00] of your companies and things. And as I go in and out of blurry and make myself look even better.

For people here, if you don’t have to see my face or hear my voice. Emmy award winning. Where do you guys see this industry going? Like we’re going through a lot of changes. This is one of the big conversations that I’ve had with, we work with 450 campgrounds and RV parks ish, maybe a little bit more on our side to do marketing, advertising, technology, AI, all that kind of stuff.

And we see how fast that side of the industry is moving from a software perspective, especially in the last two years. Is this starting to impact what you guys think of the future as you look toward designing and manufacturing in the chassis, both for electric and self driving, but also for all the other things that are going to push forward in the future?

Does this start to impact how you guys think about running your companies at all or no? 

Greg Wallman: I’ll take this one first and let the other two tell me how crazy I am. So I’m involved with RVIA. I’m going to be at DC in a couple of weeks, which is some of the meetings that everybody’s preparing for that weren’t here today.

But There’s a, [00:41:00] there’s an RV side to the equation, and then there’s a campground side to the equation and then the RV side’s bifurcated in that there’s going to be a push for, boondocking or dry camping versus going to the campgrounds and then the campgrounds are trying to fulfill a spectrum of everything from somebody that wants to car camp or tent camp, to the unit that’s behind me.

So the infrastructure and investment necessary for campgrounds to evolve is not insignificant. And I think there’s some stuff in front of Congress right now to help support some of that infrastructure, whether it’s charge stations for electric vehicles, and you mentioned the electric motor home that has been rolling around for a couple of years.

Wi Fi and information technology which Starlink, I think, has helped that out significantly. So there’s some things that allow you to be untethered and the campground might be able to rely on something like that versus having a unit. So the campgrounds have a lot to do, I think, to keep up with technology that’s evolving significantly.[00:42:00] 

And then on the RV side, it’s the same thing. We’re getting pushed to do things that may not even be possible in today’s world. There’s sometimes we’re like we have to wait for that to be invented and then we can do it. We can invent some things, but there’s some things that we’re just, as a small company, we just can’t do.

But I think that’s the biggest thing is both the RV and campground side being able to keep up with the growth and the evolution of technology and implementing that to scale to take care of the demand that they have. 

Brian Searl: If you look at what you’re being asked to do from a manufacturer standpoint or what you just talked about, what you know of from RVIA and your meetings and things, is there something that you could say to a campground owner that says this is a good place for you to head to help you be future proof from our perspective, from the RV side?

Greg Wallman: I would say probably the two biggest things are electric and information technology because that’s, for as much as people want to be untethered they want the ability to reach out and research, do whatever while they’re there. So being able to [00:43:00] maintain the electrical needs of the camper, and then also the information technology needs of the camper, I think is something that’s really important.

Because a lot of our customers the one that’s getting ready to go to paint for us right now, it’s their home and they’re both IT individuals within their companies and they’re working wherever they’re at in the U. S. We’ve done crazy things inside from a networking perspective to give them the ability to be anywhere in the U. S. Or really North America, Alaska, et cetera. And they can work just like they were like you sitting in Canada. www. insiderperks. com 

Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s what, that’s the interesting thing to me is some of this and then just like smart home technology and all that kind of stuff, I’m sure you’re involved in, but gentlemen, Jeff, Devon, do you have anything?

Jeff, what do you think? I haven’t thought of my answer yet. Jeff, go ahead. 

Jeff Wertz: No, I have an answer. Just to follow what Greg was saying on the campgrounds, yeah, the information technology, the Wi Fi [00:44:00] capability, certainly a lot more customers, even families, buying these and traveling around that are still, they’re still working, able to work remote.

So that’s been a big thing for them. He also talked about boondocking, dry camping. We don’t get too involved from the chassis aspect of that. The engine we provide, we provide the fuel tank. It’s running on diesel. Generators are installed by the OEMs and then the batteries for the coach are installed by the OEMs as well.

But the, some of them are looking at lithium. Batteries to extend that boon docking capability and some of those are requiring some extra large alternators to keep that system charged. So we do, will get involved in that aspect of it as that grows. 

Brian Searl: Outside of the chassis, just from a business standpoint overall, Jeff, is there ways that your company is looking to adapt and prepare for a again, you might think I’m crazy too, but I think this thing is going to move so fast nobody’s even [00:45:00] prepared for it, let alone me.

But with AI and robotics and things like that, are there other ways that your company is adapting to future proof itself? 

Jeff Wertz: As far as the manufacturing aspect goes, our, 

Brian Searl: Whatever you want to take it, it’s an open book, right? 

Jeff Wertz: Okay, so we are part of the SHIFT group. SHIFT group also owns a Blue Arc is an electric EV company that’s being developed for walk in vans and things like that.

Someday there might be an application for electrical vehicles as far as that goes into the RV space. But we’ve got to figure out how to make room for the 600 gallon water tanks and, all the the other amenities that go along with a coach. 

Brian Searl: What was the 600 gallon water tank? Was that a survivability like thing where I need to have water?

I want to be in the desert for X? 

Greg Wallman: It’s, I’m in a desert. I’m want to be able to take a jacuzzi bath, shower, have clear ice cube, bidets. It was, Two bedroom, two full bath. So it was, we want to be able to do whatever we want in the desert [00:46:00] for as long as we want. We made it shiftable so you could do 300, gallons.

So we did add some dynamics to it for the customer. 

Brian Searl: And what is the typical water tank? Sorry for your question again on an RV of that size. 

Greg Wallman: It depends. Most these days are around 100 gallons to start with to refresh. And then somewhere in the maybe 150 range for the gray slash black water holding tanks.

We’re all over the board though. 

Brian Searl: It’s interesting. All the things you’re talking about, read like a list of if the world ends tomorrow, I know where to go steal someone’s RV that’s going to survive. 

Greg Wallman: I would also say that reminded me a couple of things that I see coming down the pike that are more short term, maybe five year time.

frame is fresh in black water. So on the fresh side there’s units now that are getting ready to go prime time which would be mass distribution that are water makers. So really all it is effectively is a dehumidifier that you put on top of the [00:47:00] trailer. It looks like an RV or water out of the air.

And 

Brian Searl: yeah, 

Greg Wallman: distills the water and filters it into your fresh tank. And then on the black side, there’s some things going on there. I do some stuff with some colleges here in the Midwest, and the students have had some pretty cool ideas, and there’s some reclamation systems that can basically become a water processing plant within an RV to take the black water and turn it not necessarily potable, but you could turn it into gray water that you could use in the toilet, and those kinds of things.

Which is some really cool stuff that really takes boondocking to another level. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, 

Greg Wallman: we actually did a recycling shower with a company that was out of Sweden. It was designed for the Mars colony where it had sensors in the drain where after the water passed through and it was clean, so no more sweat, dirt.

human stuff, etc. It would recirculate that through a filter and a UV light and you could basically take a [00:48:00] shower indefinitely and the water would keep getting cleaner every time it touched you. So that was actually pretty cool. We had it down in Tampa and we’d walk by and we could throw salt in the shower and then you could see the graph of it.

Pumping to the gray tank and then switching back to recycling. So that was actually pretty cool. They unfortunately pulled their U. S. operations. Hopefully it comes back at some point, but that’s some cool technology as well. 

Brian Searl: I wanna, I was, I’m a geek. I was learning about small nuclear reactors the other day and I want one of those on my rig so I have infinite power forever.

I don’t know how small they actually get, but 

Devon Wilson: I don’t think they get that small. 

Brian Searl: I’m not an expert. I only watched three or four YouTube videos on it, but it was interesting. It’s interesting to me to see where energy is going. Like I was watching about, and again, I don’t want to talk about this for the last five minutes of the show, but I was learning about small nuclear reactors, and then there’s a company in Norway that came up with this really cool people have been trying to harness the energy of waves for a long time, but they came up with this really cool ocean buoy that seems [00:49:00] to have solved that issue and generated enough power to make it competitive with wind and solar and all that.

It’s really interesting to me how much cheaper energy might get, and we’re not even touching on nuclear fusion yet, in the next five to ten years. That’s going to impact, for the better, I think, the cost of everything in the entire world. Because everything, if you think about it, is tied to the cost of energy, right?

So if energy costs go down, then manufacturing is cheaper, then everything is cheaper. So Devon, now you have an answer for us. 

Devon Wilson: You’ve had long enough to think about it. This better be really good. This better be really good. Ah, there’s so many points to touch on there, but speaking towards the technology that Greg and Jeff were talking about, essentially you can get Wi Fi almost from anywhere, depending on what you’ve got and now we’ve actually seen, I don’t know if you guys Can agree with this or not, but we’ve seen the market get a little bit younger, the RV market get a little bit younger because the ability to work from anywhere like you said Greg, you had some customers that literally work, will be working full time out of their rig.

I think a lot of people are doing that now. And, there’s a [00:50:00] bit of a shift away, at least for some demographics from wanting the white picket fence to actually being like, I don’t want to be tied down to one place. Let’s, especially now that you have wifi, you can work from anywhere. Let’s go.

Lifelong adventure. So we’re definitely seeing a bunch of that on the technology side for us. Obviously we’re making, physical products. So the only thing we’re using AI for and tinkering with it right now is customer service. Some of the stuff is absolutely wild, like we’ve hooked it up to our database and just for fun I’m asking ridiculous questions, like why doesn’t my wife like me and it actually turns the question back to say we can’t really speak to that but if you buy snap pad you’ll find that your wife won’t have to actually place leveling blocks and she may end up like it has a lot of fun with it And so we’re, we also don’t want to replace, the human aspect of it.

That’s a big part of the customer service, you want to make sure you can do it. But at the same time, there’s a lot of standard questions that can be answered with them as well, as long with the compatibility lists that we have. So that’s us playing with AI, I think eventually We’re looking at getting our own manufacturing facility now too, so I don’t [00:51:00] know if we actually use it for planning and how we’re actually going to do the layout for the facility and things of that nature.

Greg and Jeff obviously have a lot more experience with things like that. I don’t know if we’ll go that route, but it’s pretty, the stuff you guys I’m sure have seen examples of it just getting crazier and crazier all the time. The technology has grown in leaps and bounds, monthly, it seems.

In five years, it’s going to be really interesting to see where we are and what jobs have been replaced and trying to implement that and staying a little bit ahead of the curve while not, biting off more than you can chew. You look stupid.

There’s also been examples when we’re using AI and it’s clear that it’s AI and it’s it’s a big mess. So we’re throttling that and making sure Testing it, seeing when we can actually implement it, and when it’s appropriate to implement. But yeah, in the interim it’s fun to play with.

Brian Searl: If you guys all woke up tomorrow and there was a robot capable of working for each of you exactly the way you wanted it, would you hire it? I have trust issues, 

Devon Wilson: so no. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I would like to see them happen. We all 

Devon Wilson: do. 

Brian Searl: I’m just curious. 

Greg Wallman: I’d say it [00:52:00] depends. They’ve got their places, but there’s some things where you need to be able to pivot.

Brian Searl: That’s what I mean. If it was perfect for your business, if you knew it could do everything that custom that you would ask it to do, would you hire it? 

Greg Wallman: We’re a small company, so we probably couldn’t afford it, but I’m a tech geek too. And I’d love to have it if if it wasn’t Skynet.

Devon Wilson: Jeff, 

Brian Searl: you got an answer for us? 

Devon Wilson: I would certainly want to validate that it does everything. Whoever I bought it from says it could. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. It’s a fascinating and interesting world, so we’ll see how it goes. I think we’ll have fun no matter what. Any final thoughts from you guys?

Really appreciate the conversation. 

Devon Wilson: Just for you, Brian, is that even if there are self driving vehicles, you live in Calgary, Alberta they probably won’t be coming up here anytime soon, because driving on L. A. streets and driving in a foot and a half of snow are two very different things. It’s probably going to take a little bit longer for you to get it.

Brian Searl: I’m going to figure it out. I’ve looked at the Tesla. I’m, I don’t, the new full self driving is interesting, but yeah, you’re right. I go to the mountains too much. [00:53:00] So figure it out. But thank you guys. I really appreciate all your time. It was great to learn about especially and I’m saying especially right not to discount you to other gentlemen, but Greg, like I’m a tech geek, right?

So it’s interesting to talk about you and some of the innovations and some of the things that like it never would have crossed my mind. And I don’t know, we haven’t, we have a couple seconds here. Why Jeff? Yeah. And maybe this is not your area of expertise. Why don’t people manufacture the bathroom that’s faster instead of the hallway?

Do you know that seems like a no brainer issue to me. 

Jeff Wertz: I don’t know, but that would be, better question for the OEMs. So again, I only have you, I didn’t have an OEM. 

Greg Wallman: That’s all from an OEM perspective. It’s all what’s driven by demand from a customer point of view. Some of it’s probably the dreaded, that’s the way we’ve always done it.

And then some of it is, it’s just what our customers want. 

Brian Searl: So that’s the thing is I never would have even imagined that in my head until it came out. And so to me, that’s like. Not as big as an iPhone moment, right? But something where maybe we give it to the customer and they’re like, Oh shit, we didn’t realize that we [00:54:00] really wanted this.

And then you sell it. 

Greg Wallman: That’s probably one of the coolest things about us is we’ve got, I don’t know how many accumulated years of knowledge and wisdom. We’re able to be a guide and they come to us and they’re like, this is what we want to do. Do you have any thoughts and ideas? And we can be a guide that says I know you want this.

This is ultimately your goal. So here’s a couple of solutions that are going to give you a different path. And there’s definitely some aha moments, right? I never thought of that before. And that’s absolutely amazing. We probably get asked. four times a week. Oh, we’ve got this cool idea and it’s never been done before.

And sometimes it’s fun because we’re like, do you want to see a picture of it? We’ve done it. And then sometimes we’re like that’s not physically possible. And then sometimes it’s we just got to wait for the technology to be invented. It’s really cool. Cause that’s the fun thing about being full custom is we have the, People coming to us with ideas from everywhere.

So we get exposed to stuff that maybe comes up in some executive boardrooms as they’re debating what they want to do to evolve their companies. But we get raw input from customers [00:55:00] and what they want. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. I think you and I are probably a lot alike. But Yeah, appreciate you being here, Greg.

Jeff from Spartan RV where can they learn more about Spartan RV? 

Jeff Wertz: SpartanRVChassis. com. 

Brian Searl: And Devon, where can they learn more about SnapPad? 

Devon Wilson: You just put RV SnapPad or SnapPad in Google and there’s lots of places you can go to. 

Brian Searl: You don’t want them to go to any place? You can pick your choice right now.

Devon Wilson: RVsnapad. com. 

Brian Searl: But yeah. And Greg, where can they learn more about your custom RVs? 

Greg Wallman: Spacecraftmfgformanufacturing. com. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. As soon as I have enough money, I’ll be a customer of yours, Greg. 

Greg Wallman: I don’t know if I’ll be able to take care of you. 

Brian Searl: I’m not going to have the patience to wait three years though.

Greg Wallman: Hopefully that gets better over time. 

Brian Searl: But that’s a good thing, but 

Greg Wallman: typically we’re almost always a year out. So this is definitely an abnormal scenario because it’s like building a custom home. You have to design it, pick everything out from tires to roof vents, door handles, et cetera. So there’s, there is a time of the way it’s worth the wait.

Brian Searl: So thank you guys. I appreciate it. I’ll let you get back to your day. Thanks for joining us another, again, for another episode of MC [00:56:00] Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to have all our guests here. We’ll see you. Next week for a first episode of the month focused on open discussion about the outdoor hospitality industry.

Take care guys I really appreciate you being here. Give me an hour your time. 

Devon Wilson: Thanks a lot. Nice talking to you guys 

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searl. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at modern campground.

com. Get your daily dose of news from modern campground. com and be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor [00:57:00] hospitality.