MC Fireside Chats – November 12th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. We are live here at the OHCE Conference 2025, inside the OHI booth in Louisville, sorry, Louisville, Kentucky. We’ve been taught how to pronounce the city many times, and obviously it didn’t stick in my brain yet.

We’re excited here to talk with you about all the things that are going on at this conference. We’ve had several days of really exciting education. We’ve been in the expo hall, it’s wrapping up right now. You can see that behind me. All kinds of really good things, education sessions and stuff like that.

So we’re here talking to a couple guests. We’re gonna get their thoughts, opinions, everything’s gonna go live just like we normally do at the shows. So we’re gonna go around here. We can start with Terry. You guys just wanna introduce yourselves briefly? 

Terry Munoz: Yeah. Yes. Terry Munoz, Campground Consulting Group. I’ve been in the industry 37 years. 

Erica Edmonds: My name’s Erica Edmonds. I work for Store World New Book, and I’ve been in the industry six years. 

Mike Harrison: Mike Harrison Chief Operating Officer at CRR Hospitality.

Greg Emmert: Hi, Greg Emmert with Vireo Outdoor Hospitality Consulting. Founder and principal consultant.

Angela Cozik : I am Angee Cozik and I own Happy Acres Campground in Angola, Indiana. 

Patrick McCormick: Hi, I am Patrick McCormick and I’m the manager of Happy Acres Campground in Angola, Indiana. 

Brian Searl: Alright, thank you guys all for being here. I appreciate it. We’re gonna have a little bit of a struggle maybe hearing each other on each side of each end, so just try to talk as loud as you can.

It wasn’t really optimal to do the thing on the couch, like that’s the worst furniture you could ever ask for a they weren’t planning on it for me to be clear, but. So we’re sitting here, we’re gonna have a good conversation. Really excited about that. So let’s just start with like maybe you’re, is this your first year here?

You, have you been here before? Okay. Second year here. So you were last year in Oklahoma City? 

Angela Cozik : No, I was here three years ago 

Brian Searl: years ago. 

Angela Cozik : Three years ago. . 

Brian Searl: What city? Testing your memory. 

Angela Cozik : Kansas City. There you go. 

Brian Searl: Kansas City. Okay. Yeah. So what are the differences and takeaways you have maybe from Louis or from Kansas City to today? First conference, the second conference. 

Angela Cozik : Kansas City was my first campground conference, first year owning a campground. So I was very wide-eyed and excited. And actually a couple people actually called me out and was like, yeah, you’re new. We can tell. So I think this year I’m probably calling out the new people.

Saying, yep, you’re new. I could tell, but I, that’s probably the biggest difference. Still a lot of great information and it’s fun meeting new people and getting their take on what’s going on. 

Brian Searl: What’s the most interesting thing that you’ve learned here at OHCE so far, this year? 

Angela Cozik : This year? Honestly, the very first panel when all five or six guys that were up there said AI’s not ready yet. 

Brian Searl: Okay. 

Angela Cozik : Because it seems like it’s really being pushed and pushed, but all of the, I mean, I think those guys are, that’s higher pay grade than me, so they probably know what they’re talking about. So that was a little shocking to me that they were just like, yeah it’s coming. It’s just not quite ready.

I think they just meant that the the development of it in the campground industry isn’t, hasn’t reached its full potential yet. So it, it, don’t jump in, feet first and. 

Brian Searl: This might be.

Angela Cozik : That’s how I can. 

Brian Searl: Back and forth. Mike, you want to take that? Mike Harrison, CRR Hospitality, Award winner for AI innovation.

Mike Harrison: It wasn’t for AI innovation. 

Brian Searl: Partially for AI innovation. 

Mike Harrison: Some of it was yes. 

Brian Searl: Partially. I’m just saying you could weigh in on the topic. 

Mike Harrison: Absolutely. Supplier of the year. Thank you. So I’ve got a little bit of a different perspective. We’ve been working with Insider Perks and rolled out Rigsby, Campy for Insider Perks, almost four years ago at this point.

Was a chat bot and not a Verizon chat bot where you’re like, speak with an agent. Rigsby’s hard to break. And then just a. A couple months ago, we rolled out the first ever reservation AI agent. You can make a reservation at 2:00 AM you’ll never get a busy signal.

You won’t miss a call. And that’s just, the first glimmer. We’re also working with Insider Perks on several other AI innovations that are coming, but not just some of those other things, but in general, the SEO that, Insider Perks and we’re doing is, generative and, using, the entire search structure has changed with Google and the paid ads. 

And I disagree strongly because if you’re not using AI, you’re gonna already be falling behind in the search, number one. And number two is, while there’s going to be evolution and continued innovation of AI, there’s an absolute use cases, all over the place in the industry we have for our company.

What part of our leadership strategy session in January is an AI mandate for our company. And how can we make sure that we utilize AI in whatever ways they are. Right now, we’re using ’em for competitive shops, so instead of, taking those hours to call the competitors and look at the rates and, et cetera, et cetera. Insider Perks is going to soon roll out the version of that.

Brian Searl: You’re putting words in my mouth.

Mike Harrison: I don’t know. So the, so I feel, and I don’t mean any disrespect the statement such as AI is not ready, means you’re gonna be left behind. Yeah, 

Angela Cozik : I shocked. I’ve shocked and I heard that come from them and they didn’t say, don’t use any AI. That’s definitely not, so don’t let me misspeak.

I just, I don’t know. I was just shocked when I heard it and all of them said it but they definitely said that there are applications where it’s useful and you should be using it. And so anyway. 

Brian Searl: I don’t think anybody’s wrong. I think we all have our own opinions, AI’s, so new AI’s moving really fast, right?

So there’s a room for all kinds of opinions. The intention wasn’t to say you’re wrong, he’s right. Anything like that. It was just to say, there’s different perspectives and we all need to stay on top of it one way or another. 

Greg, what’s the one thing that you’ve learned here at OHCE that. 

Greg Emmert: Oh, the one thing I’ve learned is that this thing continues to deliver every year.

It might be bigger, it might be smaller, but having come for the last, my first one was in 94, and I’ve been coming on and off since then. Every year I’m reminded that the strength of the conferences and its size is it’s this right here. It’s the people around you. They’re our most precious resource.

To get into a room with people in your industry and be able to share that knowledge and have the conversations. Yeah, you can do a Google meet or a Zoom call, but it’s just, it’s not the same. The energy’s not the same. The feedback typically isn’t the same. So yeah, if there’s anything, it’s just, I’m always re-energized when I come to these.

It’s nice to see that it’s ongoing and there’s still so many people here not just buying in, but putting in like everyone here, even if they’re not a speaker, if they’re just an attendee, they’re putting something into the conference, there’s nobody here that’s not a contributor at some point. 

Brian Searl: Same question to you, Mike.

Mike Harrison: I’ve got two perspectives on it. I think, one is, when we first started coming, we were coming as an attendee, as an owner, and then we started coming as a manager, and then we started coming as a vendor, and then I started coming as a speaker. And so we do all four of those roles now.

And so we use a different lens in each version of that. And so it’s interesting to see how, you can view the value of the conference in each one of those lenses. And I find value in all of them. I think one of the things that we had heard consistently is there was a bit of reticence about this conference.

What is it gonna be? This is the second year since OHI separated from the state associations and how’s it gonna be and are people gonna go? And it’s exceeded our expectations. The attendance I’ve heard, I don’t know if it’s confirmed, is record attendance. It’s certainly record vendors.

And we’re excited for that. I think the other part, which, really is just fulfilling is, to see the passion around the industry. And you look at the various service awards, whether it was Jim Button, or Rob Shooter. There are so many, good people in this industry and, they all have the same mission, which is service.

And whether it’s helping another campground, another owner education , gov, advocacy for the government. It’s just impressive to see, the continued contributions from all the folks. 

Brian Searl: Erica? 

Erica Edmonds: I think one thing that just continues to inspire me and excite me about this conference is the passion of the young professionals.

We had an event last night and there’s so much passion in that room. There’s so much potential innovation in that room and to see those individuals communicating and hanging out and networking and coming up with ideas and contributing to the industry to push it forward, it continues to inspire me.

And I, I don’t think that I could ever miss a conference because I would feel like I was missing a step in the process of pushing the industry forward. And yeah it’s incredibly exciting and I’m thankful to be a part of it. 

Mike Harrison: So since Terry qualified for young professional. 

Erica Edmonds: Terry is a young professional plus.

Terry Munoz: Hey, I’m a young professional at heart and I was the OG of the young professionals. I was that property manager attending this show back in the day for Thousand Trails when I first started back in the early nineties. Greg, when I saw, the late great David oh my gosh. Oh, I remember, I forget.

I’ve known Dave Berg this morning. I worked with Dave for a long time. And that, that was special for Rob to receive that award because they were such good friends. I worked with him on the board, but David Gordon, who was what, who I was thinking of, he was on stage, right? He’s talking and I was like, oh, what’s this thing called ARVC back then?

And I quickly learned that there’s a lot to get from these shows. You can’t replace the networking that you, you have at this show. We have to constantly reinvent ourselves. We can’t keep doing the same old thing over and over again. And you come here and you get, like you guys said, you get reenergized and you have that passion for the industry and that’s just reinforced when you come here and find other people that have that same passion.

And you build on that and you make some lifelong relationships. Like we heard this morning those guys up on stage that were receiving awards. Rob called out people that I’ve worked with that are no longer here with us and, but we’re pioneers. Definitely pioneers in this industry and got OHI in this conference to where it’s today.

And it is. I did here, I did check record attendance. Record vendors, record attendance. That’s amazing. 

Brian Searl: Alright, I’m gonna try something new on this show. We’ve never done it before and I haven’t prepped the guest for this, but Erica, runs her own podcast, which is great. What’s the name of your podcast, Erica?

Erica Edmonds: It’s the Talk S’more podcast. 

Brian Searl: Okay, so I’ve been doing these lives at OHI and KOA and I always try to come up with interesting, unique questions. How about I have you ask each of these people one a question that you wanna know, that you think would be great. 

Erica Edmonds: Oh wow. Okay. In, in my podcast, we focus on the personal story of each individual working in the industry.

And I’m always curious where everyone got their start or got their inspirational moment of, this is where I wanna be, this is what I wanna continue to do and I wanna help build this industry. Terry, start with you. 

Terry Munoz: Oh my gosh. That’s where I got my start. I was a college student.

I was looking for a part-time job, and I started at a RV park. As what was called a Ranger with Thousand Trails. I didn’t know what that meant. I just saw it saw, I heard it was a security guard position, and I started in May of 88, what holiday is the end of May Memorial Weekend. I quickly found out that I wasn’t just a security guard, I was checking people in, I was greeting people, I was going out and patrolling and making sure they weren’t speeding and not parking on the grass and doing all those things.

And, I then I was off of promotions along the way. And next thing I’m a property manager at a campground. After I graduated school, college and I guess it stuck 37 years later. And yeah and I guess what drove me to do it was the love people because I got into training and I would train our customer experience program and I would I love to elevate other people and see them grow, and that’s my passion too.

It really has been a rewarding experience over the years.

Mike Harrison: I have two origin stories, one is similar to Terry. My first hospitality job was back in 1987. I was a bus boy at Chili’s and just grew up in the food and beverage world. And then I was about to fail outta college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and so my friend was going on the Disney World College program and I’m like, oh, I have to declare a major.

And I’m like, I don’t know what I worked in restaurants, for seven years. And back then it was no such thing as hospitality. It was restaurant and travel administration. And so I declared a major, went to the Disney World College program, and then studied in Europe and fell into the hotel business for 25 years.

And just, I loved the with passionate around service, which I love just, I would love being a waiter. And that translated to just the service for the customer. And then the second origin story is an outdoor hospitality. And I’m not ashamed to admit, I was laid off during COVID and through misfortune comes fortune and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

The hotel business was obliterated, obviously during COVID and they laid off 60% of the corporate team. I was the high priced remote guy and I had to look for the next, position during COVID. And I looked in the hotel business. I was looking in residential and senior living and asset management, and fell into a position was asset management plus Phoenix in my job search.

I didn’t wanna travel as much, which has completely failed. And so I met with the ownership group. They had one property, Verde Rancher RV Resort, and really fell into a great opportunity, to form and build a company. With the ownership group that we’re with. Outdoor hospitality has continued to fulfill my zhuzh, for, spirit to serve, the people, the associates, the industry. And have really the best, journey of my life and my career because of the misfortune. So

Greg Emmert: I, I have learned on enough of these podcasts not to follow Mike. You give the best answers to everything, dude. That’s an awesome, no, that’s an awesome journey though. But like mine, I have a single origin story, right? I don’t have a two pointer, but. It probably starts well back before we bought our campground.

’cause we were, I was fortunate enough to have parents that loved the outdoors. So we camped, they, they grew up camping in a tent with no floor. It was basically a tarp. They were dirt baggers. They worked their way up. By the time I’m about eight years old, we have an RV and we’re traveling that way.

But then a disease bit, my dad, and don’t worry, it’s not serious. It is called armchair quarterbacking. So like we did it long enough and he was like, this’ll be easy. We should, I don’t want to be a machinist anymore. Let’s, I’m gonna buy a campground and we’re all gonna work together. And we thought, yeah, this would be great.

And for anybody out there that’s ever done that, I feel you’re paying it. If you haven’t, but you think that’s a good idea. The treadmill’s going at 25, when you get on. There’s no, you can’t slow it down. So be ready. ’cause it was about, I dunno, 12 hours into our first day on opening day. And we were like, oh God, we’re not, we have, oh, this is, being on the other side of the counter is a completely different, but it was the best because it was trial by fire.

Like we were dropped into it. You don’t have a choice. You gotta learn, adapt, bro. And 26 years later we sold the park. But it was a heck of a journey at that time with the amount of stuff that I learned, can’t trade it for anything. It’s why I’m still in the industry. I could have run away when we sold our park, but it’s great. And the people in it are great. It’s really hard to be.

Angela Cozik : I have a similar story. I actually did not start out in hospitality at all. My husband and I owned body shops, so when you’ve wrecked your car, we fixed it. And. We ended up selling all of our shops to a national company in 2021, 2020? I don’t even know. And thought it would be a good idea as a retirement plan to buy a campground.

And the first year I cried a lot. Yeah, I cried a lot and I was like, why am I doing this? Because I didn’t have to do this. But then I met Patrick and things got better. Learn, learned what I needed to learn, and second year I didn’t cry as much. And this year was absolutely amazing. So that’s my story.

That’s. That’s, we bought a very campground that needed a lot of love. Let’s just say that. Actually, I don’t wanna say any bad words here. Yeah, it needed a lot of love. And the first year there’s a lot of campsites he never used and I didn’t understand why. So the first year on Memorial Day, I am like, we’re filling this thing up.

It was bad idea. The power was failing everywhere we had. I was running back and forth. I was, I had to go beg all of the campers to please only run one air conditioner. And it was so bad. That was, that is the worst single worst day of my campground career was that first Memorial Day. I will never forget it, but I learned a lot.

And then the next week we got the excavator out and started digging because we were doing new power. . Yeah. Oh my gosh. $120,000 a year. What’d we do? $470? $470. Yeah. Yeah. so I cannot take all the credit. I will. No.

Patrick McCormick: My journey started 35 years ago in hospitality, but it was the hotel restaurant business right out of Purdue and ran hotels. And then, I don’t know, at some point I took a teaching job and taught business and marketing courses for 28 years at Ivy Tech Community College. Just retired this summer.

But in ’05 we bought our first camper, me and my wife. ’cause we wanted a way to travel with our dog. And that’s how we got into RVing. In 2017, I started a YouTube channel, Travels with Delaney, which we’ve had now for eight years. And three years ago, I reached out to Angee to say, Hey we’d like to do these little events for our subscribers.

Could we host one at your park, which was 10 minutes from our house. My wife was tired of me scheduling camp outs a thousand miles away and the long travel to do ’em. And so our relationship started with a single Instagram message. And in ’22, I think it was, we hosted an event and Angee and Kevin said, Hey, let’s work together.

We didn’t really know what that meant at the time, but, we started a YouTube channel for the campground. We started working together on marketing last year. Angee said, Hey, come to work for us. I’m like, yeah, I’m not. I got another year till I can retire from the college. So I was working two jobs simultaneously, and then I retired this summer and at some point Angee just promoted me to manager.

And so now I’m proud to say I, I manage an amazing campground. We have 91 sites and cabins in Northeast Indiana, and we are the highest rated Google Campground in the county now. And it’s because of Angee and her husband Kevin. They have put, I always tell guests when they say, oh, this park is amazing.

I’m like, yeah, it was a dump. Four years ago, Angee and Kevin put over a million dollars in it, but I always say I feel like I’m cheating them when I say that because the stories I hear from the first year about Angee and Kevin shoveling stone by hand. They have put blood, sweat, and tears into this park.

And all I’ve done is come around and tried to spread the word and the, yeah, so that’s my journey. So I’ve went full circle from hotels back into hospitality after a 28 year career of teaching and I’m loving it. It’s great. 

Brian Searl: All right, we’re gonna pass the mic all the way down. We’ve been joined by the esteemed David Basler, whose title gets promoted, I feel like every two months. So what’s your current title? You keep rising through the ranks really fast, man. 

David Basler: My, my current title? 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

David Basler: Chief Strategy Officer and SVP of Government Affairs. 

Brian Searl: Steve keeps adding something new, man. 

David Basler: It does. 

Brian Searl: Doing all the things. 

David Basler: It does. 

Brian Searl: So Erica, what was the question for David?

David Basler: What was the question? Sorry. I’m late. 

Erica Edmonds: What was your start in the industry and what, was it inspired? 

David Basler: My start in the industry was, I was actually just telling this story yesterday. I came from Higher Ed. I was working at the University of Colorado Medical School, in marketing. And at the time, ARVC needed a director of marketing.

And long story short the commute to the RV office was two miles from my house versus an hour and a half to where I was working. And I loved the outdoors. I loved camping. I was like, man, this could work. And I had young kids at the time, and so it it worked out great. It was just a perfect fit at the right time, basically.

And my inspirational moment I’m gonna point back over to what Patrick was just talking about, these relationships that, that come. What he just described to me is the definition of what this community, what this organization and industry are all about. You just, people in other industries are cutthroat and competitive and it’s the exact opposite in this industry.

You could have a campgrounds that are five miles apart from each other and they want to be, they want to see each other succeed. So they are helping each other out every chance they get rising. Tide blazes, all boats. If that’s not inspirational, I dunno, what is, you know. 

Brian Searl: Give us an update on OHI. How’s the convention going? Oh, okay. You’re right. 

intro: Pass back. I’ll come back. 

Erica Edmonds: Thank you all so much. Completely inspiring just to hear where everyone started. And I start, I was managing an Aldi grocery store in East Tennessee at the height of the pandemic. And I was looking around one day after throwing truck, starting at five 30 in the morning and thinking.

This is madness. And I am miserable. And my mom had worked in the industry for a really long time and I was having a conversation with her and she was like, the outdoor hospitality industry is doing great right now. It’s chaos, but it’s a lot of fun. And it’s just send me your resume and I’ll pass it to my boss.

And you never know. And I did. And it was Ron Williams, who’s now with Blue Water and Robert Bose, who’s the VP of Travel Resorts of America. They interviewed me at a small campground in North Carolina and gave me a tour and kind of told me what everything was all about. And I was like, this sounds like an adventure.

This sounds like something fun. I could meet people, be out in the community. Camping has always been something that I’ve enjoyed as a child, so I just, I jumped ship and never looked back. And my first conference with OHCE was in Kansas City and I never knew that there would be any kind of space like this to communicate and network and be around others who loved what they were doing.

And my jaw was on the floor the entire time. And I had conversation after conversation with individuals and after every interaction, my first thought was like, that’s an amazing story. And people, other people need to hear that. And the podcast eventually came to be and the rest is history.

Mike Harrison: Yeah. So something to do with hospitality. Yeah. But tell your husband’s job. ’cause I think it’s gonna a different job. 

Erica Edmonds: Oh my goodness. My fiance, soon to be husband, he is a lighting designer, lighting director and creative for a EW wrestling. So he travels all around the country and he does some amazing things.

He’s brilliant and, I look up to him so much and I’m done. Don’t make me cry. 

Mike Harrison: But I wanna be, I get so 

Erica Edmonds: he’s the greatest. 

Brian Searl: David, can you give us an update on how OHI is going so far? OHCE? 

David Basler: I have a fun job. That sounds really fun. 

Terry Munoz: Yeah. 

David Basler: Lighting director for professional wrestling. Kinda love it. I love it.

Update on OHI. Okay. In Kansas City, we introduced the new OHI brand last year, earlier this year I should say. We, introduced the start of our new business model. And that was a reset moment for us as an association. But thrilled to tell you that ever since then, throughout the course of the year, we’ve literally seen growth in every single metric that we track.

We’re growing in members we’re growing, as you see around you. The biggest trade show we’ve had I don’t know the final numbers of attendees, but it far exceeded last year and the year before that, the year before that. So I think growth, if I had to put it into one word, which is great.

Brian Searl: What’s the most interesting conversation you’ve had at OHCE so far? 

David Basler: We had brought back. I can’t remember when the last time we did, I think it was three years ago when we did the prospective owners workshop in person the last time we brought that back this year. And so there were 50 participants of the prospective owners workshop who are, just getting into the industry.

And I’ve had a dozen or more conversations with them about just in this short window of time, how life changing, being here, and not only going through the workshop, but outside of the workshop, having conversations with people like on this panel and around, and how just that has solidified their resolve and their desire to be in this industry.

I think it also speaks to what I said earlier too. They just, they’re excited to be part of a, such an open and caring community, so. 

Brian Searl: If I push you and say, pick one that really stood out to you. What’s the one conversation of anything in OHCE? 

David Basler: I ate breakfast. I ate breakfast yesterday with a guy named Doug Grant.

I think it was yesterday. It may have been two days ago. Now the days are running together. Doug Grant from Island Creek Campground in William Wilmington, North Carolina. He’s getting it off the ground. He’s one of the, one of the prospective owners and he was just over the moon, excited the fact that dewitting and the Carolinas Association had a booth here and he could come and be part of both communities at the same time.

I thought that was really cool. 

Brian Searl: Nice. Terry, same thing and most interesting conversation. 

Terry Munoz: Oh I’d have to be with a client that just got his permits and ready to break ground. That’s always exciting, right? When they you help someone in there they’re getting near the finish line.

Because being involved in my, I didn’t say earlier, but my career advanced into development and there’s nothing like taking a blank slate and creating something special. I can tell you from experience, and he’s gonna experience this when he’s done with this project, is there was nothing that I could compare to driving through that property that I developed on the ground up on Memorial Weekend and seeing every site full and seeing families enjoying themselves.

Seeing kids that are gonna have their first marshmallow roast, make their first s’more making memories, right? That’s what it’s all about. And so to help someone accomplish that and have those conversations, that’s pretty amazing.

Erica Edmonds: Mine would probably have to be a conversation that I had yesterday, right over here, just a couple feet away while the OHI Foundation was having their silent auction. I was there and met with a girl who was deeply affected by the tragedy from Helene in the Carolinas, and her name is Lauren.

And I apologize for not remembering exactly where her campground was, but she spoke to the fact about how the foundation really swooped in and just gave them hope and brought some relief and it was such a beautiful story and she was so grateful. We had the OHI silent auction going on at the time, and there was a bunch of people around and it was like a community moment, which is what this is all about.

And I’m gonna cry again, but it was absolutely incredible. And that’s just something that, this industry has built and provides and I just think that we’re incredibly lucky to have that as a part of what we do. 

Mike Harrison: If we’re using the term interesting conversation, I think mine was, I had dinner with the business forum last night and had a 30 minute conversation with Eric Stromberg and those who know me know 30 minutes is 29 minutes too long for a conversation for me. And we were talking about just how he got his start and how I got our start. It had nothing to do with our jobs.

And, I found out he’s a world traveler. He is gonna Cameroon, it’s his fourth year in a row of kind of a world travel journey with his family. They had a medical situation previously and they just wanted to live life and then. My son is mountain biking through South Africa right now with his uncle for two and a half weeks and just a really nice, connection moment if you will.

But, it just highlights and I don’t mean to be braggadocious, we were honored with the supplier of the year award and he is one of our partners with Tango Internet, preferred partners and as Insider Perks and Campground Consultants, many of the other folks.

And those relationships contribute to, what we’re able to do. Without those people we can’t do what we do. And business begets business, right? They refer us. So it’s funny how a connection conversation, which is unintentionally nothing to do with business, ends up being business just because of the networking and the human part. Anyway, he is going to Cameroon.

Greg Emmert: Once again, that’s really hard to top. Cameroon. Cameroon. 

Brian Searl: Do you want to just move seats to the end, Greg? 

Greg Emmert: I may need to, I may need to apart from this conversation right here, of course, this one’s interesting by far have been the ones that I’ve had with folks from OHI watching Jen and Renata and Riley and some of the other people at registration work, their tail ends off to pull this thing together, but not in. 

Mike Harrison: Mustaches. 

Greg Emmert: In mustaches. Yeah. There were mullets and mustaches have been added. In fact, I can see re’s is still, it looks like some sort of a, like a slug moth caterpillar crawling across her. 

Mike Harrison: Lorax. 

Greg Emmert: She’s got the Lorax name tag. Watching them work this in real time okay, so first they put in months and months of work to pull this off.

But seeing them in the hallway, they’re being stopped and getting feedback and taking it and taking notes. I saw Jen hanging outside of a session when it was over, listening to feedback, and I stopped and talked to her and she’s I have some of the best ideas. She opened her phone and she’s reading off the things that she’s, I assume that when people were talking to her, she was like just furiously texting and ignoring them.

She was listening. That’s something I need to learn how to do. She’s listening, taking notes as people are coming outta sessions. And then we had a conversation and it’s great. I, but I am astonished at the amount of work and I don’t know why. I look at this thing and it, I should be as, it’s massive.

It, I can’t, I don’t know what it takes to pull this off. I would not want to do what they do, but I’m so grateful for them and for the hard work that they put in. Not just before but during. So that conversation I had with her where she was telling me some of the feedback that she had gotten from attendees.

And then some of her own ideas. And then I gave her some ideas. She started walking away immediately. I dunno what that was about. I think she might have been ideaed out. I might have topped off and overfilled the tank. But that’s, yeah, the, my conversation with Jen in the hallway, it was awesome.

Angela Cozik : All right. I have a couple. So the first one was with you and you don’t even know it. So it was during the very first breakout session for the central area of the country, and you said, don’t be scared to raise your prices. And that’s actually a conversation that him and I are on the same page, but my husband is on a different page.

So it was refreshing to hear your take on it. So that’s definitely a takeaway that both of us are leaving here with, and we’ve already told my husband but anyway. Yes. Yes. 

Greg Emmert: And coming back. 

Angela Cozik : Correct. Correct. But actually that right before that on the very first presentation, we sat down with three people who are starting a, a campground in Tennessee and it’s still being built, I believe they’re like in the, it’s not even open yet. And it was really cool because I could see myself four years ago in them and all the questions they were asking and they were just curious about everything. And I so feel like I am. A negative expert still on all of this campground stuff.

And so them asking me, I’m like, why are you asking me? I don’t know. But I do know. And it was just a nice conversation to have. So I would say that was those two, those are my favorite. 

Greg Emmert: Also perspective. 

Angela Cozik : Yeah. Yes. 

Greg Emmert: I remember that. Or somebody asked me a question, I was like, no, you’re looking for something, your know. 

Angela Cozik : Yeah. Not me. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. 

Patrick McCormick: I hope this doesn’t come across self-serving or, but yesterday my wife and I were walking around in here and a person says, oh my God, it’s the Delaney’s, which by the way is not my name, but everybody assumes ’cause our channel’s called Travels with Delaney that our last name’s Delaney.

It was actually our cocker spaniel and we started the channel. But I met Chuck and Chuck’s I have watched you for years and. You help me and my wife get to know our RV because we do a lot of educational type content. And what it reminded me of was how great this community is, the RV camping community.

He’s thanking me and I’m saying, no, thank you. And we started getting into discussions about our journey as RVers and how we both started with small teardrops and slowly working our way up. I’m a little ahead of him ’cause I’m in a 35 foot fifth wheel and he’s in an intech, but having him stop me and say thank you, and then to get into that discussion about the RV lifestyle, camping, and just how great, we were talking about, I, and I’ve always said this, if you stay at a hotel and you walk down the hallway and you say hi to somebody, they almost turn around and go the other way. When you pull into a campground within minutes, you have best friends on your left and your right people are so inviting. And so I think that was the one. There were so many conversations we’ve had with different park owners.

I would say another one that struck me was through this three days, it reminded me that the struggles we have on a daily basis that we think is just us. It’s not us. We’re all in this together. And I think that’s what’s great when you bring people together like this you help each other out and you realize like we all have that same struggle of people driving too fast through your park or people leaving trash in the fire pit.

And those conversations reinforce that we’re doing the right things, we can get better and we’re in it together. And I just really appreciate that from this event. It’s been an amazing three days. 

Brian Searl: One of the reasons that I always ask about conversations is that the networking, I think we’ll all agree here, the conversations we have are some of the biggest, most powerful takeaways at all these conferences. So let’s do another thing that we’ve never done before. We’ll start with Patrick. We’ll work our way back. 

Patrick, ask anyone here by process of elimination. So if Patrick asks David a question, nobody else can ask David a question, by process of elimination, something you wanna know from somebody else on the panel. Anything you want. 

Patrick McCormick: Ah, I’d love to ask Angee, but I won’t since I know her. So I’m gonna ask Greg a question ’cause I wanna follow up on the whole rate thing. Angee and I are again, very aggressive in yield management and using dynamic pricing, but, what, in terms of what you’re seeing across the industry, are you seeing rates actually being pushed to where they should be?

Or are you seeing more like what Kevin is, where it’s like, Ooh, I hate to raise rates on people or I’m afraid people won’t buy. What are you seeing currently happening? I know we’re on the same page of where we think it should be. 

Greg Emmert: And thanks for calling on me first. ‘ cause some of these people down here would’ve asked me like a really hard question, so this is a good one.

Thank you. So I’m seeing, so yes to all, I would say I see both, but then I’m seeing a third thing happening that I think could be, it not, could be, but is problematic for some operators. And Mike is, what time is your session today? 

Mike Harrison: 11:30. 

Greg Emmert: 11:30 AM He’s gonna, I am, but a student, I would say he is the master when it comes to, to rate revenue management.

So we’ll see if Mike agrees. But I would say that two things are happening. You have the smaller, like single park operators like I was, or maybe like you guys are right? You’re mom and pop, you’re we are always hesitant to raise our rates. I had a very similar dynamic to yours. I, my, my mom and I were like, look, we’ve, we went two years without a rate increase.

I’m pretty sure we’re losing money. This is early on before we had learned the business side. And my dad would consistently say but if we raise rates, everyone will leave. They’re all gonna leave ’cause that other guy is cheaper. And I’m like, have you been to that other guy’s campground?

It’s got, so anyway, and that’s only one part of setting rates. I don’t wanna get into your talk, but so that’s one problem. One, one issue, let’s say. Another one is that through the pandemic there’s this surge in camping because everybody can go outside. And I think people at a certain point started to believe that they could just charge anything they wanted.

And granted demand, I think, drove that for a lot of them. Because if your park is full day after day, okay, supply demand you can increase your rates, you should increase your rates. But there’s also market data now to show that the camping public is really feeling squeezed because, so we did all that at the same time that wages weren’t outpacing inflation.

And so yes, maybe the demand is there, but we took the camping public and shrunk. It was this really wide pool. Sorry, Mike. Now it’s shrinking a bit, right? It’s fewer and fewer people are able to afford certain parks. Now does that drive other ones to chase affordability Maybe. But. I don’t know.

I guess to answer your question it’s yes to all. And I see it, it’s got positives and negatives. If you can get that higher ADR consistently and you’re full, that’s great because I’m certainly not advocating for anyone to lower their rates or stay artificially low to, to price yourself for a certain subset of campers.

But at the same time, if affordability is part of your core values and that’s part of your mission, okay. You can also do things to, to decompress rates, right? Keep certain sites at a certain price level, but then increase offerings on other ones. So you’re capturing a wider, you’re casting a wider net, right?

So that when somebody comes in, they don’t see, oh, they’ve got a $50 site and a $60 site, and that’s the end of it. Maybe it’s $50, $60, $70, $80, and then you’ve got accommodation starting from there. It decompresses the rates, helps that a little bit. I’m starting to realize that I’m rambling and I should give the microphone to somebody else, but did I answer your question?

I don’t even know if I answered. Okay. I answered the question. So back now? 

Brian Searl: No. Now you gotta ask somebody. 

Greg Emmert: Now I’m gonna ask you a question? 

Brian Searl: Yep. 

Greg Emmert: Grade my performance. Yeah. Give them some actual, you gr, first grade my performance, and then give them the Grand Cuba rate and revenue management without tipping your hand too much, and we want people to show up to your session so you don’t wanna get mulled in. 

Mike Harrison: So that’s a, that wasn’t a question. It, those are, 

Greg Emmert: yes. Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: Okay. 

Greg Emmert: That was all right. Would you like me to frame this question now? Try. I feel like I’m on jeopardy. How did I perform in my response to, I almost said Delaney, Patrick.

And then what would be your take on the current situation of rate and revenue management? Industry wide. 10, 10,000 foot view. 

Mike Harrison: Thank you for the excellent question. I would give you an A minus. I think it was very good. And the only reason I don’t give you an A is I just have a little bit, I would add one more sentence onto it.

I think you, you answered the question very well and I think the answer to your question is, it depends, right? And my answer to that would be rev pass, not necessarily ADR. And I don’t know if you know what rev pass is Revenue per available site. And so every property is gonna have a different answer to the rev pass question and your customer, your demand and your market will tell you what that is. And one of the things, the second half of our mission statement is to offer accessible luxury value and fulfillment. And does value mean cheap? No value means the price that somebody’s willing to pay for your services.

And so what is the best value that your campground can offer. And so I would, suppose if you wanna, use a supposition that can you raise your rates? It depends, right? If you’re at a 4.7, which, and you’d mentioned you’re the highest, reputation management driven property in the entire county, then, without any other data, the answer is yes, probably, right?

I’m a revenue management puba, however. In my budget for one of my properties for 2026, we realized we’re not as smart as we think we are. And we’ve been leaving considerable rate on our table at one of our properties, and we have a strategy for next year to raise that property’s ADR by $25. Total ADR, it’d be worth $2 million if it’s successful.

And we realized that we weren’t following our own rules and we are clearly the best property in the county, but it’s a ramp property. It’s new. And we’re going after business and it just doesn’t only mean it’s gonna drive occupancy and if we put our rates up to where they should be are we gonna lose any less occupancy?

Probably a little, if I lose a hundred thousand dollars but I gain 1.9 million, what’s the trade off? So I think the answer to that question is, it depends and you focus on rev pass, and that’ll help you get the answer to that question.

I have a question for Terry. I would love to understand and know how you came up with the concept and developed the retreat?

Terry Munoz: The concept to develop it. I, I put boots on the ground and I looked at this property that just chased the, down to the water. Ran down to the water, and it was a challenge with topography as well as, being in the city of Houston and having permitting through that jurisdiction. But I just envisioned a a property that stepped its way down toward the water because as we all know, when we have a property we always look for that destination location or something that has a great presence in the market.

And water. Being on water is typically your number one amenity followed by your swimming pool. If you’re, if you’re not on water your pool and your amenity core, everybody goes to that. But just building it around that and tearing it down toward the property. And then being creative with floodplain.

I know Greg said this in the perspective owners workshop. Just try to stay in Zone X, but my comment is don’t be afraid to explore. Below that with creativity, right? You, we can put things in the floodplain. The code says we could put RVs in the floodplain. Now jurisdictionally, that’s a challenge, but that’s what we did.

We utilized that property to its max with the amount of floodplain that was there. And a backstory to that property. It was originally going to be large acre home sites, but because of Hurricane Harvey and the city building codes changed because the city has jurisdiction all around that wa, that body of water.

They could no longer do that. So someone in the room said, Hey, what about an RV Park? Those are being built everywhere. And someone said that’s great. We don’t know anything about RV Park. So I was lucky in that regard because they found me and recruited me to do that. But it was, again, a rewarding experience.

But to answer your question, just being creative and creating that that core area out of the floodplain some properties surrounding it, and just utilizing, maximizing that property down toward the water. 

Mike Harrison: Follow up? 

Terry Munoz: What’s that? 

Mike Harrison: A follow up. 

Terry Munoz: Oh, a follow up. 

Mike Harrison: So while you’re talking, this wasn’t originally part of my question, but as Texas, released a new law about submitting the FEMA plan for any properties in her floodplain.

Considering about the retreat, obviously what happened to Kerrville, if you were building it today, would you build it exactly the same way? 

Terry Munoz: That’s a great question. And this came up actually in a session yesterday that we had a breakout session. It was actually a follow up to the perspective owners workshop.

We had a a session and it did come up because yes, there are some changes and we have to be mindful of that. And, jurisdictions are gonna be more stringent even though there’s some guidelines that allow you to build, but it depends on what that body of water does.

What are the characteristics of it? Does it rise slowly or is it a raging river? And I think we need to address that as we look because there’s huge opportunity to develop a floodplain. But what does that floodplain look like? I’ve managed a property under my watch when I was a regional manager for ELS that was on the Colorado River in Columbus, Texas.

We had 24, 28, 36 hours notice of when the Colorado River was gonna crest, and we had 88 sites down by the river that we knew, Hey, it’s time to go move picnic tables. It’s time to get people moved. And we had a restroom in that section that was built out of CMU block. So it was designed to go underwater and we could clean it up and open it back up.

But that over the years that I had that property, it went underwater three or four times, but we were able to recover. So that would’ve be a case where you could plan for that and ask for a variance request or whatever you needed to be able to build in that 100 year floodplains.

Oh my gosh. You can put me on the spot. I have, I’ve got nothing. Let’s see. What can I ask? 

Oh I wanna ask all of you, I’m big in, into to fundraising, so I wanna challenge all of you to come up with ideas to help me in that regard. But, Erica, how do you think the foundation did with its fundraising efforts at this year’s conference, and what do you think we could do to going forward to help generate additional interest in donating and helping to support disaster relief and education?

Erica Edmonds: Yeah. Thank you for that question and it’s a great question and the OHI Foundation does a great job of being present at these events and just showcasing what they’re all about. We got the YP’s involved this year with the t-shirts with, you know how to donate on the back of the t-shirt from the event that we had last night.

And, if they selected to wear one of those t-shirts ’cause we had a select view number. They were challenged to ask anyone on the expo floor if they would like to donate, and I think that’s just, it’s getting the young professionals involved. They wanna be involved, they wanna be useful and they’re a hungry group of individuals.

And they’re also looking for opportunities to, to go and be boots on the ground. They’re looking for ways to give back when natural disasters and things like that happen to parks around the country. And, so I think just visibility overall. We wanna be out there, we wanna make a mark, we wanna be seen and we want to show the community what we’re capable of doing and what we’re capable of providing.

And, fun videos and pictures and comments and interviews and all that stuff. It just creates that visibility and helps, further extend the arm of what we’re doing. And I think that if we keep that up, our efforts won’t come back void. Yeah, of course. Let’s see.

David, what do you see happening at next year’s conference in Texas with OHI as far as the theme and how everybody can get involved and what you guys need headed into that event? 

David Basler: The theme is easy because Fort Worth just makes its own theme, right? We cowboy hat theme. I imagine at some point there will be some sort of mechanical bull of some, I would guess, so if Fort Worth is gonna be a fun community, fun town to, to go to what was the second part of the question?

Erica Edmonds: What do you need how. 

David Basler: Oh. I think the number one thing you can do to make the event great is go home and tell all your friends how much fun you had at this one, and how much you learned, and how much you networked and all the things. And tell ’em why they should come to Fort Worth. For sure. Be our voice out in the community on social media.

When you’re talking face to face, when you’re at your state association, show, whatever. Tell ’em, Hey, you gotta be at OHCE. Yeah, thanks for asking. 

Angela, you haven’t had a question yet, right? What do you value most about being a member of the OHI community? 

Angela Cozik : What do I value most? You guys do a lot of lobbying for the campground industry, and I do appreciate that because obviously as a small campground I have no pull or say so that is important to me. Indiana, the, our state of Indiana has also done a lot in the state to lobby and create laws that help protect campgrounds.

So I feel like that’s very important to me. But honestly, I enjoy these kind of things. And in my previous industry we used to do this kind of stuff, but it wasn’t nearly as fun. We’re like the fun industry. This is what we do. We, we f we come here and figure out how to work hard at being more fun for our campers.

So I appreciate that. I love the expo. There, there’s always new stuff here that I didn’t know existed and didn’t know I must have, so I always find stuff like that. But, and then just the long-term relationships that, that you build. The, I’m still in contact with people that I met the very first the time I was here. So I think that’s really cool. I have a campground now that whenever I travel down to Florida that I stop at because it’s halfway for me and it’s somebody that I met that very first time. I think that those are the things for me that are important. 

Mike Harrison: I just wanna offer a follow up to what you had said and get on my high horse for a second, on behalf of David, you had said we appreciate OHI lobbying, we’re a little campground, what can we do? And so what I would offer up is, that’s a great point. You can do a lot. And OHI regularly lobbies on the hill and we have a voice. And so they a lot of times will ask and reach out to campgrounds and say, Hey, we need you to go speak to your senator.

And they’ll bring the campgrounds with them. And that’s made a difference. We’ve had some wins with the Credit Card Competition Act and some of the other, bills that OHI has been working on behalf of you. And so the little guy matters, Scott from Sonoran Desert RV Park and, other, campground owners and managers have been.

And so I just wanna offer that a perspective is, on behalf of David and the organization, anybody can help and please, participate when they ask for service. That’s a way that we can help. Service the industry. To get on my high horse there, and it wasn’t in dispute there, but I think that’s an important point.

Brian Searl: Alright, so for everybody who’s watching at home, you can see we did this at a special time. We’ve got about two minutes maybe here. You can see everybody’s packing up behind us on the expo floor, but that’s why we did our show a little bit earlier. So I just wanna rapid fire go around. Patrick and Angela, can you tell us where we can, they can find more information about your campground.

Patrick McCormick: You can go to our website camphappyacres.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Camp happy Acres. 

Brian Searl: And how about the Delaney’s? 

Patrick McCormick: Oh, yeah. Travels with Delaney. We’re primarily on YouTube, Travels with Delaney. We also have a podcast. Travels with Delaney, the podcast, very creative title. And then we also are on Facebook and Instagram. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Greg, Vireo? 

Greg Emmert: Thank you. Yeah, you can find out more about me and what I do for Outdoor Hospitality at growwithverio.com. 

Mike Harrison: You can find out about CRR on www.crrhospitality.com or coming soon to the S’mores podcast because allegedly or many different ways that we’re happy to help him participate in the industry or follow Sammy and Calvin on Instagram, which are dogs.

Erica Edmonds: You can find out more about the Talk S’more podcast and myself on our socials, Facebook and Instagram. And I would challenge all of you to join me on my podcast. These conversations have been so great. I can’t wait to talk more with each of you. And thank you to my sponsors OHI and New Book. And you can check out their websites as well. newbook.cloud and OHI.org. 

Terry Munoz: Awesome. You can find out more about me and the firm at campgroundconsulting.com. Look there for all your needs for full service consulting, everything except management, and that’s when you look to Mike. But also I also do a lot of certified pool operator training.

I do a big class through OHI. Watch for that. That’ll be announced. And love to get your folks certified through that as well. 

David Basler: You can connect with OHI at ohi.org and the marketplace on ohi.org. You can connect with all of our supplier members through some of whom were here at the show.

And obviously you can connect in person at OHCE and OHI Connect and National School and all throughout the year. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. For everybody who’s watching at home, obviously you should be here with all of us. So come here next year. But thank you to David, Terry, Erica, Mike, Greg, Angela, and Patrick for joining us on another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

We’ll see you guys next week. Take care guys.