Armed with spreadsheets and sales projections, Derald Bontrager and key executives at Jayco huddled in the fall of 2008 to figure out how their recreational vehicle manufacturing company could reduce costs enough to survive the depths of the recession.
Again and again, they met during the next several months, each time realizing more jobs held by local workers had to be eliminated. And in a family-owned business like Jayco, which is based in Middlebury, laying off people is personal.
“That was the most difficult and challenging part of the downturn,” said Bontrager, president and chief operating officer at Jayco, which laid off more than half of its work force, or about 1,300 people, between late 2008 and mid-2009. During that time, Jayco also closed two subsidiary companies, Starcraft RV and Entegra Coach, whose brands were absorbed into Jayco.
Copyright © 2025, South Bend Tribune