By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
modendahl@etruth.com
MIDDLEBURY -- Deciding to build and sell recreational vehicles was not an original idea in 1964 in Elkhart County.
By the mid-1960s, companies manufacturing the units crowded the county and employed significant numbers of residents in the area. Consequently when the three Corson brothers -- Claude, Tom and Keith -- leased a single-story cement brick building, once home to a farm implement store, to make RVs, the reaction may very well have been a shrug.
However, Claude Corson was young and confident.
"I always felt Coachmen would really have a lot to offer the world," he recalled recently.
Forty-four years later, Coachmen Industries Inc. is a flagship business in the recreational vehicle and manufactured housing industries. It rose to become a Fortune 500 company, training many executives who went on to work at other RV manufacturers or started their own companies and, for many years, setting the standard for the entire industry.
On Nov. 21, Coachmen announced it was selling its RV Group to Forest River and concentrating on the manufactured housing and specialty vehicle divisions. The Corson brothers were reluctant to discuss the sale, noting they have been out of the business for several years, but they did reminisce about the early days and ruminate on what made Coachmen a successful company.
"It was wonderful," Keith Corson said. "It was just a lot of fun starting a company from scratch."
According to Keith Corson, Claude was the idea man, Tom handled the finances and he was the operations manager. Eventually their sister, the late Rosalie Corson, joined the company to do the advertising and public relations. Like all siblings they argued at times, but, Keith Corson said, not only did they know they could trust each other, they knew at the end of the day they were still family.
"We all had strengths and weakness," he said. "I had most of the weaknesses."
The first travel trailer, 14 feet in length, rolled off the production line in June 1964 and by the end of the year 12 others had followed along with one truck camper and 80 truck caps. Sales that first year topped $23,600.
While other RV manufacturers closed during the winter months and laid off their workers, the Corsons kept their plant operating to keep the good employees, Keith Corson said. They also helped the dealers, many of whom sold RVs part time from the front yards of their homes, by holding special seminars to teach them how to sell and service the units.
Although the brothers originally named their venture the Corson Car and Coach Co., they changed it to Coachmen after Tom Corson spied a sign to the Coachman hotel while driving to Pittsburgh. They switched the last vowel in the name to an "e" because, Tom Corson wrote in 1997, "we knew it would take a lot of good men and women -- not any one individual -- who would make Coachmen a great company some day."
Shortly after the Coachman began, one of the factory workers brought in a Dalmatian dog. Since Dalmatians were known as "coach dogs," the executives kept the pooch, allowed it to roam the office and manufacturing complex, and incorporated its image into the company logo. Keith Corson remembered one salesman regularly sleeping in the office with the dog, "Pete," beside him.
Adhering to their Midwestern values, the brothers followed the Golden Rule and made their word their bond, Tom Corson said. They instituted the "Buck Stopper Warranty," which meant they took care of any problems with the unit or the components. Until then, a malfunction with a part often required the dealer to find the supplier and then try to negotiate a remedy.
In addition, the brothers kept their home telephone numbers listed in the phone book so anyone who had a problem with a Coachmen product would know who to call. Keith Corson remembered a man calling him one evening from a campground.
"That's all we talked about," Keith Corson said. "We were hell on quality, service and warranty."
Two years after Coachmen Industries built its first RV, it reached $1 million in sales; in 1968 it produced 4,000 units. A year later, the company went public, selling 200,000 shares of common stock at $8.88 a share. The goal was to produce a complete line of towable and motorhome products and to build a network of dealers who sold Coachmen units exclusively.
Coachmen as a brand developed a solid reputation and became attractive to other manufacturers. Thor Industries, parent company of Airstream, Keystone, Damon and Dutchmen, unsuccessfully attempted to take over the company in 2000.
"We were on the Fortune 500 twice," Keith Corson said. "We just had a hell of a company. Naturally, I think we were doing the right thing."
Claude Corson left the company in 1970 and Keith left to pursue other interests in 1982 but returned in 1991. He retired in 2000, leaving his niece, Claire C. Skinner, who was already the Coachmen's chairwoman and chief executive officer, to run the company.
Tom Corson retired in 1997. Skinner retired as CEO and resigned from the company's board of directors in 2006.
Keith Corson said he is not mad that the company he and his brothers poured their "tears and blood" into is being sold.
"It just makes me sad," he said. "When you put everything you got into something and you see it piddled away."
His brothers have a more tempered point of view.
Tom Corson, who still owns "quite a lot" of Coachmen shares, said the RV business has become difficult in the last several year and the $4 a gallon fuel prices coupled with the freeze in the credit market created conditions worse than previous downturns. Berkshire Hathaway, parent company of Forest River, has deep pockets and, therefore, can better weather this recession.
"I wish them very well with the Coachmen brand name," Tom Corson said, "and I wish Coachmen Industries continued success in the manufactured housing industry."
Claude Corson called the founding of Coachmen "a good old Elkhart, Ind., experience," and he described the individuals associated with the RV industry as "the finest people in the world." Even though he is no longer involved with RVs, he follows the industry and will be watching Forest River and its CEO, Pete Liegl, as they purchase the company he started.
"I'd like to see Pete do something great with it," Claude Corson said. "We sure had a fantastic beginning."