Bob Martin is the President and CEO of Thor Industries, Inc. The Elkhart, Indiana-based company builds motorized recreational vehicles and travel trailers under 17 different brand names, including Airstream, Thor Motor Coach, Starcraft, Jayco and Keystone RV.
In an interview, President and CEO Bob Martin was asked this question. "Did you start camping before you started with Thor? Tell me a little about your history."
Bob Martin answered: "I've been involved in it for many years. I've grown up to it through the industry but really, I didn't get into it until my 20s but I'm very typical for many people that are in the lifestyle. I graduated from Purdue University in 1993 and I came back to the Elkhart area and started as a trainee in sales for Coachmen Industries. At Coachmen, they had travel trailers and motorhomes. They had a demo fleet of motorhomes. I camped with friends growing up, but we never owned one. Really going out for the first time by myself was at Coachmen in a small Class C, and then every year we would take a different model."
He also said that he worked there for five years and then I moved to a company called Keystone when it was a small start-up. I was a salesman with Keystone. It was at that point that I bought a used 1986 Travel Craft motorhome with another friend of mine, and we just started using it on the weekend.
Thor purchased Keystone, and when we became part of Thor. We have an employee purchase program, so I bought my first new motorhome. That was probably in the early 2000s. and you find it's a bit addictive.
He also said that he had watched customers that trade up through the cycle and I'm one of those customers, too. I've now had two Class Cs and four Class As. I just bought my newest one last year and my job tonight is to go home and load it up because we're heading down to a football game this weekend and we're camping out.
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