Louisville 2009 Part 8: Behind the Scenes Wrap Up

Gordon White | Monday, 07 December, 2009

Here's a behind the scenes look at our Louisville 2009 experience. We meet industry leaders, produce a video, attend an annual party, and much more...

While the main purpose of Louisville is for the manufacturers to pitch their new products to dealerships, a lot more goes on. Industry leaders share their insights on the economy and new product innovations. New contacts are made. Fresh opportunities are sparked. And old industry friends catch up, laugh, and generally have a good time. It’s a lot of hard work, but Louisville is also a very important networking and social event. The following is a short behind the scenes look at our experience at Louisville 2009.

The day before the big show, we walked the Kentucky Expo floor to see what camper models were brought and who was there. In the Lance booth, we caught up with Bob Livingston, Publisher of Trailer Life and Motorhome Magazines. As I like to do, I talked to Bob about his Camper Coachman days and let him know how I have learned so much from what he and then Publisher, Bill Estes, accomplished.

Now this is truly a rare group shot. From left to right; Burk Morgan, Adventurer’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Rex Willett, Vice President of Northstar Campers, Bill Penney, Owner of East End Campers, Jay Taylor, Torklift International’s General Manager, and Jack Kay, Torklift International’s Principal. Look at those tough guys. Look at those big smiles. Yeah, we’re truck camper people. Don’t mess with us!

A big surprise during Louisville 2009 was when Tom Hanagan, President of Four Wheel and Six-Pac Campers, called to tell us that he had decided to attend the show last minute. We quickly added him to our dinner list that evening and enjoyed catching up. During dinner, Tom told us about some exciting new developments at both Four Wheel and Six-Pac Campers. We can't wait to learn more and break the news here in Truck Camper Magazine.

The above photo was taken in the main hall on the second day. In front of the lens from left to right are Tom Hanagan, President of Four Wheel and Six-Pac Campers, Angela White, TCM’s esteemed Editor, and Bob McCarthy, President of Rieco-Titan Products, Inc.

Bob was attending the show with his full line of camper jacks and some exciting new products for the RV industry. Although the new products are not designed for truck campers, it’s good to see Rieco-Titan further diversify and strengthen it's product line.

During our video production at Northern Lite, Jeff Johnston, writer for Trailer Life and a TCM contributor, stopped by and took a few photographs as we interviewed Keith Donkin, Northern Lite’s General Manager. Jeff is hoping to put a blurb about our Louisville video coverage in some other media, which we really appreciate.

We heard rumors that Donnie Mills of Conibear RV was at the show, but we were highly skeptical. You see, we had never met or seen a photograph of Donnie despite Conibear RV’s sponsorship of Truck Camper Magazine for the past two years. It was truly a pleasure to finally meet Donnie and we’re looking forward to visiting his dealership later this winter. Keep Florida warm for us Donnie.

On the second day of the show, Angela bumped into Marty Rasmussen, Happijac's founder. Since the 1960’s Marty has been inventing and bringing to market popular truck camper products including tie-downs, turnbuckles, and jacks. At the show, Marty showed Angela his most recent RV invention, an outdoor kitchen slide mechanism for towable RVs. While the new slide mechanism is not a truck camper product (yet), we are proud to see Marty still at it and continuing to successfully bring his creative ideas to the RV marketplace. Go Marty!

Wednesday night brought chills for me. It was exactly one year to the day that I got into a car accident on my way to the annual Affinity Group party. With Angela driving, we got to the party safely this year. As we walked in several industry leaders teased me about finally making it. All in good fun.

As is the Affinity Group party tradition, the Louisville Bagpipe Band played. After a heat warming tribute to recently passed Wade Thompson, Co-Founder of Thor Industries, we talked to the RV industry leaders and relaxed. Good times.

At the end of day three, we stopped by the Palomino booth to take some final photographs. We also got Gene Cronin, Palomino’s National Sales Manager, on camera to talk about Palomino’s 2010 camper line. Gene wasn’t exactly in the mood for being on camera, but he did an excellent job as you will soon see.

After the long days at the show, Angela and I would go back to our hotel and post as much content on Truck Camper Magazine as possible before our energy faded. In the photograph, I’m sending out Email Alert #363 from our hotel room. Thank you to all of our readers who make Truck Camper Magazine possible. You rock!

Another nice surprise was meeting Paul Gibson, SuperSprings new Midwest Regional Sales Manager. Paul was a big part of the SumoSprings development team and we look forward to talking to him in the future about the new product.

All in all, Louisville 2009 was a big success. The dealers were very optimistic about 2010. The manufacturers reported strong camper sales. There were three new 2010 truck campers to check out. And I didn’t total the car. What more could we ask for?