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Scott Schmidt Incoming State President
A January morning, 1975. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Air temperature,
roughly zero. Wind Chill, 30 below. Navy veteran and prairie native
Scott Schmidt packs a bag, makes it to the airport and catches a
plane south, all the way to Florida, where he will visit his aunt.
"When I walked off the plane that day, the weather was perfect,"
he recalls with a smile. "I thought, ‘This is where I
want to be for the rest of my life."
And what a life. Now 30 years later, Schmidt is general manager
of Emerald Coast RV Center in Gulf Breeze near Pensacola, Region
5, helping to run operations for the company's seven stores, located
throughout Florida and Alabama.
A believer in the value and quality of the RV Industry and its
broad family appeal, Schmidt takes the helm of the Florida RV Trade
Association as President, having recently been elected after completing
two terms as Vice President.
The weather may have influenced his choice of places to settle,
but Schmidt's own affability and integrity, and his sense of doing
things right, brought him into the RV Industry in the first place.
He had a basis of comparison to other businesses, too. As a young
man in Florida he tried selling cars. Then he sold boats. Finally,
at the suggestion of his close friend Fred Prince, in 1988 he went
to work selling RVs for Holiday RV Superstores in Tampa. In 1995,
he moved to Emerald Coast RV Center after his wife, Gail, met the
wife of the company's owner at an FRVTA meeting. Both the women
and the men became friends, and Schmidt was offered the general
manager position.
"I really enjoyed this business from the start," he explains.
"RV people are just a different kind of clientele altogether.
In 1988, when I got into the business they were all older, they
had money, they'd been through a war (World War II), and they were
good, solid, straight people. The financing part of it was so much
easier than in cars or boats."
Although the RV business is strong, Schmidt believes Florida RV
Dealers face significant challenges in the next decade, and how
they react to them may well determine how successful the RV Industry
remains into the middle of the century. He stopped to talk about
those challenges recently, and to shed insight about his new role
as President of the Florida RV Trade Association.
Q: You've spent years working your way up in the Florida
RV Trade Association, from Regional Secretary to State President.
Why put so much time and energy into it?
Schmidt: Well, it does take a lot of time. But I always believed
the Association encouraged the RV Lifestyle. They had clear direction,
great goals and I felt in the future it could only help the RV Industry.
And it's a terrific way to meet people in the same business.
Q: What did you learn as Vice President that can help you
serve as President?
Schmidt: As vice president I could see what all the other positions
could accomplish and how much we all work together, and the direction
our executive director wanted us to take. So just seeing where we
were going was invaluable.
Q: What do you see as your biggest challenge now in your
new office as President?
Schmidt: My greatest challenge is just to be as good as the previous
presidents were. One thing that's important: closer relationships
between the state trade association and the individual regions.
This will give them an opportunity to see where we're going, and
how much they can benefit from that. We're not like the federal
government, where you don't talk to the people running things. It's
more of a synergy with us. By talking to regional members you get
great ideas as to where they want to go.
Q: What are the biggest challenges the RV Industry faces
over the next 10 years?
Schmidt: The biggest challenge is how we can take care of the individual
RVer. One thing that could rear its head if we don't take care of
it is the strong need for a better relationship with campgrounds,
and all aspects of the RV Industry. We need to make sure that RV
people have nice places to go. That's very important to us. In the
RV Industry, we're all in the same boat. It's not just about selling
RVs, it's about servicing them and taking care of the customers,
and allowing them a place to go to enjoy themselves. That's huge!
Q: How are you going to accomplish that?
Schmidt: By talking to individual dealers and campground people,
by bringing us all together and making us aware we're all in same
boat. That's a big thing to me. Campgrounds have the same vested
interest that RV salespeople have.
Q: Sounds like a tough job. Do you get any help?
Schmidt: A tough job made easy by great people. Lance Wilson has
been Executive Director of the RV Trade Association for 15 years,
and he's the rock. And we have some very solid leadership and staff
members at the FRVTA State level, and that will make it much easier
for me.
Q: Finally, as President, what advice would you give to
people in the RV Industry?
Schmidt: My advice is kind of basic: Honesty and integrity are everything.
Customers are the first priority, and that campfire talk they have
at night means everything to our business. We want them to say,
‘I took an RV in and I didn't have to wait two weeks, and
I was treated right at such-and-such a place.' And always keep in
mind you may have to do things you don't really want to do, but
you still have to do the right thing. I think people basically in
their hearts know what the right thing is."
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