RV News & Notes: May 2002

Book Helps Travelers Tune In

The sixth edition of William Hutchings’ book Radio on the Road: the Traveler’s Companion ($16.95, Arrowhead Publishing) is now available to help motorhomers and other road travelers find their favorite radio programming no matter where they are.

The new edition includes listings — separated by state and province — for more than 15,000 AM and FM radio stations in the United States and Canada. Each listing gives the station’s primary broadcast format (news, talk, sports, etc.), frequency, and call letters. The book also includes network affiliate listings for all 30 Major League Baseball teams and for 31 National Football League teams. (The new Houston Texans franchise is not included.) New to this edition is an expanded National Public Radio section that lists nearly 1,200 NPR stations throughout the United States (including repeaters and translators) and an expanded section to help travelers find shows by some of the country’s most popular talk radio personalities.

The book is available to FMCA members at a special price of $12.95, which includes shipping and handling. To receive the special rate, send a check and your address to: Arrowhead Publishing, 1970 N. Leslie, #760, Pahrump, NV 89060. Telephone and credit card orders are not available from the publisher. The book also is sold through online booksellers.

Owners of the 21-acre Crown Villa RV Park, C2573, located in Bend, Oregon, have announced that they will spend $2 million to renovate and convert the park to an ownership-based motorhome-only resort.

The newly named Crown Villa Motorcoach Resort is in the process of undergoing numerous changes and improvements, including a new 3,500-square-foot craftsman-style clubhouse with a private owner’s lounge, fitness center, and hobby/craft room. Extensive changes also are being made to the existing 2,150-square-foot clubhouse.

Each of the resort’s 106 lots will include a 23-foot-by-73-foot pad with decorative paving stones, room for towed vehicle parking, patio lighting, and a private storage facility. Each lot will back up to landscaped open spaces ranging from two to five acres. Tennis courts; horseshoe pits; a grass putting green; and numerous water features, including waterfalls, ponds, and streams, will be added to the grounds.

The resort is located just minutes from downtown Bend, and convenient to the region’s numerous recreation areas.

Each lot will cost $175,000 and include an undivided interest in the resort itself. Ownership reservations are currently being accepted and sales will be finalized beginning this summer. Construction should be completed by fall 2002. For more information, call (866) 500-5300.

Beginning on June 14, 2002, the area serviced by the 219 area code in northern Indiana will officially split into three separate geographic areas, each with its own area code. On that date, those calling north central Indiana, including the Elkhart/South Bend area, will be required to dial 574 instead of 219. The 219 area code will still be used in northwestern Indiana (Gary/Lake County). The third area code, 260, will be required for calls to northeastern Indiana (Fort Wayne).

The change, which was initiated by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, went into effect on January 15, 2002. Since then, dialers could use either 219 or the new area code for the specific geographic region. On June 14, calls will not be completed without the new area code. For 45 days after June 14, if the wrong area code is dialed, the caller will hear an intercept message explaining that they must redial using the new area code.

The change will impact numerous motorhome manufacturers, suppliers, and dealers that operate in north central Indiana.

Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. recently announced several senior management changes in accordance with a transition plan approved by the company’s board of directors several years ago.

Glenn F. Kummer has retired from his position as chairman of the board but will continue as a director to assist during the transition period. Mr. Kummer was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer in 1998 when the company’s founder, John Crean, announced his retirement. Prior to that, Mr. Kummer had served as president and chief operating officer for 16 years. He began working at Fleetwood in 1965 as part of the company’s management training program.

Also leaving the company is Nelson W. Potter, who resigned from his position as president and CEO, as well as from his seat on the board of directors. Mr. Potter assumed the CEO position last year. Prior to that he had served as president and chief operating officer and also in various senior management positions during his 30-year tenure with the company. Mr. Potter, who expressed a desire to pursue other interests, will remain available to Fleetwood on a consulting basis.

Fleetwood’s board of directors has formed a search committee to select a new president and CEO. During the interim, board member Thomas B. Pitcher, a retired senior partner of a law firm, has been appointed chairman of the board. David S. Engelman, a board member and director of MGIC Investment Corporation, was selected to take over as interim company president and CEO.

Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. is the parent company of Fleetwood RV, a leading manufacturer of type A and type C motorhomes.

Scenic America, a national scenic conservation organization, is accepting nominations for its 2002 Last Chance Landscapes program. A Last Chance Landscape can be a scenic vista, a distinct region, an urban neighborhood, or some other place people cherish and want to preserve from such influences as billboards, cell phone towers, strip malls, and road widening. The endangered landscapes are places of beauty or distinctive community character with both a pending threat and a potential solution.

“Often we look around our communities and countryside and ask, ‘How did this happen?'” said Meg Maguire, president of Scenic America. “The challenge is to take action before it’s too late to protect scenic landscapes, save open space, preserve community character, and ensure a better quality of life for future generations.”

Nominees selected to the 2001 Last Chance Landscapes list included the state of Oregon; Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island; Washington, D.C.; and the Woodberry Watershed Forest in Baltimore, Maryland.

Nominations for the 2002 list are due by June 1, 2002. The nomination form can be printed from the organization’s Web site, www.scenic.org, or requested from Scenic America by calling (202) 543-6200, extension 18. There is no fee to submit a nomination.

Two of the most heavily traveled states — California and Florida — have recently implemented new interstate exit numbering systems that correspond to the nearest highway mileposts.

In separate announcements made during late January 2002, both the California Department of Transportation and the Florida Department of Transportation revealed that they would immediately begin to change the signage along their interstates to make traveling safer and more convenient for motorists. With the mileage-based exit signs, travelers can easily determine their position along the highway, figure out the remaining distance to a destination, and in the case of an emergency, indicate more precisely where they are. The new milepost exit numbering system also will make the numbering of future exits or interchanges more consistent when they are added to the interstate.

Most states already use the milepost numbering system. In California and Florida, exits will be numbered from south to north and west to east and be determined by the number of miles from the beginning of the route. For example, in California, exit 1 on Interstate 5 will be the first exit north of the Mexican border and numbering will continue to the last off-ramp, exit 796, before the highway enters Oregon. In Florida, exit 5 will be the first off-ramp from Interstate 10, 5 miles east of the Alabama border near Pensacola. The last off-ramp will be exit 362 in Jacksonville.

Before the change, California’s off-ramps were marked only by the names of the local streets connecting to the interstate. The street names will remain, with the numbers added. The project will place more than 23,000 signs along California’s interstates during the next three years.

Before the new system was introduced in Florida, a consecutive numbering system was used. Advance guide signs and exit markers will display both the old and new numbers for two years. The new signs should be in place throughout the state by July 2002.

Home & Park Motorhomes, C3790, manufacturer of Roadtrek type B motorhomes, received ISO 9001:2000 certification on December 14, 2001, from QMI, a division of the Canadian Standards Association.

To become ISO (International Organization for Standardization) registered, a company must adhere to or implement a set of established quality management system requirements that assure the quality of the service or product being covered. The ISO 9001:2000 registration is part of a revised set of standards (December 2000) that also take performance improvement and environmental issues into account.

The certification process took nearly 18 months at Home & Park Motorhomes, said Pete Mateja, president and CEO. During that time, the company implemented numerous quality initiatives to meet the ISO requirements. “This involved everyone who works here,” Mr. Mateja said. “We found that communication was critical. We changed our policies and procedures. Now, if there’s a problem with one of our vehicles, we have a huge database that we can look at to see how the problem might have occurred.”

Mr. Mateja said that even before the company received its ISO registration, he could see a significant difference in the product leaving the plant. “Since we began adding these quality initiatives, we’ve seen our warranty expenses drop by 50 percent,” he said. “To me, that was proof that we were creating a quality system.”

Home & Park Motorhomes is based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. For more information about the company or Roadtrek motorhomes, call (888) 762-3873 or visit www.roadtrek.com.

Kampgrounds of America (KOA) recently purchased the Barcadia Campground, located at the northern tip of Maine’s Mount Desert Island and just minutes from Acadia National Park. It has been renamed the Bar Harbor KOA.

The Bar Harbor KOA, C6212, is KOA’s 13th company-owned campground; it joins other resort-style camping facilities in locations such as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and the Florida Keys. KOA also has more than 500 franchised campgrounds in its system.

Shane Ott, vice president of KOA’s Company-Owned Properties division, said few changes need to be made to the campground. “This beautiful 200-site campground is a wonderful addition to our family of resort-oriented facilities,” he said.

The campground, with its panoramic views of Western Bay and the rocky Maine coastline north of Bar Harbor, has served campers for more than 40 years. It will reopen for the 2002 season on May 1

Lord Corporation, based in Cary, North Carolina, has acquired Goodrich Corporation’s Velvet-Ride and Torsilastic product lines.

Lord Corporation will support Goodrich’s current customer base. Production of the company’s patented Velvet-Ride suspension system and Torsilastic rubber spring technology was to be relocated from Jacksonville, Florida, to Lord Corporation’s Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, manufacturing facility during the first quarter of 2002.

Lord Corporation’s current offerings for the industrial market include a variety of rubber-to-metal bonded mounts, couplings, bushings, and isolators, as well as fluid-filled damping devices, active noise and structural control systems, and magnetically controllable devices. The company has manufacturing plants in seven states and operations in 10 countries. For more information, visit www.lordmpd.com