New RV Company Buys Coachmen Manufacturing Facility

Evergreen Recreational Vehicles, a new RV company formed in December 2008, has completed the purchase of the Coachmen Complex in Middlebury Indiana.

Coachmen Industries, Inc. announced earlier that it had closed on the sale of nearly all of the assets of its Recreation Vehicle business to Forest River, Inc. The sale had been overwhelmingly approved by the Shareholders the previous week. Coachmen headquarters will remain in Elkhart Indiana, and the company will now focus exclusively on its systems-built housing division and its growing specialty vehicle business.

According to company president Doug Lantz, Evergreen will make fifth wheels and travel trailers under the name of Ever-Lite in the 146,000 square foot state-of-the art facility that sits on 29.6 acres in Middlebury. Their initial towables will range in the 4,000 to 5,000 pound range and retail under $20,000.

“We had been working on for the last three years a new type of construction product called, ComposiTek,” Lantz said of the trademarked construction material he described as consisting of various types of composite materials that are green, formaldehyde free and water and mildew resistant. “It’s replacing wood in the construction process to give us lighter weight, stronger more durable and thus a higher quality product.”

The first prototype goes online and starts manufacturing next week, Lantz said, and EverGreen plans to start full production the first week of March.

By this summer, Lantz hopes to have 50 people working there and be producing five units a day. The company already employs 18. And by the summer of 2010, the goal is to employ 100. Considering the first 18 people are all former RV personnel who were laid off at other companies, yet have more than 200 years’ combined experience in the industry, Lantz has high hopes.

“We were able to take the good things we worked on and were able to put people back to work and continue moving forward with ComposiTek materials and processes we were working on then,” he said. “We will actually be able to take it to the next level very quickly with Kelly Rose and Mike Schoeffler with us. They are all about doing things right.”

In fact, the company plans to take advantage of the current slow market for RVs and work on building the company properly, Lantz said.

“One of the things we are focusing on is people, processes and the product,” he said. “We understand the market is subdued right now. We are focusing more on structure and getting the system down.”

Another focus is green, he said.

“We are focusing on the eco-friendly process, not only in how we build and manufacture at the plant but the product itself,” Lantz said.

“For the consumer and the environment it’s win-win,” he added. “It’s better for everybody.”