Curt Lawler

by Don Magary, Editor

One of the most respected and liked people in the RV industry is Curt Lawler, co-founder and new CEO of SMC Corporation (SMC).

Curt is the hand-picked partner of Mat Perlot, the founder and force behind Safari's success, and Curt is also Perlot's hand-picked successor to lead SMC since announcing his retirement last month.

We asked Perlot why he chose Lawler when he was considering launching a new RV company. He said, "I've known Curt since the 1970's when I was marketing director at Beaver and he was a Beaver dealer. We had become good friends over the years. So when I began thinking about starting Safari, I naturally turned to Curt.

"He knew the business from a dealer's angle and had lots of contacts in the industry, and I thought his background at United Airlines would come in handy from a production standpoint." Mat laughed and added, "Besides, I thought he might have some money."

For whatever reason, the chemistry between Mat and Curt seems to work and the success of SMC stands as testimony to their friendship as well as combined business acumen.

And whether it's winning over a life-threatening disease three years ago or building a winning formula in a variety of businesses, Curt Lawler is a man who does not accept defeat willingly.

So the success of SMC should not have come as a big surprise to anyone. In his 70-plus years, Lawler has enjoyed many successes. It started when he was a teenager and became a chicken rancher, followed by successful careers as an aircraft mechanic, an RV dealer, and finally an RV manufacturer - he seems to always rise to the top in whatever he decides to do. And when most people reach an age when they are eyeing a rocking chair and retirement, Curt Lawler started yet another career, stepping in to manage Beaver Motor Coaches when that company was on the edge of self-destruction.

Curt remembers when the decision was made to go ahead with the idea of starting the RV manufacturing company. He said, "Mat and I and our wives were on a cruise through the Panama Canal. We must have gotten bored because we sat in the ship's library and did some projections and planning, and decided when we got home we were going to start Safari. So in February 1987, we rented an 80,000-square-foot building in Eugene (Oregon), ordered a chassis or two and started building RVs. We put the first one together with a small crew and had our first showing on May 8. And it took off from there."

To hear Curt tell it, starting a new motorhome manufacturing company was easy. However, the success was a phenomenon. Mat and Curt decided to launch Safari as the economy was taking a down-turn, they priced their units in the high end of the average cost of motorhomes and created a market niche that had not yet been tried.

It wasn't long before the young company outgrew Eugene and needed to move. Curt said, "In July we bought a facility in Harrisburg owned by DG Moldings. It was just a disaster -- dark, with chemicals everywhere. We've spent numerous man hours remodeling the plant and cleaning it up. We moved on August 30 and never lost a production day. And we put the first motorhome off the production line on August 31."

Curt met Pat at work; they fell in love, got married, and have been flying high ever since.

Besides moving into a facility that would allow for expansion, the relocation to Harrisburg brought on another benefit for Curt. That's where he met Pat, his wife.

Pat said, "I worked for DG Moldings and when Safari Motor Coach bought the building, Mat came in and asked if I would like to stay in my office and be his secretary. I said sure ­ I needed a job. So it worked out well and I met Curt."

Curt smiled. "She was Mat's secretary. He didn't need her so I took her," he said.

Pat continued, "Curt and I were friends for a long time and got along well when I worked for him. It grew and we ended up getting married; we've been married for nine years."

Being Mrs. Curt Lawler was a dramatic change for Pat, who had been a single parent for more than 20 years. Before, she had barely gotten out of Oregon. Since marrying Curt she has been to several foreign countries and all over the United States. And while she knew that he owned and piloted his own airplane, she didn't realize how his hobby would change her life.

"We had some tough moments," Curt laughed and said. "I'd say, 'tomorrow morning we have to go to Irvine.'

She said, 'Well how long have you known that. You're telling me that now and we are leaving in the morning?'

I said, 'Yes, we are leaving in the morning. What's the big deal."

She had to learn that I may decide tonight to go someplace and she needs to be ready in the morning. We get into the airplane and she cries all the way to Irvine because 'she is going to die.'"

"I used to be afraid to fly" Pat admitted. "I had only flown in one big airplane once in my life and had never flown in a small airplane. If you are going to live with Curt, I think you have to fly because that's his life. And there are still times that I get frightened. I'll get used to it. It's no big deal anymore. I've come a long way."

That's an understatement. Pat has learned to fly, gotten her pilot's license and has her instrumentation rating. Quite a change for a person who cried the first time she flew with Curt.

Pat said, "He likes to fly his airplane and do things the average person doesn't do. He lives fast and it's very exciting."

Pat saw in him what others see -- a giant of a man with snow white hair and a compassionate, caring demeanor. He talks slowly, but there is the wisdom of experience in what he says.

Pat said, "Curt is a very honorable and wonderful person. I don't know how anybody could be around him and not love him. He's a gentleman and a very caring, soft person. He's been a really smart businessman all these years. You can't talk to him about anything he doesn't know something about."

And that's understandable. Curt has gained experiences in a variety of fields. He was born in San Jose, California, the son of an Irish steel mill worker and a Danish mother. In 1925 the family moved to Hollister and bought a dairy. Curt recalled, "We were there a year and traded the dairy for a prune and apricot ranch in Morgan Hill. I stayed there for about 17 years."

He showed his ability to succeed at an early age. He started raising chickens at 13 years old and soon had about 5,000 chickens, all layers, of which he would exhibit the best at state fairs. In 1939 he was honored by then California Governor Olsen for having the outstanding farm program and was named "State Farmer" in Future Farmers of America.

After that Curt enrolled at San Jose State College as a music major specializing in the violin. It was one of the few times he faltered. He said, "I worked like heck and couldn't succeed. I loved music and had a dance band, but the violin was not my cup of tea."

After that he went to work in construction. Curt remembered, "The guy I worked for told me to get out of construction - it had no future. He advised me to get into the telephone company or airlines."

Taking that advise Curt went to Pan American looking for a job. They offered him a job at 52 cents an hour, quite a drop from the $1.75 he was making in construction. Curt laughed and said, "I was only twenty years old and had a hard time accepting that one. On the way home I saw a sign that said United Airlines. I hired on at United Airlines for 62 cents. I worked for United 30 years."

He started as a helper admitting he knew nothing about airplanes. He attended classes and soon earned his A&E (aircraft and engines) License and that led to a promotion to lead. Curt saw an opportunity in aircraft cleaning. Soon he was named foreman in charge of aircraft cleaning. He said, "Cleaning exterior aluminum was a real serious and costly process in the airline industry. Nobody liked cleaning so I saw this as a route for faster advancement. Then United wanted me to set up cleaning all over the system - New Jersey, Chicago, all over. I set up 12 cleaning stations in all. When I came back I took over several other departments.

"I used to walk around in some of the shops on weekends and would take an inventory of parts laying on the work benches. Then I went to the director in charge of the whole maintenance base and told him if he let me take over as manager of the maintenance base, I would pull out $1.8 million of inventory in 30 days in parts awaiting repair and get them working. He thought I was nuts. It took me two weeks to convince him. I remained manager of the base until 1973."

Prior to retiring from United, Lawler opened Leisure Wheels, an RV dealership, in San Bruno, and in the early seventies, United offered him yet another promotion. Curt said, "I started Leisure Wheels in 1969 and business was so good that I was convinced this is what I should be doing. I had to make a choice. If I accepted the promotion at United I would have to move to Chicago in the executive offices and that was not for me. The executive offices were, but not Chicago. So I left United Airlines and put all my efforts into Leisure Wheels.

"In less than six months we outgrew our little lot and I bought a city block -- with no money, absolutely no money. I convinced the owners that I would pay them off in three years. I paid them off in about a year and two months. I sold Leisure Wheels in 1974 and moved to Scotts Valley with the intent of retiring. But I got a rude awakening. I discovered the business had been paying all my expenses -- insurance, fuel, everything."

So Curt retired from retirement.

He continued, "I had to start looking for another business. I sat in my car for about two months at various locations doing motorhome counts. I determined that Scotts Valley, CA, was the best place to open an RV dealership so I bought the old gravel pit and spent nine months working behind big berry bushes so that nobody could see me. I took a mountain down, flattened out three acres and filled in a lake with dirt. Nobody knew what I was doing. When I tore the bushes down in front, I started Travel Trails, selling motorhomes, trailers - everything. Scotts Valley was different in the 1970s. You could never do what I did again. The city would not give me a building permit so I built a 10,000-square-foot building without a permit. It took 2 1/2 years to get permanent power and a permit."

Curt still owns several other businesses as well as Travel Trails; although he leases Travel Trails to Guarantee RV he's in the process of selling the business to them.

And just when Curt thought he might retire again, the Safari and Beaver alliance was formed and he stepped into the top spot at Beaver. (Eventually, SMC rescued Beaver from the bankruptcy courts.) Why did he choose that over retirement?

He explained, "You have a vision of what you think you can do or make happen -- and you are the only one that can do it."

At Beaver Lawler inherited a company that was on it's last leg, but he believed he could help Mat turn it around. His first day at Beaver he got on a fork lift and started physically removing desks from the plant floor. He admitted doing that and added, "That motivates people. I took 32 desks out of the plant, 26 computers, and tore down walls where people were sitting. In order to make Beaver profitable I had to get people from behind desks and back to doing production. I had to go in and do bad things. In four days, I reduced the payroll $491,000. I had 22 motorhomes in various stages of completion. I started making plans and getting provisions in there to start manufacturing motorhomes. Then we just started a progressive program of improving everything in the plant."

Lawler managed to show a small profit after only one month at Beaver, and the people were inspired by his take-charge manner. Curt said, "The employees were excited because they could see that finally something positive was happening. The response was really excellent. They all pitched in. There were so many things that had to be changed. We put in job control systems like I had at United Airlines. We set the inspection department up differently and reassigned responsibilities -- that was a big move. When we started hiring people back I interviewed every one of them before bringing anyone back."

Another program Lawler introduced at Beaver is in the area of quality control. Curt explained, "I called it a systems audit. I had three salaried people go through a coach. They did look at aesthetics and they were not going to fix anything. They checked every thing in that motorhome from flood testing it to running the generator and even road testing it. This audit crew had all their own state-of-the-art test equipment. It takes four to six hours to do a coach. Everything on the check list was either accepted or not accepted.

"Then, we would hand this audit to the production manager who had to correct anything not accepted. If I saw the same things happening all the time, the production manager had to give me a written report on why it happened again, what he had done to correct it and who he had talked to -- was it the same person making the same mistake?"

Unarguably, Mat Perlot has been the driving force at SMC, but Curt Lawler has been an integral part of the company's success. It's apparent that Curt has a soft spot in his heart for Mat. Curt said, "Mat and I work well together. We have been working together since 1976 when he was selling Beavers. We live within a mile of each other and we talk a lot. He throws things out to see what my response will be. I don't know if Mat has very many people he can talk to like that. When we are alone I can tell him anything and we don't get mad at each other - I don't think we ever have." He paused and then added, "Probably once.

After Beaver was running smoothly was Curt thinking about retiring again?

Pat commented, "He doesn't know how to retire. He has this rocking chair at home that he got from Beaver when he retired in 1985. Then he went right back to work. He can't retire. If he didn't do this he would do something else."

And that's all right with Pat. She added, "I think it keeps him young to work hard. He seems to really enjoy it and always seems to know what to do. So many people come to him with their problems. A lot of times he will eat his lunch and solve problems during his whole lunch break. It's wonderful the way he is with people. He cares about them, he really does."

Curt said, "I feel good. Pat feeds me vitamins every morning. I love everything that I do. I'm on the road every morning between 6:30 and 7:00 and stay at work until I am done. I'm still taking work home everyday, have for 40 years. I have too much arthritis, but I have a good heart. Everybody in my background had long lives so I'm kind of expecting to stay around, and I'll keep working at SMC until something happens."

But something did happen a couple of years ago. Curt was diagnosed with cancer, but his positive spirit and excellent medical treatment allowed him to fully recover and the cancer has been in total remission since 1996. He's also had two hip replacements. The only thing that did was make it difficult to get into his Malibu aircraft. So he sold that plane and is currently looking at a Cessna.

SMC, like many public RV companies, has felt the fickleness of investors, and as a result SMC's stock price (Nasdaq: SMCC) has not performed too well in the past few years. Add to that the consumer's abandonment of motorhome purchases this past year, it has been difficult for any company that only manufacturers motorhomes to show a profit. But with Curt Lawler at the helm, few would be surprised to see SMC return to profitability very quickly.

So far, much to the relief of the executive staff at SMC's headquarters in Bend, Curt has not been seen driving his forklift down the halls, ripping out walls, picking up desks and computers and depositing them in the dumpster.

But things are changing. Curt said, "We've started adding new floorplans. We began with the Trek and Zanzibar, and the new floorplans are being well received by buyers. I'm also restructuring management and giving more decision making responsibility to the various departments."

When we started this article we suggested that Curt Lawler has enjoyed nothing but success throughout his life. It's apparent to us now that this was an overstatement. He's been a real disappointment when it comes to successfully retiring -- and oh yes, then there's that violin thing too.

RVN