First asked: Well, would you like them or not? And I said: Yes, I would like to; I know I can sell them, but I'm not going to the bank and borrow money. He said: I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a load and when you sell it call me and I will send you another load when you pay for the first load. That was unheard of.

"Well, they delivered them in the morning. We popped them so people could view them and boom! People started coming in and before the day was over we sold them all. That's how easy it was. That afternoon I made the call to Al to order another load. He said: You have to be kidding. Well, okay, but when do I get my money."

Hal laughs as he remembers the conversation. "I told him, first you have to tell me how I get them registered and get them out of here - I knew nothing about it! He sent the bill of origins and we got them registered."

Business was good in both the boat top and camper business. A month later Starcraft came to Fowler with the same deal. Fowler said, "We opened another lot within a year in Kingston, which was about 30 miles north of us.

"Business just absolutely exploded! We were making $100 per unit; that was a lot of money in those days -- I thought a budget was something to eat. We ended up occupying the marina property where I had started and became one of the nation's largest dealers for both of these companies.

"We had a big parts and accessories store -- 400 feet which was a lot of store in those days. And it was a very successful store. We also had a 50-unit rental fleet that went out every Friday. We insisted on installing our mirrors and our hitch on the renter's car, which was a Class B Valley hitch. That was a lot of business."

Everything went fine until the 1972 gasoline crunch. "We had hundreds of units on the lot when the gas crunch hit," Fowler said. "The bank walked in the next day and reduced our floor plan in half, just like that. What they did was turn the key in the door, similar to what they did at the marina. I stayed there until 1975 - liquidating. When we finally closed the doors, I had had it. I got upset with a customer one day so I walked out and went home. I said to Sue: Close it -- it's all over. I'll never go back. And I never did."

At the time, Fowler had only a few dollars in the bank, was in debt and had no prospects for a job. He says he simply went home for two years. "We lived off the land," Fowler continued, "Actually, this was a great time for us. The only thing we bought in the market was flour and coffee. We just absolutely loved it."

A decision to visit the 1976 South Bend RV show would once again put him in the RV industry. While he was in South Bend, Jeannie Michaels from Coach Lite Distributing, a Coach-men company, hired him to set-up aftermarket parts and accessory stores in the northeast.

Fowler established a very successful store program and conducted aftermarket seminars for Coach Lite. Then in 1979 he transferred to Atlanta as sales manager of that branch. When Coach Lite decided to close the Atlanta facility two Coachmen executives flew to Atlanta and asked Fowler to come to Middle-bury, IN, as national sales manager. He was reluctant because he had only recently moved his family to Atlanta; however, he finally agreed. He recalled, "In the time I spent with Coach Lite, I ended up being on the road seven days a week and set up hundreds of stores for dealers -- I was gone all the time."

When he finally arrived in Middlebury, the national sales manager's job had been given to someone else. "That didn't bother me that much," Fowler said. "I worked on key accounts for about a year. But I wasn't happy. I had real problems with some of the philosophies and attitudes so I walked in one day and said: That's it. I picked-up my briefcase and went home. I got home about the normal time, but as soon as I walked in, Sue looked right at me and said: You don't work there anymore do you? That was amazing."

For someone else it might have been a desperate situation, but Fowler once again exhibited his entrepreneurial spirit. He was well-versed and trained in setting-up RV parts and accessory stores so that's what he decided to do. He said, "I had $200 to my name and a vehicle. Sue and I talked about it and I said I'm going to go as far south as I can and then start working myself back north calling on dealers without the benefit of appointments. I started in Gulfport, Mississippi - Gulfport Trailer Sales." Fowler laughed and added, "You can't go any further south than that without getting wet."

That first call resulted in a sale and a $1,000 deposit. Hal worked his way north, and by the time he got back to Indiana, he had sold six stores and had $6,000 in his pocket. The problem was he didn't have sources set up so he could deliver on the idea that he had sold.

As a matter of fact, he didn't even have a company. That's when he and Sue quickly reopened the old New York corporation, Duchess Tops, Inc., or DTI.