MOLINO
by Don Magary

Changing of the Guard

A major event in the history of the RV industry occurred quietly on February 1. Without a lot of ceremony, there was a changing of the guard for the association that represents RV dealers in the United States. Mike Molino replaced Bob Strawn as president of the Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association (RVDA).

When Strawn informed RVDA's board of directors that he intended to retire in 1996, RVDA started a search for a replacement. They didn't have to look far. Mike Molino, a retired Army officer, had been in basic training for the position since he joined RVDA as education director in 1988 and the association's vice president since 1991.

During his tenure with RVDA Molino has earned a reputation as an intelligent, innovative and dedicated advocate for RV dealers while at the same time reaching out in the spirit of cooperation to other associations at the state and national level, including RVIA where the relationship between the two associations has not always been cordial. While the goals of the two national associations are for the most part common, there is a natural adversarial relationship between an organization that represents RV manufacturers and one that represents RV dealers. But at those times when there were rivalries, Molino's influence helped get beyond those road blocks and great things have been accomplished between the two associations. A case in point is the RV technician certification program. Molino told RV News in a recent interview, "It's amazing how much you can get accomplished if you don't worry about who is going to get the credit."

And to Molino's credit there were never any conflicts between himself and Strawn, both strong personalities. Molino's military background certainly contributed to this cooperation because he seems to have adopted a philosophy of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who is credited with saying, "In a society where one person is placed in authority over another, the superior, if he is a gentleman, never thinks about it, and the subordinate, if he is a gentleman, never forgets it."

That's not to say Molino is a "yes-man." Molino comes to his new position with his own agenda. He has strong convictions about what the industry and dealer's association can and should accomplish, and he understands his role in shaping the future of the industry.

As the Strawn era comes to an end and the Molino era begins, RVDA is financially sound and poised to accomplish great things. Molino credits Strawn with doing a good job on his watch, which makes Molino's job easier as he looks to the future.

He said, "I personally owe Bob a lot. I think the industry does too and certainly RVDA does for the things that he has accomplished. The principal thing that he has done for RVDA is given it financial stability. And with financial stability there is an awful lot you can build on. He was really good for the organization. And I'll not forget that he originally hired me and subsequently recommended me to succeed him."

Molino's background is different from the other association executives that have lead RVDA in the past. He didn't migrate to RVDA from being an RV dealer. But he doesn't see that as a problem. He observed, "Having never been a dealer, I think is an advantage. I don't have any baggage." What he does bring is impressive educational credentials, administrative expertise, and management skills. He sees one particular job he had in the Army as a help in his current challenges.

"I was the deputy to the commander in Nurenberg, Germany, and we had 35,000 Americans living all the over the area. Essentially, as post commander, I was the mayor of a town. I was ultimately responsible for all of the support to the families -- the hospitals, the commissary, PX, the cleaners -- everything. It was really a lot of fun because you really learned how to deal with people -- people who had legitimate complaints about things they thought you controlled, even though you really had no control over those things.

"That's where I really learned about building a consensus and bringing people together. When you have a whole bunch of wives, whose husbands are out in the field, complaining because you don't have enough diapers in the commissary, you don't order them to be quiet. You have to convince them that you are doing the best that you can -- and you have to actually do the best you can. And after a while they become convinced that at least you are trying. I found it to be a long credibility building road. I want to do the same thing here.

"I'm going to do the best possible job that I can for the people I represent. And I am going to try to be fair to everybody else. Which means I am going to take the dealers' position on issues and I'm going to try to cooperate with everybody else. And that dealer includes the aftermarket dealer and the rental dealer. What we are all trying to do is to satisfy the retail customer and that's the key to market expansion."

Molino grew up in Brooklyn, NY. He said, "I'm a descendent from emigrants. All four of my grandparents came here from Italy in the early 1900s; however, my mother and father were born here -- I come from good Italian stock."

We asked Mike about his military career and how that came about. He laughed and said, "I dodged the draft -- I volunteered. Back in the 1950's, we knew that we were going to have to go in the service, there were no ifs, ands or buts. I avoided the draft by joining up. My dad had been an enlisted man in World War II and drove tanks . He advised me to go to college and become an officer. He said, "Those guys rode all the time while the enlisted men marched."

Mike entered the Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1961 through the St. Peters College, Jersey City, NJ, ROTC program. He has never regretted taking his father's advice; however, he observed, the myth about officers always riding might have been overstated. He said what it really did was to allow him to use the talents given him. He said, "I saw a lot of guys who were more talented than I who got drafted and stayed around as privates. They had a great time, but I'm not sure they contributed as much."

Mike has fond memories of his military career. He said, "That was a good time. I met my wife Barb while I was in the Army. We had our kids, Mike and Tim, in the Army."

Molino's sons are grown up now and it would appear that they are following in their father's footprints. Tim is a senior at Mary Washington College, working part time for a trade association. He plans to work for that association management company for a year and enter law school in the fall of 1997. Mike graduated from West Point in the Spring of 1994 and is now at Ft. Bragg, NC.

Molino continued, "I spent 10 years in Germany, one year in Vietnam, and the rest of it in various places in this great country of ours. It was 27 years, 27 good years."

Mike decided to stay in the service as long as he still liked it. "I did not do that," he said. "I left while I still liked it." He laughed and added, "My mother kept saying, all the other guys came home, when are you coming home?"

If there is one thing that stands out in Molino's mind about what he enjoyed it was the opportunity to further his education, a quality that has been a benefit for earning his first position at RVDA. He said, "I was lucky enough to have gone to a lot of different schools and gotten a lot of training that the average person wouldn't get."

Molino is modest about his accomplishments in the military, however, based upon some of the assignments, it's obvious that he was well regarded. One position in particular reflects his success. He was a professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces which is part of the National Defense University, where military officers go for education preparing them for important positions of leadership as generals and admirals.

As Molino was winding down his military career and stationed in Washington, D.C., he started thinking about what he wanted to do in civilian life. He was aware that the area was a major location for national trade associations, and he thought he might enjoy working in that field. He had especially enjoyed his tour of duty in Germany as post commander and believed that association management would offer the same challenges in training, management and administration. He decided to test the waters by getting involved with the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives, a local chapter of the American Society of Association Executives. One particular opportunity was career counseling where associations invited those in the program to visit their offices and talk about a career in association management.

"One of the things that you should not do is ask for a job -- that was bad form," Molino recalled. "I visited about three or four association executives, and one of them was a guy named David Gorin, executive director of the National Campground Owners Association . We talked and got along fairly well. He said, `You know, Bob Strawn just lost his education director at RVDA. If you are interested, I'll give him a call.' I said go ahead. So he called and Bob asked me to send him a resume. Bob interviewed me a couple of times and hired me. That's where it started. I owe my whole career to the campground association." He laughed and added, "That's why I'm a cooperative guy. What goes around comes around."

While some who retire young find work to supplement their retirement income, Molino realized he was starting a second career. His focus and dedication has paid off. He said, "The day that I reported to RVDA I thought if I did the right things somebody might give me a better job or I might be able to qualify for a better job. Frankly, in the beginning I never thought I would be president of RVDA. After about five years I thought I had a shot. And I'm really looking forward to this challenge for that very reason."

Molino has set some personal goals as he assumes the presidency of RVDA. He explained, "RVDA as an organization is about where the industry is, in its adolescence. We are coming of age. RVDA evolved from a truly member owned and driven organization that was founded by a few dealers to a point now where something major and different has to occur if it's to become what it needs to be -- that's the representative of the dealers in the industry. I'm not saying RVDA doesn't represent the dealer now, but I am saying that we have to have a penetration far beyond what we have now as far as numbers are concerned. And one of my main missions is to figure out how to do that. It's going to require a change. We are going to have to change the way we do business if we want to bring the association to the point where it represents sixty to eighty percent of the dealers. We are closer to eighty percent in terms of total industry sales than we are to eighty percent of the dealers."

Today, RVDA's dealer membership is about 900 with what Molino sees as a potential universe of 3,000 dealers, including auto dealers who also sell RVs. He said, "I would like to set a personal goal of doubling our membership during my tenure. It is going to take a dramatic paradigm shift to do that.

"That's Mike Molino's goal. Does the board of directors want to do that? Do the members want to do that? I can't see why they wouldn't, but it is something we are going to address in our upcoming strategic planning session."

Another of Molino's goals is to see the industry work more closely together for common goals. "Although industry cooperation is probably the best that it has ever been, I'd like to see it go even further so that the state associations, the national associations and the national dealers association are working together for a unified purpose. And in those areas where we can't agree because we have to take a dealer position, we should not let that interfere with the progress in the areas where we do agree which is the majority of the issues."

But Molino's first goal is to include the RVDA staff in the planning process so they understand his goals and can make contributions toward reaching these goals. Molino held a staff retreat in mid-February to get input from the staff about their ideas. In the meantime he is planning a restructuring of the office staff and how responsibilities are divided.

He said, "I still haven't decided how we are going to be organized; however, I really like the RVIA model. There is a head person and then there are several people who report to the head person and have full authority over particular areas. Dave Humphreys (RVIA's president) can go out and do a lot of things because he knows that he has a competent staff taking care of the execution. I realize it took Dave a lot of years to build that and I realize that their budget is three or four times ours, but that's the model that I am after. I don't see an RVDA president who has an awful lot of personal responsibilities for programs and a vice president with all the rest -- that's how it was when I took over. I see several folks at a vice president or director level, each being a pillar and I become the arch on the front of the building. Our strategic plan has seven goals so there are at least seven major functional areas."

And as Molino works for an effective organization, he is also focusing on serving the membership through that reorganization. He said, "My initial thought is to focus on the markets, the main market is the dealer-retailer, and I would really like to segment that -- rental, aftermarket and rolling stock dealer.

"The other market is the rest of the industry -- we need associate member programs. Let's not mince words, when associate members join RVDA they want access to dealers. And that's what we provide. We can bring dealers, manufacturers and suppliers together.

"The third major function is to develop the programs to meet these needs. I see education as being the primary sub-function within that function. And that's why we started the education foundation -- to generate the dollars necessary to develop programs that will make dealers better dealers and to insure that that money isn't used for anything else."

One of the first projects of the RVDA Education Foundation was the sponsoring of the Turbo Dacum project. The report entitled, RV Technician Career Field, Turbo-Dacum Job and Task Evaluation For RVDA/RVIA Education Programs for RV Service Technicians, is a major step forward in further developing the RV technician field as a widely accepted career area. The report was prepared after a panel of RV technicians defined the criteria and ranked the various priorities.

Molino explained that the purpose of the comprehensive job and task analysis is to accurately establish baseline data to improve both the process and the product or service produced on the job through constant and continuous improvement.

In addition to Turbo Dacum, RVDA's education foundation is considering sponsoring several major projects.

One of the industry's real success stories is the RV Technician Certification Program and Molino was one of the key architects of that success. Molino said, "It's successful because it's a combined effort. We have to nurture that cooperation. We have over 200 technicians certified right now and that's going to grow pretty quick. I see certification as the vacuum sweeper that will suck the people into training."

Molino assumes his new role with the eagerness of a rookie, but tempered with a vision and wisdom only experience brings. He brings qualities that will not only benefit RVDA but the entire industry.

And it's industry cooperation that Molino always comes back to because he believes the key to the industry's success depends upon all segments of the industry working together for the common good. And if his past record can be used as a gauge, Mike Molino will be a leader that nurtures and strives for an industry working together. He said, "I think industry cooperation is very important. Sometimes we are the victims of our own pride maybe, our inability to reach beyond the dots to think of new ways to do things. We may be working too hard on the process, working on the `hows' and not working hard enough on the `whats.' For example, our mission is to make dealers better dealers, dealers who give better consumer care, and in the process dealers who become more profitable. If we focus on that, which is what we want to do, we can get people together and develop the hows. If we all focused on success and accepted that there are different ways to get there, we could help each other and reach our full potential."