Memories

2025 Travato introduction with Greg Schultz

Travato 8.0 delivery video from Winnebago

Today, April 5, 2023, I’m celebrating the 10th Anniversary of my last day of employment.

After 23 years on the retail side with Worths Stores and then 20 years as a landlord with Westfield I enjoyed my work life in the shopping center business. I was fortunate to be surrounded by and able to interact with many great people. From time to time I read articles posted here about leadership and question if I left lasting positive impressions on my employees. I did the best I knew how at that point in time. The people at Westfield handled “succession planning” well and gently closed the door behind me. My first thoughts were: Oh Crap! Now what? And my phone stopped ringing.

Well, Rory Packer told me that I’d find my “encore career”. He failed to tell me that I wouldn’t get paid. In 2015 my wife and I purchased a Winnebago Travato (Class B motorhome RV) and started traveling around the country in it (instead of by motorcycle as we had previously done). One thing led to another and I found myself joining (and being an Administrator) on the Travato Owners and Wannabees FB Group. Since then, thanks to Winnebago’s continually making improvements to their product, we have sold and purchased several times and are now on our seventh Travato. This has given us a rather unique understanding of the product and I have continued my life in a “go to” situation by answering tons of question on the FB group, so much so that Winnebago has given us a “Product Ambassador” title. We’ll continue to use our house in the St. Louis area as a home base as we travel all over the country to attend rallys and meetups making new friends wherever we go.

Hey, this retirement thing is pretty good after all.