Brett Randall: Enhancing The RV Experience For Newbies And Returnees

Six years after being brought in to turn around then-struggling Aliner, President and CEO Brett Randall was feeling confident enough about the future of the business to buy out some of the investors to become the majority shareholder. Then COVID hit.

While its former customers tended to be empty-nesters and early retirees, Aliner suddenly experienced a large increase in interest from young families and millennials. So, the company introduced its first four-person, lightweight towable model for young families and for grandparents and their grandchildren. It also revamped its website, making it more consumer-oriented and easier to peruse floor plans and options.

“What we’ve been seeing are a lot of both first-time RV buyers and people returning to camping as a safe and economical way to recreate and spend time with their families,” said Randall. “A lot” are the operative words here, as the company has had to reduce its variety of floor plans to focus on increasing the quantity of units it produces. A-Liner now features 13 floor plans – some with toilets and showers – and three more for their European market. All can be set up within 30 seconds and collapsed for easy storage in a home garage. They are currently sold-out for 2022.

“We’ve been really fortunate with supply chain issues,” said Randall. “We saw them coming in early summer 2020, so we met with our key vendors to see how we could be the best customer we could be for them. All of them had different asks, but we wanted to stay high on their lists.”

The results speak for themselves, and Randall has been very pleased with the vendor and dealer partners with whom they’ve worked so closely over the past 18 months.

“Our vendors really stepped up and we have a great dealer base representing the brand,” he said.

Once again, the future is looking bright for Aliner and for manufacturer-turned-entrepreneur-turned manufacturer-again Randall. A native of Pittsburgh and a Carnegie Mellon graduate, Randall began his career working for the company his grandfather founded in 1943 and his father led until its sale in 2010 to Alcoa. During his 15 years at TRACO, Randall helped to expand the vinyl and aluminum window manufacturing company by five times.

Afterwards, leveraging his contacts in the Pittsburgh business community (“there are only two degrees of separation in this town,” he says), Randall and his wife founded a successful real estate and development company. But “manufacturing is in my blood,” he said, and in 2013, he was recruited to improve operations at Aliner, which had foundered after the recession, but had retained a strong brand.

Today, Aliner is actively recruiting to add to its 95-employee base which is divided among two locations: a production facility in Mt. Pleasant, 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, and an administrative building closer to Randall’s home in Sewickley, 15 minutes north of the city.

His management style has evolved over the years, he said. “I’ve matured and learned that you and your company are only as strong as your key people; the right people in the right positions with the right amount of direction, but also latitude.”

He credits his senior leadership team with maintaining an entrepreneurial culture and for being “self-starters.” They meet weekly to review the company’s “game plan” then he provides them with the freedom to execute on it.

Part of the game plan is improving the technology of their units to meet the environmental and logistical interests of today’s RV customers. Using more environmentally safe building materials, designing lighter trailers that can be pulled by electric vehicles, and incorporating solar aftermarket products for boondocking are among the innovations in development.

Maintaining the quality of all Aliner products is also a top priority; currently, the cost of warranty is under 1.5%, three times better than when Randall started at the company.

Another key element of management’s game plan is internal – maintaining its high employee safety record.

“We want everyone to leave each day with ten fingers and ten toes!” he said.

As proud as he is of his team’s high-quality output and safety record, Randall recognizes that the success of his company is wholly dependent upon the overall quality of the customer’s RV experience. That’s why he became active in the RV Industry Association.

“I feel this is such an important time for our industry,” he said. “It’s not about having folks buy Aliners, but getting folks into the RV lifestyle and wanting to stay in it. Our role as an industry is to support this. What we do in next couple of years will influence what the industry looks like in 5-7 years.”

“Our biggest challenge and opportunity is making sure that recent RV purchasers, who are either trying or returning to the lifestyle, enjoy the experience. That their vehicle is right, that the service from their dealer pleases them, and that their experience in the campground is a good one.”

After serving on the RV Industry Association Board for the past four years, Randall was asked to chair the Public and Legislative Affairs Committee, which is working to get campground modernization legislation passed by Congress.

The busy father of four young children said yes, prompting his wife to quip, “You’re supposed to be saying ‘no’.” (Work and family are his life, Randall maintains, and he couldn’t do it without her.)

Family life includes taking their own RV on four-to-five weekend trips each summer. They’re typically drawn to campgrounds within a four-hour radius where they like to fish, hike, and bike during the day, then gather around the fire for dinner at night.

“It’s a great way to spend time together and it’s more economical for six people than hopping on a plane,” he says. In the winter, the family of avid skiers foregoes their RV for their mountain home in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh is where Randall’s heart lies, however. Not only is he an outspoken evangelist for its tech and manufacturing industries, but he’s a committed contributor to education, the arts, and environmental causes in the community. He has served on the board of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and on the Board of Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh, among other positions.

“My family has been very blessed,” he says, “We want to do our best to give back by contributing both our time and our treasure.”

As to the future of his “work life,” Randall is looking for Aliner’s continued controlled and profitable growth, to bringing back some of the floor plans that were discontinued during COVID, and to introducing new products and technology.

As far as the future of his “family life,” while all of his siblings worked for his grandfather’s company, he’s focused on just raising four “confident and contributing” children. “They like to visit the manufacturing facility to see what’s going on, but we’ll have to see if any of them follow me into the business."