Member Spotlight: Mike Happe

This month’s member spotlight features Mike Happe of Winnebago Industries as he shares his time with the company, discusses Winnebago’s long-standing legacy and outlines the exciting work ahead.

When Mike Happe joined Winnebago Industries Inc. as president, CEO, and director over three years ago, he was acutely aware of the company’s storied history and 61-year-old legacy. “It's a privilege,” says Happe, “to have the opportunity to join Winnebago Industries and to write some of the next chapters in the company's history.”

Happe came to Winnebago from Minnesota-based The Toro Company, a provider of outdoor maintenance and beautification products, where he worked from 1997 to 2016.

Joining Winnebago Industries, he quickly learned about its legacy and history. “It has a long, successful track record of creating great products for its customers, working closely with partners to deliver those products, and then taking care of customers together, after the sale.  So for me, being at Winnebago is a combination of pride and privilege.”

“Moreover, we don’t want to rest on that legacy nor protect it, per se, but rather work hard with my teammates to strengthen it,” Happe continues “As I said earlier, we want to write some new chapters in the story over time. We have worked very hard to add some more pieces to our portfolio, not the least of which was the transformative Grand Design RV acquisition in November of 2016, pieces which are going to make a stronger company as a whole.”

Winnebago also diversified into marine manufacturing with the Chris-Craft acquisition in June of 2018. “And that,” explains Happe, “combined with us focusing on the Winnebago brand in RV businesses, we're making progress in terms of becoming a healthier, stronger and more competitive company. I think that bodes well for our industry, and I think it’s also a good thing for our employees so that we can be strategically and financially stronger.”

For Happe, serving Winnebago’s employees also meant creating a new vision statement that he and the company’s employees have refined over the last three years. “We have outlined our core values and guiding principles,” says Happe. “And the good news is that we have been able to put all of those important words on a one-page document so that our employees across the company can have that in front of them to essentially service the foundation of not only who we are, but where we want to go in the future.”

Winnebago has three things outlined in their vision statement: one is to be the trusted leader of outdoor lifestyle solutions, which means that not only selling recreational vehicles but also expanding its horizons to create a great portfolio of outdoor lifestyle brands and businesses. Number two, build a business model around quality, innovation and service. And the third is its values - they have six of them: to be customer-centric, results-driven, innovative, quality focused, collaborative and trusted.

Happe adds that trust must also be a factor within the company and the larger community. “We've recently done two things that I think are really important. One is we've refreshed and re-launched a new code of conduct within our company. And secondly, we want to be very active in the communities that our employees live, work and play in. And we have provided significant new energy into our Winnebago Industries Foundation and we are engaging our communities more effectively than ever before through the time, treasures and talents of our employees.”

Happe says that Winnebago is also focusing on its corporate social responsibilities. “We are finding ways to conduct ourselves in the best way possible. And that could be creating products which are powered by power generation systems or drive systems that are friendlier to the environment like our new electric specialty vehicle or the lithium-ion Boldt or Travato that we brought to the market. Or it could just be working with our various production plants around the country in making sure that we're managing our scrap and our waste, and we're doing things the right way in terms of the output that comes with manufacturing products.”

“It’s an important and complex subject,” continues Happe. “It’s also one we're increasingly spending more time on. I think it's a topic that more and more of our end customers will care about in the future and make some of their brand choices because of the sustainability practices that companies are using.”

Another way Winnebago has enriched and extended its social responsibility is through its recently announced multi-year partnership with the National Park Foundation, the non-profit element of the National Park Service. Happe sees this as a natural extension of its support of the outdoor lifestyle and RVs.

“We’ve done three things through the partnership that we believe are important. The first is our support of a public awareness campaign called ‘Find Your Park,’ which essentially enables people of all backgrounds and abilities to find the national parks that are either closest to them or fit some of the criteria that, they want to experience.”

Continues Happe, “Second, we are also supporting a program called ‘Open OutDoors for Kids’ that connects young people to the national parks through a number of educational and experiential activities. And third, as a sign of our commitment to the partnership, we've created a limited-edition National Park Foundation Travato Class B vehicle that has an exclusive set of features including our Pure3, the lithium battery generation system. It leverages solar power for use off the grid, something many people like to do in our national parks.”

Winnebago’s partnership with the National Park Foundation is just one of many ways Happe sees the company elevating its leadership position in the industry now and in the future. “We are a 61-year-old company that intends to be around for our 100th anniversary. We want to make sure that the footprint that we leave behind in terms of our environmental impact, our social impact, even the way that we conduct our business as a public company is long lasting and friendly to our different stakeholders, and in alignment with communities around our businesses.”