UltraFab’s Raymond Padgett: An RV Aftermarket Industry Leader

Raymond Padgett, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for jack, leveling, and stabilization manufacturer Ultra-Fab, has spent 35 years in the RV industry. His career, which has spanned a number of different companies and roles in the RV sector, has exclusively been dedicated to the aftermarket segment of the industry.  

Interestingly, Raymond’s introduction to the RV world was, in part, due to his other lifelong interest: numbers. “My education was in accounting, and I entered the RV industry through accounting, too,” he explains. “I was working as an internal auditor for someone who owned a few different dealerships and one of those happened to be an RV dealership. The RV parts department had significant problems, so I was asked to help clean it up.” He ultimately stayed in this role for ten years, first as a Parts Manager and later becoming the Aftermarket Operations Manager.

Raymond was eventually recruited by Stag-Parkway, an RV aftermarket distributor. “When Stag-Parkway was still around, they recruited me to work for them in sales. I was in sales for them for 10 months and then in sales management for a little over three years. Then they promoted me to Category Director— I was responsible for everything in the second half of their catalogue from marketing to inventory.”

“I later joined Keystone and stayed with them through the purchasing of NTP,” he adds. “The President of Blue Ox at the time, Jay Hesse, asked me to work for them as their Vice President of Marketing, which I did until Jay passed away. After that, I started up a representative agency, ARC Representation & Consulting, LLC, which represented about a dozen different suppliers. And then last year Ultra-Fab, who was our largest supplier, reached a large enough size that they asked me to sell off my part of ARC and work for them as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing.”

In Raymond’s new role, which he obtained last year, he is focusing on distributor and dealer sales, as well as Ultra-Fab’s marketing efforts and sales team: “We just opened up our dealer website so dealers can access product information and obtain images that they can put on their own website. Soon, we’re also going to have on there all of our retail-facing videos for dealers and distributors to access to as well as our dealer locator, so they can sign up to be part of that program. We’ve been working on a lot of marketing initiatives since I moved to Ultra-Fab.”

“I’m also in charge of sales so I’m trying to call on distributors and dealers. We have started our own sales team,” Raymond continues. “Before, Ultra-Fab was reliant on ARC as their sales team— now, I’m trying to build out our own. We look to be bringing on some more salespeople as time goes on.”

Along with his responsibilities as Ultra-Fab’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Raymond also spends his time serving as on the RV Industry Association’s RV Aftermarket Committee. “I work with a number of great people, including the Committee’s Chair, John Tinghitella, to provide value to the aftermarket as part of the RV Industry Association. The committee also helps provide a voice for the aftermarket within the Association.”

Raymond adds that he also leads the RV Aftermarket Committee’s Consumer Outreach Taskforce. Part of his role includes overseeing the development of how-to videos aimed at new RVers. “I’ve had the privilege of working with a nice group of people to create retail-facing videos to help first-time RVers understand how to do hookups, how to drive a unit, and how to back up a unit. We’re trying to create a small library of videos that these consumers can access for really relevant information. We want to help Go RVing in their quest to be the experts new RVers can rely on.”

As he leads new initiatives at both Ultra-Fab and the RV Industry Association, Raymond makes it clear that he is embracing the future. He emphasizes that Ultra-Fab centers around growth and new achievements. “We have a goal of adding at least one new product and a product improvement every year. We also have a goal of growing both organically and in other ways. We’re working on many different product development projects, trying to take this to the next level.”

Raymond also mentioned that whatever success he has had in his career has been through working with a great team. “People like Melissa Revlett, John Spaulding, Rebecca Kuhn, and Kurt Free have taught me tons and have made great contributions to the industry in their own right.”