Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 8

121 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 8 GOLD HEAT Comfort underfoot F or two decades, RV enthusiasts have been enjoying a level of comfort and warmth far superior to that experienced with traditional forced air heat systems. It all started back in 2002, thanks to the ingenuity of Ken Millard who developed a method for the design and manufacture of a customized electric radiant floor heat mat to fill a need in the RV industry. Today that innovative system, under the aptly-named brand “Gold Heat”, is a must-have feature in many Class A luxury coach models. A big point of pride, the Gold Heat product and customer service has received six consecutive awards for excellence by Newmar Coaches of Nappanee, Indiana; one of the world’s largest manufacturers of RVs. According to Brian Bishop, CEO of Gold Heat, “The company began almost 20 years ago with just a single customer and pushed out from there, weathering the storm in 2008/09, when many of our clients declared bankruptcy. Eventually, the industry rebounded and Aries Engineering, known today as Gold Heat, not only survived but lately business has been booming. To clarify, the legal company name is Aries Engineering, but when Ken started it he used the product name ‘Gold Heat’ for our webpage and email addresses. Before long, people started referring to us as “the Gold Heat guys”, so a couple years ago we filed papers and Gold Heat became the legally assumed business name (the Oregon version of a DBA). At that time we completely rebranded to Gold Heat to better reflect what we do.” The RV industry isn’t the only recipient