july2017

150 151 since relocating two of our locations and ex- panding our Winter Garden location.” In addi- tion, because of their more visible locations, he doesn’t need to spend as much on advertising to get customers to visit them. “At the Winter Garden location, we recently purchased our neighboring competitor deal- ership, which was Leisure Time RV,” says Mc- Namara. “We didn’t buy the business; we bought the property. So, we were able to expand our original location, which was landlocked for years and years. The expansion gave us a whole lot more frontage on the busy Highway 50. Some of the new offerings at Winter Garden are golf carts, ATVs and towing trucks. We also offer Rhino Lining for the local car and truck dealers.” Between the three locations, Giant Recreation World has about 130 full-time employees and 25 part-time.McNamara proudly reports that during the 2008 Great Recession,when many RV dealer- ships went under, his company didn’t lose a single employee.“I cut higher-level employees’ salaries; we made a lot of hourly employees, part-time, and we struggled through the hard times.We were still doing business because of our great reputa- GIANT RECREATIONWORLD tion, quality service and loyal custom- er base,”he says. McNamara believes that another reason that the company remained solvent during the down years was because of the exclusive benefits that its customers receive when they purchase their RV from Giant Recre- ationWorld. These benefits include a lifetime RVwarranty on all new and qualifying used RVs at no cost to the customer that pays for parts and labor for their vehicles, and member- ship in both the Priority RV Service Network, and their exclusive VIP Camping Club. “The Priority RV Network is the largest network of dealers in North America,” says McNamara.“We sign a contract with each other saying that if one of their customers is at our loca- tion and they have a problem that’s keeping them from enjoying their RV, they can come to the front of the service line just as if they were one of our own customers. It’s been a great success while competing with the national dealers. Our VIP Camp- ing Club gives people a reason to use their RV.” The VIP Camping Club features monthly hosted campouts and an annual rally with fellow customers and the Giant Recreation World staff. “Because of our Camp-