Moving ahead: relative newcomer Forest River takes the RV business by storm.

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: Cover Story

PETE LIEGL JOKES THAT he's been fired from every job he's ever held.

"They're out there right now painting new lines in the parking lot," Liegl laughs. "That probably means they're going to fire me again."

That's hardly likely. The 59-year-old Liegl is president and CEO of Elkhart-based Forest River Inc., one of the state's fastest-growing companies and a mainstay of northern Indiana's manufacturing economy. RVBusiness, one of the most respected voices in the industry's trade press, recently called Liegl "chief administrator, general strategist, head bean counter, part-time engineer, manufacturing specialist, designer and cheerleader."

Privately held Forest River expects $1.3 billion in sales in fiscal 2004, and Liegl vows that he's not about to step down until the company he founded passes $2 billion in sales. Forest River placed seventh on Indiana Business magazines most recent ranking of the state's largest private companies, with 2003 sales of $976 million, and its sales make it the largest Indiana-based RV company, public or private.

That's not a bad record for a company that didn't exist eight years ago. Liegl helped found Forest River out of the wreckage of Cobra Industries Inc., which imploded into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. Liegl, who had been fired as president and CEO of Cobra in a dispute with the company's board several years earlier, bought pieces of Cobra from the bankruptcy court in 1990. "We simply bought some of the assets; mostly it was buildings, machinery and raw goods," he says.

Liegl christened the new company Forest River. "It represents the outdoors to me," he says of the new name. "It has a nice ring to it."

In just eight years, Liegl and his management team have built Forest River into the No. 2 company in the recreational-vehicle towables segment, which includes pop-up trailers, camp trailers and fifth-wheel trailers. Last year, Forest River sold 34,743 towables, more than 15 percent of the nation's total. That's still well behind industry leader Thor, which accounts for one-quarter of the 232,000 towables sold nationwide. But Liegl points out that it's well ahead of such longtime industry leaders as Fleetwood Jayco and Coachmen.

"I like to say it's who we're ahead of and not who we're trying to catch up with that's important," Liegl points out.

In recent years, Forest River has also become competitive in the motorized segments of the recreational vehicle marketplace, which includes mini-motor homes, Class A, Class C and Class A diesel makes. In 2003, Forest River climbed to seventh among U.S. motorized RV manufacturers, from...