Instead of an American company leaving for a foreign country, Truma Corporation, a leading European supplier of RV components, announced plans to put its new North American headquarters in America’s RV capital, Elkhart County in Indiana, reported WSBT.
“Five years ago, we started our business here in North America,” said Gerhard Hundsberger, Truma Corp. “We rented a small space but now we grew out of this space, we added 20 employees and, now we need something bigger. That’s why we are here now.”
Truma wants to add a two-story office building, a training facility, a new warehouse, and a service bay.
“Within the next couple of years, we want to grow our team further, from 20 now to even 40 and 50 and 60 employees beyond that,” said Hundsberger.
Right now, Truma makes high-end appliances overseas, like premium instant water heaters, heating systems, and air conditioning units for RVs.
In addition to expanding the operation on Elkhart’s north side and bringing more jobs, the company also plans to introduce a product from overseas to the RV market here – for the first time ever.
“We also brought over a combined furnace and water heater,” said Hundsberger. “This is very unique to the North American RV industry. It does not exist here.”
“We bring out products here from Europe,” said Mark Howlett, Senior V.P. “They are very focused on small compact systems in the European market. All of that technology that we have in the European market, we are now offering it on a global basis, and now here in America.
“The long term plan actually is, if things could work out well, bringing production over in the next phase,” said Hundsberger.
I wonder how long it will be before Lippert buys them out and turns their products into mass produced mediocre quality stuff.