Since Jennifer Pitcher joined the RV industry with Duo Form, Edwardsburg. Mich., about 13 years ago, she said there has rarely been a dull moment.
With changing procedures and changing corporate partnerships and the changing face of customers it would be easy to think she could get dizzy trying to keep up with everything.
But fortunately for her, Pitcher not only has a career on solid footing, but she also has a number of interests that she and her husband are able to pursue on their own time that helps keep her focused.
A couple of her guilty pleasures are listening to ’90s hip-hop music and binge watching what she calls “sappy movies” when her husband isn’t around.
But get her on a bowling alley, and she is really in her element.
“My husband got me into bowling over 20 years ago,” Pitcher said. “We own our own pro shop now. He actually drills bowling balls and things like that and we bowl pretty regularly. It’s kind of a dying sport, but we’re trying to bring it back.”
Another passion for Pitcher is traveling.
“I would love to go to Bora-Bora or something like that. Some place with tiki heads over the water and your own pool and all of that,” she said. “My husband and I really want to go travel Europe, Places like Ireland and Sweden and those places. We go to YouTube and watch the 4K videos on travel. We feel like we’re on a little mini-vacation and that’s what we’re going to do.”
For now, however, work comes first, and the customer relations manager spends her time as a go-between among Duo Form’s customers, sales department and production department.
She says the work, much like the industry as a whole, is always changing and is never boring.
“The last few years have been kind of ups and downs,” she said. “We keep waiting for it to plateau and it hasn’t, so that gets a little scary, but also exciting at the same time. You kind of have to ride the wave while it’s high and right now it’s really high. It comes with its challenges, but it’s still exciting. It’s a challenge, which is always exciting.”
Pitcher recommends that anyone considering a career in the RV industry should have thick skin and be prepared for all of those changes that seem to come along so regularly.
“The RV industry also is kind of fun to work in,” she said. “Once you’re in it and you get to know people, you see the same people around from plant people to buyers to sales reps and things like that. It kind of feels like once you get into the RV industry you don’t get out of it. You might bounce around and end up somewhere else, but we have a joke here, ‘Oh they’ll pop up somewhere else. We’ll see them in a month or two.’ It’s not goodbye, it’s so long for now.”
For women in particular, Pitcher said don’t be afraid to be a strong woman.
She said she knows of many who feel they can’t speak up at work because they will be labeled as mean or aggressive.
“I’ve learned to just let that roll off my shoulders and if I have a reason to be that way and to be strong then I do it,” she said. “I usually get the results I need to get. With me being in the customer service sector of things I’m the voice of my customer within the company. You just need to be strong.”