TALKING WITH JAYCO BOSS GERRY RYAN
Q Thanks for talking with Caravan World, Gerry. Can you take us back to how you started building RVs? I had been working at AMP in their property department and studying accountancy and I realised it wasn't for me. Some university mates were working at Sunwagon Trailers over the holidays and they said come and join us. So, I started on the production line as a fill-in job and two months later I was a foreman.
Six months to the day I moved up to Production Manager — I was only 22. A year later they sent me to America to Jayco US where Sunwagon were buying their lift systems. I met founder Lloyd Bontrager and he invited me over to learn about production, and while I was there, I spent time in R&D and other departments learning the ropes.
After a while, I came back to Australia and by that time Sunwagon and a small manufacturer had merged. The old Sunshine Biscuits Company wanted to get into the leisure business and with the merger came a new manager and so I was pushed aside. I suggested a number of ideas that I had developed in America, but they weren’t prepared to listen. It was frustrating, especially when they brought in a new engineer who designed a new lift system, so they didn't need Jayco parts anymore.
I was 24 and thought I would have a crack at making campers myself so I wrote to Jayco in the US — there wasn't emails in those days — and eventually I rang Lloyd and asked him if I could
