WAUSEON – Due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions, sales of recreational vehicles, travel trailers and touring coaches have skyrocketed in 2020.
According to the report “Growth of Camping Amid COVID-19: A Fall 2020 Update,” 56 percent of leisure travelers view camping as the safest type of travel. That’s good news for manufacturers like Airstream.
With consistent demand over the years, Airstream already was gearing up for more growth in 2019 before the coronavirus struck. That’s when the company started adding a new facility to its manufacturing operations in Jackson Center where “silver bullet” campers are made. The new structure has 684,000 square feet of space. That’s the size of almost 12 football fields.
“This project was so large that we broke it into three phases,” said Mark P. Beckman, manufacturing engineering and facilities director for Airstream. “We have 43 exterior Haas garage doors and nine interior garage doors in this new facility.”
This isn’t the first time Airstream has selected Haas Door products for a large project. Beckman estimated there are at least 30 other Haas garage doors throughout the 1.3 million square feet of the Airstream complex in Ohio. The massive operation includes 12 buildings sitting on about 150 acres of space.
“Moeller Door & Window originally introduced us to Haas garage doors,” Beckman said. “We have a strong relationship with Moeller and rely on them for both their product recommendations and their service.
“We use doors hard here at Airstream. We’ve had other garage doors in the past that had problems. We’ve never experienced those problems with Haas garage doors.
“Having a garage door go down for us is a major inconvenience at best; at worst it can actually shut down production. That’s why reliability is a big deal for us.”
The team at Moeller Door & Window values the relationship with Airstream.
“We started the first phase of installation for this project in July of 2019,” said Pat Moeller, owner of Moeller Door & Window near St. Henry.
According to Moeller, Airstream selected Commercial 712 model V-groove wood grain steel insulated garage doors from Haas Door for the plant addition along with a variety of all-glass CA320 garage doors. Airstream relied on the recommendation from Moeller Door & Window due to past successes and the durability of Haas Door products.
“They like the quality of the Commercial 712 garage door, the clean look and the thick 26-gauge galvanized steel skin on these doors,” Moeller said. “We’ve installed Haas Door products before, and Airstream liked them a great deal. Based on that positive experience, they selected Haas Door products again.”
Haas Door is located in Wauseon, where the company manufactures steel and aluminum residential and commercial garage doors. The family-owned company holds memberships in the International Door Association and the Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association and produces products that are sold throughout North America. For more information on Haas Door, visit www.HaasDoor.com.
