Fleetwood Veterans Warmly Remember CEO Elden Smith – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Though no obituaries have been issued nor public funerals held, former Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. President and CEO Elden Smith passed away Sept. 24, 2024, at the age of 84 at a senior health facility in Riverside, Calif., confirms Barbara Smith, who was married for 63 years to the late industry leader and former RV Industry Association (RVIA) board chairman.
A Riverside resident who lived in both Southern California and Washington State, Smith, a 1997 RV/MH Hall of Fame inductee, was well known and generally revered for his tenure at Fleetwood, having reportedly played a key role in building up the revenues of Fleetwood – a West Coast-based firm founded in 1950 by John Crean – from $39 million to $1.3 billion during his years as a senior vice president with the company from 1968 until his first retirement in 1997. In so doing, he helped establish Fleetwood and its brands as a dominant publicly held industry player with facilities strategically located throughout the nation marketing RVs, manufactured housing as well as products handled by the company’s retail home centers and supply subsidiaries.
Fleetwood in the late 1990’s employed about 18,000 people in plants located in 18 states and Canada with revenues reaching $2.8 billion. “He retired in ’97 and then he went back to work there in ’05 to try to get Fleetwood back on its feet,” said Barbara Smith, “and I think it was 2010 that they had to close up, and after that we were retired again and we had a home on Whidbey Island, Wash. We spent six months of the year every year there and then we spent the other six months of the year – every year – in Riverside.”
Smith’s second stint with Fleetwood included a seat on the company’s board of directors and the president and CEO title. Some of the vintage brands developed during his time with Fleetwood, which ultimately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, are still on the market today as part of Milwaukee-based RV builder REV Group Inc.’s product portfolio.
All that aside, looking back over the years, former Fleetwood executives like Jim Sheldon, once Fleetwood’s high profile director of marketing, considers him “one of the giants” of the RV industry.
“I will always remember Elden as a very understanding executive.I would visit him on occasion at the factory in Hancock, Maryland, that he managed at the time and I was really impressed observing how he treated all of his employees with tremendous respect. I was also impressed with how he interfaced with the staff and the production crew in a positive manner. Within a short period of time, he was promoted to the corporate facility of Fleetwood Enterprises as the assistant vice president for RVs. But, I should add, he was also a very strong willed and independent thinker. The clearest example of this was his opposition to the creation of the Go RVing (national marketing) program. As opposed as he was, he still withdrew his view for the sake of industry unity. For taking that position, I will always remember him as principled yet passionate in what he believed in uncompromising his principals. Our industry benefitted due to his compassion and brilliant leadership. He will be missed.”
Also harboring fond memories of Smith today is Jon Nord, who, serving as senior vice president of Fleetwood’s Housing Group, worked closely with Smith for 30 years and distinctly remembers watching he and three partners winning the Pro-Am Golf Championship at the Bob Hope Classic at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina.
“Eldon ran the RV half of the company, and I ran the housing half of the company,” said Nord, adding that Smith tended to keep corporate politics to a minimum. “We had our offices right next to each other in Riverside. And obviously, we did a lot of things together from a corporate-wide standpoint for about 30 years. And all I can say is that he was a class act and a gentleman at all times. He and I were the same age, and we started at the company at the same time. And then we retired within a month of each other and became even better friends after retirement, which was 20 years ago.
“All I can tell you is that he was an excellent public speaker with great values who was absolutely trustworthy – someone you’d want as a brother or as a son. He was just a class act with a high level of integrity.”
Another familiar Fleetwood name among industry veterans from the company’s heyday is former General Manager for Product Development Dave Russell with whom RVB also touched bases this week. “No one ever said anything bad about Elden, which is most interesting because I don’t know anybody else like that,” said Russell. “But you can turn that around. Elden never said anything bad about anybody else. And I literally don’t know anybody else I can say that about. He never said anything bad about anybody. He made people feel very special when they were around him. He was so good that everybody wanted to be better because of him.”
