Re: [A/S] "Beatrice Airstreams"

["Harvey Barlow" <harveybarlow@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Members:

I bought an interesting and colorful little book in the Wally Byam Store at
the factory in Jackson Center about three years ago.  It includes various
chapters that tell the story of Wally Byam, the WBCCI, and Airsteam using
lots of old photographs.  The title is "Airstream", by Robert Landau and
James Phillippi, published by Peregrine Smith Books in 1984.

A chapter titled "Best-Designed In The Industry", written by former
Airstream president, Gerry Letourneau, tactfully addresses the issue of a
decline during the Beatrice period.
According to the chapter, Letourneau was hired as Airstream president in
1979.  He had previously "worked for a Canadian firm that acquired
economically distressed American companies in order to bring them back to
financial stability."  In the chapter, Letourneau said, "When I joined
Airstream it was owned by Beatrice Foods of Chicago."  You can draw your own
conclusions as to why Letourneau was hired.

Letourneau described his approach to turning Airstream around.  He started
by saying that Airstream had the basic ingredients.  "We had the reputation.
Airstream denoted quality --the best.  We had to make sure that was true."
Among his comments were: "We started with engineering."  "Workmanship is the
last thing you worry about when you start dealing with quality."  "The first
thing is engineering."  "If the product is not engineered right I don't care
how good a man out there is, he's not going to be building quality."  "If
the frame breaks when someone is going down the highway, the guy that built
the trailer didn't have anything to do with it."  "So we improved the
engineering."  "The second thing that can be improved is materials."  "The
third thing has to do with facilities."  "During my first three years at
Airsteam we made a big investment in equipment, tools, fixtures, jigs, and
maintenance."

I share this with members of the list not to criticize Airstream or anyone's
trailer, but simply for the purpose of contributing to general knowledge and
stimulating discussion.  Airsteam history is interesting to me because I
love the product and am interested in the way the product developed over the
years.  I like all things Airstream.  I have owned an '83 Excella, currently
own a '93 Excella, recently acquired a '66 Safari, and my daughter has a '72
Overlander.

Harvey Barlow
Lubbock, TX