Forest City, IA- One of North Iowa's largest employer's is starting to feel the grip of the national recession loosen, but company leaders at Winnebago Industries are remaining cautious.
Winnebago Industries President and CEO Bob Olsen says the company has seen the bottom of the recession.
Now he wants to make sure they don't get ahead of themselves get out of financial trouble.
Winnebago hired 350 people over the last several months. Christina Grothe is happy to be back at work after getting laid off in December of 2008.
"It was getting a little harry there, it was getting closer to my six months, because at six months, if we got rehired we had to start over from the very beginning," Grothe explained.
She got rehired after five months and her seniority and benefits with the company continued.
"I knew that we would pick back up, I mean we always have when we got a little slow, I'd never seen it that slow," She said.
Olson says he's encouraged the companies orders are up 350 percent, but he knows it will take time before Winnebago is profitable again.
"We have to be realistic, we have to keep everything in perspective that we got ourselves into a really deep hole and to dig out of that thing is going to take a while," he said.
Olson says while dealers are buying more RV's to fill their inventory, consumers need to start buying more motor homes to continue Winnebago’s recovery.
"One of the bigger shows of the year is in Tampa, Florida this week, so we'll get a pretty good indicator on how that's gonna go if, if traffic's good there then we start seeing some retail activity we're gonna be optimistic," he said.
Olson says the recession is also affecting them in other ways. Next week the company is shutting down this production line because of supply shortages.
"This supplier who provides us with our heating and air conditioning systems went bankrupt, they did not make it through this very tough recession."
While Olson remains cautious, Grothe will enjoy the job she loves.
"I take pride in what I do, and I love the people it's a different kind of atmosphere than say an office or something," she said.
Bob Olson tells us they are currently looking to diversify their operations. He says they're plants in Forest City and Charles City have many capabilities, they're just waiting for something to come along so they can take advantage of those capabilities.
The tow behind camper industry is fairing slightly better than motor homes. Olson says his company's main focus will remain on RV's, but they could consider getting into the tow behind market.
