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About Us
Meet Garr Russell
Garr has started, scaled and sold several companies! Systems, processes, sales, marketing, leadership and forging the way are his giftings. In 2016 he entered the RV space and has quickly rose the lead the industry starting the nation's first RV rental management company with locations all around the US and now the co-founder of the RVRBA.
- Founder & CEO of Fireside RV Rental, the nation's largest RV Management Company
- John Maxwell Certified Speaker, Leader and Trainer
- Author of My Wheel Estate Story
- Over 7 years' experience in the RV Rental Industry
- Managed 100's of RV's and thousands of reservations
The Beginning
"I was a brand-new RV owner with a wife who didn't want to camp."
To make things worse, I felt terrible because I had just bought this for her on our 10-year anniversary. I felt even worse about the situation because I thought she would be super excited to have a brand-new RV.
I was simply trying to figure out what to do with this RV. I really wanted to figure out a way to cover my payments and put the RV to use so my wife wouldn't feel bad about not wanting to camp.
I wanted to be able to cover those payments and maybe make a bit of money and I could so I could turn this liability into a money-making asset. The thing is I was I was struggling with figuring out what to do with the RV.
Then, as if by chance, something amazing happened...my first good idea hit, and everything changed. God showed me to rent the RV out the same as we do our rental properties. This quickly showed me I was not alone, I discovered many friends, family, neighbors had RV's sitting around most of the time as well!
It was now crystal clear to me on how to start a business with other people's RV's just like in real estate property management. Discovering this meant not only was my RV disaster solved I could now help others put their RVs to work and help them as well
MICHIGAN CAMPER RENTALS
My plan was to start offering this business model to others that had similar entrepreneurial interest. So, I started creating our business in a box offer that included all that was needed for them to start an RV Management business. But we didn’t stop there. We then started selling branch opportunities to likeminded individuals and presenting our management service to RV owners. My first sign up was Kim Hill in Michigan who still operates his branch with us today.
The CAMPER CONNECTION
After that, we started to think bigger! We began marketing our new business offer to entrepreneurs and RV management to owners nationwide, which is why we changed our name from Michigan Camper Rentals to The Camper Connection. We began to grow with locations popping up all over the United States, from Arizona to Pennsylvania, Florida, and New York.
FIRESIDE RV RENTAL
We decided to trademark and franchise this unique business opportunity and rebranded to Fireside RV Rental. We celebrated by gathering all of our branch managers and staff together at my Okeechobee, FL home and I realized I had so much more than a business, I had a community, a tribe.
But there was still a problem...Even after all that, things were still not perfect. Here's what I mean.
There are still many every day running a business issue we ran into especially now representing owners and new branch partnerships that were popping up. We ended up getting frustrated and putting a lot of energy into building out our training and support system. We thought if we could create something that would make it possible to best support other RV rental owners in there day to day, that would be awesome! We’d be really happy.
After months of building support systems, recording training videos, finding the perfect software programs and setting up coaching sessions, we had completed our first training program, Fireside FastTrack Framework, which would assist with training and onboarding our new franchisees. This system that we now have in place will help us welcome you as our next franchise!
