Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from an article highlighting the upcoming retirement and long career of Camp Jellystone President Rob Schutter. The full article is accessible in WCM’s April issue, which is available for FREE by clicking here.
On April 3, Camp Jellystone President Rob Schutter passes the baton of leadership to Executive Vice President Jon Burek, who joined the company six years ago after spending many years holding senior management positions in the aviation and car wash industries.
For Schutter, however, the change marks the end of a 50-year career in the campground and theme park industries that started in 1976, when he was still in high school.
“It’s been a labor of love for 50 years,” Schutter said. “I started as a ‘Litter Gitter’ at Kings Island,” an amusement park just north of Cincinnati that was built on land, a portion of which was once owned by Schutter’s great-grandmother.
Schutter’s job in those days was simply to wander about the park, sweeping up wrappers and other bits of litter to keep the walkways clean. He continued to work at Kings Island while studying at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned degrees in management and marketing.
Schutter eventually worked his way up to a supervisory role, overseeing the “Litter Gitters.” But one day in 1980, while still in college, he wound up having to work as a “Litter Gitter” again when the park was short-staffed.
He noticed a gentleman with physical impairments sitting on a bench in an area he had to sweep.
“I had to politely ask him to kindly move his feet, but I didn’t want to impose upon him,” Schutter recalled.
“Right before I was getting ready to leave, he said, ‘Son. Do you even know who I am?’”
He was Jim Ashworth, the new assistant general manager at Kings Island.
“I want to commend you for what you are doing,” he said.
Ashworth was a big Texan with a booming voice, a strong Southern drawl and colorful vocabulary. He had suffered serious football injuries in his youth that left him partially paralyzed. But he worked his way into a senior management position at Kings Island.
Obviously impressed with Schutter’s professionalism, Ashworth later called him into his office and offered him a promotion overseeing a department.
“I said, ‘Mr. Ashworth, I can’t take that job. I haven’t graduated from college yet.’ He said, ‘Alright, you little sh-t. Get out of this office and come see me when you graduate.’”
After graduating, Schutter neglected to call Ashworth, but he tracked him down. “He said, ‘You little sh-t. You were supposed to give me a call.”
Ashworth offered him a job in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston, working at Hanna-Barbera Land, an amusement park for families with young children that featured Hanna-Barbera characters, including Scooby-Doo, Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear.
“I ended up being in charge of safety and attractions,” Schutter said. But after management decided to close the park, Schutter returned to Kings Island and was placed in the marketing department, overseeing research, promotions and season pass sales. He held that position for about three years.
“Then I got another call from Jim Ashworth. He had been transferred to a division that was in charge of some of the license agreements overseen by Hanna-Barbera,” Schutter added.
Ashworth assigned Schutter to work as franchise director for Leisure Systems, Inc. (LSI), which owned the Jellystone Park franchise system.
“I was in charge of sales,” Schutter said, adding, “Vic Nolting was my direct boss.”
Schutter’s work wasn’t easy. From 1989 to 1992, he spent most of his time cleaning up the franchise network, as several campgrounds in the Jellystone Park system were failing to comply with the franchise’s standards.
“We traveled around and looked at all of the properties and categorized which ones we wanted to keep and which ones were not holding up their end of the bargain,” Schutter said.
While the Jellystone Park concept of providing organized family activities dates back to 1969, when the Jellystone Park brand was first established, there was no consistency in the quality of the activities and entertainment provided when Schutter joined Leisure Systems.
“Unfortunately, the Jellystone Park franchisees at that time were not receiving too much assistance from LSI,” Schutter recalled. “Under the former ownership, there was no clear direction for the business. They had some parks involved in lot sales. Some involved in membership sales. Some were exclusively open to the public. They had three or more different concepts running under the same franchise banner. That provided confusion to our guests.”
The Jellystone Park brand was also weakened by inconsistent amenities and accommodations between the parks. Many parks also had different costume designs for Yogi Bear, and the other characters and the costumes themselves were often not well maintained by some of the parks.
“Even in the early days, Leisure Systems had a very sound operational concept with Jellystone Park, but they weren’t enforcing it across the board with their franchisees,” Schutter said.
In an effort to turn things around, Schutter and his senior management team visited every campground operating under the Jellystone Park banner and began the process of essentially sorting the wheat from the chaff, eventually identifying 15 “core parks” that would provide the future backbone of the Jellystone Park network.
“The core 15 saw the value of having all parks with the same types of amenities, the same quality of costumed characters,” Schutter said. “They all knew we were sharing the same customer base among ourselves, and that if parks adhered to the same standards, it would benefit them in the long run.”
Schutter and his team also identified parks that clearly were not meeting the standards or were not committed to improving their operations.
“We told them, ‘We are going to enforce the franchise agreement,” he explained. “There are things you are going to have to do to bring your park into compliance. So, either you do this now or if you are not interested, let’s part ways now.’”
It was an effort that involved both pruning non-compliant parks from the Jellystone Park network and building relationships with park operators who wanted to stay with the network and improve the Jellystone Park brand. The Jellystone Park network shrank considerably during this period of re-evaluation.
“We went from 85 parks on paper down to the low 50s in two and a half years,” Schutter said, adding, “We eliminated almost a third of our franchise operations. But we also came away with what we felt was a very strong core group of quality parks.”
Schutter also recognized that the onus wasn’t just on the individual franchises to step up their performance. Leisure Systems also had to provide some assistance.
“We came up with new costumes and new training programs. We also re-instituted park inspections,” he said.
Leisure Systems also organized spring and fall meetings that were stacked with training programs and required its franchisees to attend at least one meeting per year.
Schutter said the hardest thing he’s ever had to do is terminate agreements with parks that were failing to comply with Jellystone Park guidelines. Fortunately, he said, that has rarely happened since his initial efforts to clean up the franchise network in the 1989 to 1992 period.
On the other hand, he was also able to identify a core group of exemplary Jellystone Park operators who actually helped expand the family campground network by recruiting their campground industry friends, who were also among the best park operators in the country.
This core group of exemplary Jellystone Park operators included Dan and Jane O’Connell in Amboy, Ill.; Roger Barry in Fremont, Ind.; John Rusk in Luray, Va.; Tony and Kathi Palmeri in Estes Park, Colo.; and Jerry Palay in Aurora, Ohio.
