It’s been 54 years since Jim Rowley, Jr. joined three fellow campground owners in co-founding the Texas Association of Campground Owners (TACO).
But the passing of more than half a century didn’t stop the now 84-year-old Rowley from attending TACO’s annual Spring Meeting and Trade Show on April 22 and giving attendees a quick history lesson on how TACO came into being and why campgrounds and RV parks need to belong to a state association.
Indeed, without a state association, who would fight the private park industry’s legislative battles on their behalf? Or offer them forums where private park operators could get together with experts and with each other to learn about the best practices in everything from building or expanding a park to marketing to consumers?
TACO’s latest Spring Meeting was its largest in the association’s history, with a total of 374 attendees, including at least 40 park owners who had never attended a TACO Spring Meeting before, as well as 90 tradeshow vendors.
TACO was established by just a handful of park owners, including Ken LeForge, of the Denton KOA in Sanger; Tag Taggert, of Trader’s Village in Grand Prairie; along with the owner of Red Arrow Campground in Arlington; and Rowley, who co-owned and operated the Austin Lone Star KOA with his brother, Ken.
“We wanted to just band together, have meetings and discuss campground issues and have a state directory to generate business,” Rowley said. “We started with a rack card. (But) we struggled every year with finding the money to have it printed. It was a struggle for years.”
In a subsequent interview with Woodall’s Campground Magazine, Rowley said TACO’s efforts to provide marketing and education were also critical in the early days.
“There was a big push to let people know about private campgrounds,” he said. “You were competing against state and national parks. We had to educate people about propane, pool maintenance, all those things.”
But TACO’s fortunes changed for the better in 1996. That’s when Rowley and his fellow members on TACO’s board hired Brian and Debra Schaeffer, of Texas Advertising (later known as AGS Publishing), to take over the campground directory and manage the association. The Schaeffers were TACO’s first paid staff members.
“I told them, ‘Don’t embarrass me!’” Rowley said in his remarks to TACO Spring Meeting attendees.
Fortunately for TACO, the Schaeffers delivered.
In a subsequent interview with WCM, Schaeffer said the TACO assignment changed his and Debra’s lives in ways they never could have imagined.
“We had just established our own company – Texas Advertising – publishing guest guides for parks,” he said. “We took on three aspects of operations for the association.”
These included:
- Handling day-to-day operations, including government affairs;
- Producing TACO shows and coordinating various association marketing programs;
- and producing the RV Travel & Camping Guide to Texas
“We did all of this on a handshake deal,” Schaeffer recalled.
The Schaeffers’ efforts quickly bore fruit.
“When we started, there were 65 campground members,” Schaeffer said. “It doubled the first three years and kept increasing at 15% to 20% a year until it topped out a few years ago around 425. During the year, we fluctuate up to 450, and then at year’s end, we purge back to around 425.”
As the association grew, so, too, did its coffers.
This gave TACO the ability to organize bigger and better tradeshows; hire a lobbyist, Ron Hinkle; and expand its marketing and media outreach efforts.
Along the way, TACO’s annual RV Travel & Camping Guide to Texas went from a rack card to a 40-page 6-by-9-inch pamphlet to a 150-page magazine that is distributed at Texas Information Centers, the Points of Entry into Texas, as well as 25 RV shows in Texas and across the country.
But it’s in the legislative arena where TACO has made its most enduring impact.
Last year, for example, Texas became the first state in the nation to adopt NFPA 1195 as the building and safety code for RV parks and campgrounds. This happened specifically as a result of TACO’s efforts, which targeted the state’s efforts to develop evacuation procedures and safety requirements that were sought by Texas legislators in the aftermath of last summer’s deadly floods in the Kerrville area.
NFPA 1194 includes evacuation procedures that are applicable to fires, floods and other disasters.
TACO has achieved many other victories for private park operators over the years, none of which individual parks could have achieved on their own.
These include:
- Removing RV Parks from existing mobile home laws.
- Creating a theft of service law specific to the campground and RV park industry.
- Establishing a unique and simple way to exempt RV parks from sales tax on electricity for monthly guests.
- Getting laws established for RV parks to only pay for actual utility usage, eliminating per-site fees.
- Securing a litigation immunity law for campgrounds.
Rowley made sure everyone at the Spring Meeting knew the Schaeffers were responsible for helping to make TACO what it is today.
“Debra and Brian have done a great job,” he said. “You’re doing great things with the legislature.”
But he also told Spring Meeting attendees that their own “attitude” about attending a convention is just as important as anything else, whether it’s attending networking sessions or seminars or simply listening to convention speakers. It’s advice that park operators can really apply to any campground industry convention across the country.
“If you go (to a convention) with the attitude that you will come home with something (to improve your business), you will do it,” Rowley said. “Attitude is key.”
Jim and his wife, Martha, are celebrating 59 years of marriage this year, while assisting their son, David, with Pecan Park Riverside Campground in San Marcos, Texas, and keeping up with Martha’s 104-year-old mother, who lives with them.
“Lives well lived,” Schaeffer said.
