(Dec. 31, 2008) -- This month, RV maker Winnebago Industries Inc. in Iowa said all its workers, including Chief Executive Bob Olson, would take an unpaid week off during the current quarter, along with a two-week production shutdown during the holidays. Maplewood-based 3M Co. said early this month that it had ordered some workers to take vacation or unpaid time for the last two weeks of the year. Computer maker Dell Inc. in November asked employees to consider taking unpaid vacation days during the fourth quarter.

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(Dec. 31, 2008) -- "Our lending institutions and manufacturers have given us incentives with the result that we must immediately reduce inventory," said Joe Altman, president of Altman's Winnebago. "It couldn’t come at a better time! The holidays are behind us, a new president is on the way to the White House, gas prices are down and I have no doubt that whatever consumer confidence was lost, will bounce back."

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(Dec. 31, 2008) -- "We'll open with 60 sites, half of them pull-through and half back-in," Hash said. "We have a second phase drawn up that would bring us to 125 RV sites, plus we're getting ready to start working on some nature trails, fishing piers by the creeks and a park. We have 160 acres, including the hillside above the golf course, so we have the land."

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(Dec. 31, 2008) -- When the Good Sam Club started a discussion about awarding an RVer of the year each year, beginning with 2008, no one had to think too hard to decide where that honor should go. It went to Richard Daniels, a Georgia man whose travels introduced him to a dog and whose heart was so big he decided to help homeless animals in addition to giving that stray a good home.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- Products already in production will be completed. In a letter to Nu-Wa dealers, CEO Mike Mitchell wrote that he could not see enough “light at the end of the tunnel to feel confident that market conditions would improve significantly to continue."

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- Until recently Power Wheels of Truro served as a recreation vehicle dealer and service provider. But due to lagging sales the business’s owner decided in September it just wasn’t worth keeping the doors open.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- In a report out this morning, the Chicago purchasing management index provided more encouraging news by unexpectedly rising to 34.1 in December from 33.8 in November. This is the first increase in this measure since August.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- A total of 6,000 new units were shipped to dealers in November compared to 21,500 for the same month last year. For the year, 231,400 units were shipped in the first 11 months, compared to 331,000 in 2007 -- a 30.1 percent decline. A total of 800 motorhomes were shipped last month.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- Recreational-vehicle supplier Odyssey Group LLC will close its Bristol facility and lay off 170 workers, according to a Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification Act notice filed with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development earlier this month.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- The American-made Liberty Kit was designed to properly match the quality and styling of the vehicles it is installed on, with attractive details and quality components. It adjusts up or down to accommodate flags from 2 feet to 4 feet high and also features a 360-degree rotation system that keeps a flag from ever wrapping the pole even at speeds up to 80 mph.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- The 2009 SuperShow will break the record for both manufacturer's space and supplier's booth space. "We will have more suppliers' booths than ever before and a record amount of manufacturer space," said Marketing Director David Kelly. "With the addition of new entertainment and more seminars, we're anticipating record crowds this year. We're also renewing the two-day pass so the public will have two full days to see everything at the SuperShow at no additional cost."

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- "The Present Situation Index is now close to levels last seen in the months following the 1990-91 recession, but is not as low as levels reached during the 1981-82 recession. Declines in the Expectations Index appear to be moderating, but this index continues to hover at historical lows. The overall economic outlook remains quite dismal for the first half of 2009, and only a modest recovery is expected in the second half.”

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- TengoInternet today announced the hiring of Frank Drew and James Green as director of business development and director of marketing.

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(Dec. 30, 2008) -- U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt ruled a batch of lawsuits on behalf of hundreds of plaintiffs against the federal government and several trailer manufacturers can't be handled as a class action because each person's claim is unique and must be examined individually.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. has been notified by the NYSE Regulation, Inc. that it is not in compliance with the New York Stock Exchange continued listing standard that requires a listed common stock to maintain a minimum average market capitalization of not less than $25 million over a consecutive 30-trading-day period. Accordingly, the NYSE will suspend trading of the company's common stock effective with the NYSE's opening on Jan. 5, and the company is making the necessary arrangements to ensure that its common stock continues to trade through normal brokerage channels on one of the regular over-the-counter markets.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- For investors, now seems like a good time to take a serious look at Actuant. Although it has around $700 million in long-term debt and the economic environment could get worse before it gets better, the company has a diverse list of well-established clients including Deere, Shell and Wal-Mart, and it should be able to sustain sufficient belt-tightening.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- Coachmen Industries, Inc. today announced that the company closed on the sale of nearly all of the assets of its recreation vehicle business to Forest River, Inc. The sale had been overwhelmingly approved by Coachmen shareholders the previous week.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- The popular Northern California RV and boat shows, usually held on consecutive weeks in January at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, have been combined and rescheduled for May 15-24, it was announced today.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- Many people in northern Indiana's Elkhart County — with the state's highest jobless rate after big layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry — say they have faced problems in seeking unemployment benefits from state offices.

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(Dec. 29, 2008) -- Siskiyou RV World Sales Manager Jason McGinnis is all too familiar with the rumors, and has received many phone calls about the matter. But he insists that both stores will remain open well into the next year.

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