News & Articles from Mobile Concepts
SCOTTY Celebrates 50 Years
The idea for SCOTTY trailers was born on the fourth of July in 1956 on
the back of a calendar by John Serro, a then 55 year-old retired auto
dealership owner who was on a weekend trip in Deep Creek, Maryland. It was
raining and he couldn't fish. In his words, he was moping around the cabin
and the vision just came. He sketched it: a bed, sink, two-burner stove and
dinette, all tucked into a trailer just 13 feet long - small enough to fit
into the garages of the late '50s.
The next day he packed up, drove home and went to work constructing what
would come to be known as the SCOTTY Sportsman in his barn in Westmoreland
County near Irwin. When his 13-foot trailer was finished, he hooked it to
his car and drove all night, arriving in Elkhart, Indiana for the last day
of the annual Midwest show. After Serro's arrival, people fell in love with
his light and compact trailer concept, and Serro left the show with orders
for 18 SCOTTY Sportsman trailers. He then teamed with his son-in-law Joe
Pirschl and bought acreage visible from the Irwin exit of the Pennsylvania
Turnpike. The rest, as they say, is history.
From 1956 through 1990, the focus of the business was on recreational
trailers - and what an empire it became. What started as an order for 18
campers grew to a family-owned business that manufactured thousands of
trailers. It was soon discovered that there was no camping spot that could
accommodate the burgeoning ranks of SCOTTY owners, so Scottyland USA, which
opened in 1963 on a 330-acre farm in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, was
created.
The Serro SCOTTY Owners Association was formed and more than 56 chapters
cropped up in cities all across the country, with clubs hitting the road
together in caravans. Serro and Pirschl not only sold their audience
trailers, but also the company's Scottish terrier mascot that became
well-known in the dealer network in the form of concrete statues, stuffed
animals and on stickers, hats, jackets and coffee mugs. We became known as
the big name in little trailers, said Joe Pirschl. And that's how the
Scottish terrier found its place in our business - it's a well-known little
dog, just like our trailers.
In 1990, Anne Degre joined the business that her grandfather and father had
started, and the rest, as one might say, is her story. She discovered a
niche in the marketplace for what is now known as the SCOTTY Fire Safety
House. A handful of fire departments had built their own fire safety houses;
however, these departments found that most of their houses were too large
and heavy to tow to schools or safety fairs. That's when Serro Scotty RV's
expertise at building quality, light-weight trailers came in to play.
Anne buckled down and placed all of her time and energy on marketing the
SCOTTY Fire Safety House to fire departments across the country. She
traveled extensively, educating fire departments about the benefits of
owning a SCOTTY Fire Safety House and promoted the new product at tradeshows
in hundreds of cities around the world. Her tireless efforts began paying
off - she soon realized that the demand for the company's new product was
growing faster than flames across a dry prairie. Then in her second year,
the true reward she had hoped for came to pass: the Georgia Fire Academy
notified Anne about the actions of a young girl who had helped save her baby
brother during a fire. A few days prior to the fire in her home, the young
girl had gone through the hands-on training provided by the SCOTTY Fire
Safety House at her Head Start program and learned what to do in the event
of a fire. Since then, Anne has received further documentation about other
lives saved because of this educational fire safety tool.
Then, on April 17, 1997, the company's 45,000 square-foot factory burned to
the ground. The family and Serro employees who made SCOTTY trailers and
recreational vehicles famous around the world knew of only one way to safely
escape a fire: never give up. And on May 12, just 25 days after the fire,
work benches were erected on bare concrete floors, power lines run, and a
production line capable of finishing three trailers a week was established.
Our competitor was at the Harrisburg show spreading rumors that the fire
put us out of business, Anne remembers. So I arrived at the show wearing a
large button that read, 'On April 27, 1997, our factory burned to the
ground. On May 12, 1997, we resumed production in our NEW FACILITY' - it
showed that we were back.
After the fire, the company's name was changed to Mobile Concepts by SCOTTY,
and the business had a new, singular focus: designing and manufacturing
custom commercial trailers, initially focusing on Fire Safety Houses.
Today, the company offers several different exterior packages for the Fire
Safety House, in addition to a new and innovative motorized unit. We can
fit almost any customer request, said Anne. In fact, many of the myriad of
features we offer are in direct correlation to requests we have had from our
customers over the years.
Mobile Concepts realizes that to be successful in today's global business
environment you must have an intense focus on the voice of the customer.
Whether a company makes nuts and bolts, consumable goods or products that
save people's lives, it has to be responsive to changes in market demands
and customer needs, commented Anne.
By carefully listening to customers and being proactive in its response,
Mobile Concepts has engineered and designed two new and innovative products:
the SCOTTY Community Safety House and the SCOTTY Command Post.
The Community Safety house is a cutting edge training vehicle marketed to
the Law Enforcement industry. Manufactured as a commercial trailer, this
mobile classroom is designed to be used as an educational tool in schools,
childcare facilities or any community event. The unit offers a variety of
safety instruction including D.A.R.E., 911 training, bicycle safety,
stranger danger, fingerprinting and ID programs, home security, pedestrian
safety and much more.
The Command Post trailer is a highly sophisticated communications command
center and is marketed to both the Fire and Law Enforcement markets. Each
unit is built to the customer's specifications, with hundreds of options to
choose from, noted Anne. We equip every unit with the most advanced
technology to help emergency response professionals react to any type of
situation. The Command Post is available as a towable or motorized unit.
It all began as an ambitious idea sketched on the back of a calendar, and
although still a family-owned business, the complexion of the company has
changed dramatically. What started as 18 orders for a SCOTTY Sportsman in
1956 has turned into thousands of orders for SCOTTY commercial trailers.
The SCOTTY brand has been a trusted name for over five decades, said Anne,
and we still use the SCOTTY dog emblem. And it still stands for family,
value and integrity. We will continue the tradition of excellence in every
product we make.
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