Dicky Riegel '88 steers Airstream into the twenty-first century
By Sarah Tuff '95
It's a hot day in late June, and the sun is skipping across the silver shells of more than 2,000 Airstreams that sit bumper to bumper on the fairgrounds of Vermont's Champlain Valley Exposition, just outside Burlington. The trailers are here for the 46th Wally Byam Caravan Club International Rally, creating a glittering city on once empty fairgrounds. Named after Airstream's founder, Wally Byam, the gigantic jubilee has drawn aluminum aficionados from all over the globe—and the company's new president and CEO, Richard "Dicky" Riegel '88.
"This is the granddaddy of events in the Airstream year," says Riegel, 37, looking proudly over the rally from a hillside sales tent. Unperturbed by the rising temperatures that would seem to turn this metallic scene into a scorch-fest, Riegel adds, "One of the great things about Airstream and the design is that even when it's 100 degrees you can go up to the side of the trailer and put your hand right on it. With the natural aluminum finish, it's pretty cool."
Indeed, Airstream is one of the coolest companies of the moment, its popularity renewed in an age when folks prefer to travel a bit closer to home. In its 72-year history, the aluminum trailer, made with a distinctive monocoque design based on aircraft principles, has enchanted Americans, earning comparisons to a wingless fuselage, a silver bullet, a land yacht, and the Cadillac of campers. The first astronauts to come back from the moon were housed in an Airstream. JFK used one as a mobile office, and Airstreams have appeared in films from Mars Attacks! to Charlie's Angels.
As the man behind the Airstream wheel, Riegel is exhilarated, if a bit apprehensive, about the journey he's piloting. "I was appointed president 15 months ago, and
I still get chills," he says. "Yes, I'm daunted by the challenge ahead, but it's so invigorating to come to scenes like this."
The weeklong rally was launched with an opening ceremony and parade of flags, plus the first of many pinochle games, craft workshops, and practices for the Teen Queen Pageant. Thousands of Airstreamers have created a utopia—with a post office, print shop, and traffic control—where they can hang out or make new friends. They've planted temporary herb gardens, stuck pink flamingos out their silver doors, and corralled themselves into communities.
Rally-goers also dole out random acts of kindness, raising nearly $20,000 for local charities, cooking supper at the Ronald McDonald House, and donating blood to the Red Cross. As Riegel zips through the "streets" in a golf cart, he runs into one of the most enthusiastic do-gooders, named Bert, who relates how he's dressed as a pirate to surprise nearby nursing-home residents with Mardi Gras beads.
"I don't know, Bert. If you show up in my trailer dressed in a pirate costume, I think I might be a little scared," laughs Riegel.
Growing up in Delaware with a car-collecting father, Riegel's earliest memory is of crawling around an antique fire engine, awed by the enormous wooden-spoke wheels and various knobs and dials. "I've always loved transportation—trains, planes, automobiles, boats," he says. "You name it, I love it." After graduating from Middlebury, he joined an advertising firm, handling a few automotive accounts but longing for a direct connection with his product. So Riegel went to Columbia for an M.B.A. At the same time, he was dating a woman named Amanda, whom he'd met on a Dissipated-8 tour of Bermuda, and whose father, Wade Thompson, heads up Thor Industries.
Here's where fate stepped in: Thor happens to be one of the largest automotive companies in North America. But when Thompson asked Riegel to come on board after graduating from Columbia, Riegel didn't want to just grab a familial freebie. "I was uncomfortable with it," says Riegel. "But he said, 'The time is now. We need you.' So I started the day after school."
It was five years of corporate development before Riegel would land at Airstream, of which Thor is the parent company. Immediately, he set out to meet each of the 350 employees personally, hoping to glean some of Airstream's heritage from associates who had been with the company for decades. Next, bothered by the often-asked question, "Airstream? Do they still make those?" Riegel kick-started product development to create the next generation of travel-trailers. Among the most recent additions is the International CCD, all Ikea-like geometric shapes and clean lines envisioned by architect and designer Christopher Deam.
Looking simultaneously at the company's past, present, and future, Riegel operates much like Airstream's founder. Wally Byam, too, was inspired by transportation at an early age; as a young shepherd in Oregon, he fashioned a movable home out of an old donkey cart and a stretch of cloth. Years later, he formed an ad agency and published a "do-it-yourself" magazine, in which he printed an article on how to build a trailer. When complaints about the plans poured in, Byam decided to design his own trailer, and eventually Airstream was born, in 1931. Over the next few decades, he tinkered with certain concepts, but remained committed to the classic Airstream shape, while urging his customers to embrace adventure. "Don't stop. Keep right on going," he once said. "Find out what's at the end of some country road. Go see what's over the next hill, and the one after that, and the one after that."
Today, Riegel's commute also befits the Byam legacy. Every Monday, he leaves his home in Bedford, N.Y., bidding good-bye to Amanda (now his wife, a jewelry dealer in Manhattan) and kids, Richard, 7, and Amelia, 4, and flies to company headquarters in Jackson Center, Ohio. On Friday, he returns home.
Sometimes he gets to come to events like this rally, where he can get misty-eyed over vintage designs and see, in person, the passion that fuels his company. This morning, somebody called Dicky "the sultan of Silver City," a compliment he shakes off, pointing instead to the "thousands of romance ambassadors" who have gathered, for one week, in the empty fairgrounds of Vermont. If there's time tomorrow, he may hop in the convertible that's attached to his Airstream and check out recent changes to the Middlebury campus.
"Middlebury taught me to explore boundaries and to relish the challenge of the unknown," he says. "This is exactly the pursuit of most Airstream owners. The unofficial Airstream credo—See More. Do More. Live More—embraces this concept and offers but a glimpse into the passionate, wanderlust community of travelers who buy and use our products."
Sarah Tuff '95 writes from Burlington, Vt. Her stories have appeared in National Geographic Adventure, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Men's Journal.