August-September 2014 | BusinessWorld | 65
with a more coherent plan for business
succession after Stoltzfus is no longer
running the operation.
“If I get run over by a truck what happens to
the business? If somethingwouldhappen to
me I want the business to continue to grow
and do well,” he said.“Some time in the next
10 years I will likely be retiring and I want
the business to continue to do well and
grow. To me it is very important to have
proper estate-planning for our family and
the long-term plans of Stoltzfus RV and
Marine, and doing anESOP helps with that
planning.”
Stoltzfus sold the remaining 60 percent of
the operation to the employees in the fall of
2008 and has since stayed on as the
company's president – maintaining a
connection to the enterprise that he'd
started in 1967 on a one-acre lot in West
Chester, Pa., about 30 miles west of
downtownPhiladelphia.
He rented the same lot and operated the
business there for the first 10 years before
purchasing the 14-acre property on which
the company still sits today. The initial year
yielded more than $250,000 in total
revenue, which is less than the retail price of
some of the motor homes he's selling 47
years later.
“I would have never believed that I could
develop a company doing the business we
are now,” he said. “I never envisioned that
