The Escape Team :- Reace and Tammy Harmatuik
In 1993, Reace and I being a young, energetic couple decided to get married, attend university, purchase our first home, and a business. We purchased Road Runner Delivery, which kept Reace busy but not busy enough, in his spare time Reace built a couple of campers in our backyard. After the second camper Reace started purchasing older fiberglass trailers and repairing them. People kept stopping and asking if the trailers were for rent. So in between deliveries Reace started an RV rental company Economy Travel Trailer Rentals. At the same time, I began working for the Chilliwack School District, and we decided to start our family.
Economy Travel Trailer Rentals was doing fine, but our RV rental customers were asking for extra features in the fiberglass rental trailers. This got Reace thinking, and allowed him to put his Degree in Business to good use. After researching fiberglass trailers both locally and in the U.S., Reace asked himself, “How hard can it be?”, and we decided to get into the fiberglass trailer manufacturing business. Selling Road Runner Delivery and Economy Travel Trailer Rentals gave us some of the necessary funds to start our next business Escape Trailers.
In 2001, we rented a chicken barn which had been previously leased to a local camper manufacturing company. We hired our first staff member and were officially in the fiberglass trailer industry. We hired a fiberglass shop to sculpt our first Escape trailer, we contracted out the frame and Reace completed the interior himself. Although we were very proud of that first trailer, it wasn’t perfect, and taking it to the first Humdinger RV Show in Chilliwack with a bungee cord holding the door closed wasn’t very good. But people were interested in our little lightweight trailer and the encouragement kept us motivated.
Although, I was still working full time and Reace was driving truck at night, obtaining money was difficult. We could only build one trailer at a time, and we didn’t have a demo trailer for marketing purposes. We were almost at the point of not being able to continue when a customer walked in, liked what he saw, and paid in full for a trailer. Just as important, he gave us permission to use it as a demo since he wouldn’t pick it up until the next spring.
As soon as it was viable, we moved from that old chicken barn to our current location on Ashwell Road. At this time we also brought the fiberglass and welding shops on site so that we had more control in the quality of the Escape product. As business continued to increase we started experimenting with methods of how to sell the Escape Trailer. As Escape Trailer Industries grew, the pains of growing became learning opportunities. Both Reace and I, continuously reflect on the business and how to make it successful. Our main focus is, and has always been, the needs of our customer’s, they have helped us make the Escape trailer a better product. We are continuously listening to customer feedback for ways to improve the different Escape trailers.
We now operate through direct sales and most are referrals from satisfied customers. To ensure each trailer reflects the customer’s personal taste, we try to incorporate their suggestions when possible. We believe, there’s nothing worse than buying a trailer and having to make changes after you get it home, we would prefer to make those adjustments as we are building it.
Our showroom is our factory. By giving our customers a tour of our facility, we can show them how we do things. We often have a minimum of eight trailers in production and yet not one of them is the same due to owner requests. Both Reace and I enjoy showing our customers their trailer while it is in production. However, nothing competes with seeing the look on their faces when the trailer is already for them when they pick it up.