John Hanson was the youngest person to receive a mortician’s license in Iowa when he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1934. Immediately becoming a director at his father’s funeral home, Hanson would later go on to found one of the largest RV manufacturers in the world, Winnebago.
Hanson bought the family funeral home, then an Oldsmobile dealership and, in 1957, became a travel trailer dealer. When Forest City, Iowa, needed more jobs, Hanson asked California’s Modernistic Industries, manufacturer of his Aljo travel trailer, to open a midwestern factory.
When Modernistic Industries began faltering, Iowan investors took over. Hanson served as the factory’s president and had 17 employees working for him in 1959. Following the ownership change, Moderistic Industries became Winnebago Industries in 1960, named after its location’s county and the indigenous tribe who has lived there.
Hanson soon bought out the other investors and started improving upon the Aljo travel trailer’s design. In addition to making more model lengths, he started creating furniture and lightweight sidewall for his trailers. In 1966, Winnebago launched the F-19 built on a Ford chassis: the company’s first self-contained motorhome. By the decade’s end, Winnebago was the No. 1 travel trailer and motorhome manufacturer.
Though Winnebago had $1 million worth of deliveries in 1961, seven years later, the manufacturer delivered the same amount every day. Hanson took the company public in 1970.
Upon “retiring” in 1972, Hanson passed the company to his son, then his son-on-law. When Winnebago started suffering from increasing gas prices, Hanson returned to the company seven years later. Though he stopped handling day-to-day business by the end of the 1980s, Hanson was actively involved in Winnebago until his passing in 1996.
