Ron Chapman honoured with Living Legend recognition

At the 2018 National Conference, Ron Chapman was honoured for his decades of hard work in the industry and officially recognised as a Living Legend of the industry.

Ron joined the Chesney Caravan Group in 1966 as a Public Relations Officer and handled advertising, promotions and PR for the manufacturing, retail, spares & accessories and importing/distributor/wholesale divisions of the group.

He was then headhunted to Glendale Caravans as National Marketing Manager in 1970, where he was responsible for the establishment of a national dealer network. In 1973 he left to go into partnership in a caravan dealership in Maryborough and subsequently opened a second dealership in the same city.

In 1975 he sold both dealerships and returned to Brisbane, where he did a variety of consulting, relief management and development work for a number of businesses in the industry.

Ron served on the CTIAQ board from 1966 to 1975 and was vice president from 1971 to 1974 before being asked to take on the Secretariat of the CTIAQ in 1975.

Ron was Director of an advertising and promotional agency in Brisbane for 17 years until taking on a fulltime role with CTIAQ in April 1994 having previously done the Secretariat, and other roles part-time for many years.

In 1979 and 1980 he was the Secretary of the CPAQ, taking on the full time role of CEO with this association in 1994 in addition to his role with CTIAQ.

He has been a member, PR consultant and/or show manager for all 50 caravan and camping shows held in Brisbane.

Ron was the founding Secretary of what is now Caravan Industry Association of Australia in 1991 for nine years and was a Director until 2001 and a member of the Federal Advisory Committee until mid 2017. He also served as both chairman and CEO for a period.

Currently he is the CEO of Caravanning Queensland (comprising CTIAQ and CPAQ).