Former RVDA chairman and RV/Manufactured Housing Hall of Fame inductee Randy Biles passed away over the weekend at the age of 83.
Biles served on the RVDA board of directors from 1995-2001, including his chairmanship from 1999-2000. He started his RV industry career in 1982 when he bought Pikes Peak Traveland RV. He retired from the business in 2023, having served as a Mike Molino RV Learning Center board member and as a former Colorado RV Association president. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019.
Biles’ son, Tim, spent over 30 years with his father in the business. He said his father had an overwhelming passion for the RV industry.
“He loved the RV industry,” he said. “He loved it so much he wanted to do it as a living.”
Randy Biles got the RV bug from his parents, who bought a motorhome in 1970. Two years later, Randy Biles bought a Pace Arrow motorhome, the host for numerous family trips to come.
Randy Biles got involved with RVDA, with Tim Biles saying his father just could not say no.
“He would always say yes to any opportunity he had to help out,” Tim Biles said. “He loved it so much that he wanted it to be better. He just wanted to make the industry better.”
Tim Biles said the family joked that Randy Biles was the mayor, because he knew so many people that he could not walk 20 feet at a trade show without being stopped.
One of his best friends was Ernie Friesen, the man who succeeded Biles as RVDA chairman in 2000-2001. Tim Biles said the pair would be inseparable when they were together. Not every friend is a brother, Tim Biles said, but every brother is a friend.
“That was those two,” he said. “He spoke so highly of Ernie all the time.”
Randy Biles went through health issues late in life. Tim Biles recalled the last trade show that his father attended, walking through the Paris Las Vegas hotel and talking with Friesen at the show’s end.
“I saw this meeting, and it was like two very close brothers who knew they were not going to see each other on this earth again,” Tim Biles said. “Traci (Biles, Tim’s wife) and I watched them have their conversation. It was very beautiful.”
The meeting would also be the final time the two saw each other in person.
A family tied to its faith, Tim Biles said he found out recently that his father’s favorite Bible verse was the same as his: Second Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17. The verse reads: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.”
Tim Biles said, “That cemented knowing where he is.”
Randy Biles loved travel of many kinds, but none more than flying. Tim Biles said his father could not fly his plane in his final years, but he is sure his father is flying now.
“He does not even need a plane,” Tim Biles said. “He has his spirit, and he is soaring.”
