RV Mobile Power (RVMP), manufacturer of mobile power, power-security and generator systems for the recreational vehicle OEM, aftermarket and industrial markets, announced the appointment of Matt Hazelbaker as chief operating officer, effective immediately. Hazelbaker will lead operations company-wide across RVMP’s facilities in Columbus, Ohio, and Elkhart, Indiana, reporting to founder and CEO Jimmy Conroy II.
The appointment reunites two longtime friends whose partnership dates back more than a quarter century, RVMP said in a recent release.
In 1999, Hazelbaker was general manager of Lippert Components’ Plant 26, where a young Jimmy Conroy Il entered the RV industry, working under Hazelbaker and Jason Lippert as the team began building RV chassis.
More than two decades later, the two reunite, this time as COO and CEO, to build the next chapter of RVMP together, the company said. It is a homecoming as much as a hire. The mentor who helped launch Conroy’s career now joins the company Conroy founded. They are two operators who came up together, back in business side by side, with a shared history of hard-won operational battles behind them and a great new future ahead.
“Matt gave me my start in this industry back in 1999, and l’ve spent every year since trying to live up to the operator he taught me to be,” said Conroy. “To now have him join RVMP as our chief operating officer, as a partner and a friend, is one of the proudest moments of my career. Matt brings operational discipline, deep industry relationships, and a plain human decency that fits our Golden Rule culture perfectly. He is exactly the leader we’ve been missing, and I could not be more excited about what we build together.”
As chief operating officer, Hazelbaker will be responsible for all operations across the company: detailing and strengthening the systems behind RVMP’s rapid growth, supporting its sales initiatives and bringing his decades of industry relationships to bear across the company’s power, security and emerging product lines.
Colleagues describe his approach as steady and detailed, a leader who gets his hands around problems with consistency and care, RVMP said.
For Hazelbaker, the appointment marks a return from retirement. He had stepped away from the industry, and he said the chance to partner with Conroy again was the one opportunity that could bring him back.
“I’ve watched Jimmy grow from the young man who walked onto my plant floor into one of the most driven and principled leaders in this industry,” said Hazelbaker. “I was perfectly content in retirement, spending my days in Florida with my wife and our children, and it would have taken something rare to pull me back. The chance to partner with Jimmy again was about the only thing that could get me off the bench and back into the fight. What he and this team have built at RVMP is remarkable: quality products, real innovation, and a culture that treats people the right way. Coming aboard as COO feels less like a new job than a reunion with purpose, and I could not be looking forward to it more.”
Founded in 2018, RVMP has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the RV power space, expanding well beyond RV generators into a diversified platform spanning OEM power systems, industrial security and a growing aftermarket channel, all guided by a mission built on the Golden Rule, the company said.
“Growth at our pace puts real demands on operations, and Matt is precisely the leader to meet them,” said Brian Carmichael, chief revenue officer of RV Mobile Power. “His track record, his relationships across the RV and industrial markets, and his steady, systems-minded approach will help us turn momentum into durability. Our customers and our team are going to feel the difference quickly.”
The ties among RVMP’s leadership run deeper than the RV industry, the company said. Conroy, Hazelbaker and Carmichael are also fellow alumni of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, three of roughly eight members of the RVMP team who share the alma mater, a common thread of values and work ethic that runs through the company’s culture.
