Kiesler’s Campground

March 1, 2001May 6, 2011 Roger Matz

Every summer, a seasonal suburb blossoms across from Clear Lake, just east of the Waseca city limits on U.S. Hwy. 14.

Residents begin moving in around mid-April with the population peaking at about 1,300 in mid-summer. As in most suburbs, nearly everyone is from somewhere else. Half come from the Twin Cities, 30 percent from Southern Minnesota and the balance from other regions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and the remaining states. And, like typical suburbanites, most go to the nearest Big City (Waseca) to shop.

The little town, known as Kiesler’s Campground, provides ordinary municipal services such as sewer, water, electricity and garbage pickup. But there are amenities you won’t find in most small suburbs, including state-of-the-art playground equipment and a 2,000-square foot swimming pool with a 48-foot water slide. People have been taking a break from life here since 1973. One trade publication ranks it Southern Minnesota’s top-rated campground.

Kiesler’s Campground resembles a town, with named streets connecting 280 campsites sprinkled among the trees and hills on 39 acres. Many neighbors know each other because they come back every year. There’s a small store and a large recreation center along with courts for shuffleboard, volleyball and basketball. There isn’t a school, as such, but there are plenty of classes and activities for youngsters. However, most days pass like one long recess for children and their parents. The inviting waters of Clear Lake beckon from across Hwy. 14 and residents often trek down to the docks to fish, boat or admire sunsets.

You might say that Steve Kiesler presides as mayor, superintendent of public works, street sweeper, city planner and administrator, all rolled into one. It is, after all, his town, his family’s campground. Look beyond the tents, travel trailers and RVs and you’ll find a small business, with all the challenges, satisfactions and complications built into family enterprises. Kiesler’s wife Belinda chooses and manages the store’s inventory. (She’s a “professional shopper,” according to her father-in-law.) Steve and Belinda’s daughters, Kristi, 15, and Katie, 11, clerk in the store and help run the campground’s miniature golf course.

One municipal title Kiesler wouldn’t claim is “founder,” because that belongs to his father, Kal Kiesler, who agonized at length before converting the hobby farm into a campground in 1972. At the time, the elder Kiesler was a 48-year-old rural mail carrier who farmed about 20 of the 39 acres. “I’d always been looking for a way to utilize the property in a better manner than just raising a few crops,” he said.

He considered making it a residential subdivision “but then you lose control of the property,” he said. Besides, a campground seemed a better idea, a good family business. But the decision wasn’t made with ease. “I did a lot of soul-searching. Was I too old to take the risk, to risk our financial future? I sat down in the alfalfa field many, many nights, listening to the traffic, thinking. I was trying to look at all the good things and bad things, and I was basically concerned about the traffic noise. I felt it might interfere.”

Satisfied that it was worth the risk, the Kieslers bought three wooded acres separating their property from Hwy. 14 and started construction, opening with 100 campsites in 1973. “At the end of the first season, we were committed. We had to keep going. Once you do it, there’s no turning back,” he said. “If you work hard at something, you can make it work.”

Twenty-eight years later, he says it was a good move “because of the way my family matured. They learned so many different trades and how to work with people.”

That first season, the “kids” included Larry, 18; Kathy, 15; Steve, 12, and Michael, 10. “ I had to keep them all busy. It was the best education to give young people. Even Michael, the youngest, ran a bulldozer. He still loves to do that.” (Larry and Steve became master electricians, Kathy has been in a variety of enterprises and Michael handles maintenance at Shady Oaks Nursery in Waseca.)

“We were the maintenance crew,” said Steve, now 40. “We cleaned the pool, mowed and trimmed the grounds, put in boats, picked up trash, repaired equipment and whatever else was needed.”

Eventually, the kids grew up and found their own niches in life. Eventually, Kal and Barbara began to think about retiring. Eventually, the unavoidable questions came up: What happens to Kiesler’s Campground? Is it passed down to one or more of the siblings, who already have their own careers? Is it sold to the highest bidder? Many family businesses come to a bitter end, sold for tax reasons or internal family problems.

When the questions about succession versus sale began getting urgent, Steve was immersed in a fast-track career with a large electrical contractor in Dallas, Texas. At the age of 24, he’d become the firm’s youngest project manager, responsible for supervising up to 60 people and dealing with budgets up to $6 million. He’d gone beyond wiring. “I’d become strictly an office person with a secretary and all the works,” he said. “I was working an average of 80 hours a week all year long for somebody else, leaving home before my kids got up and coming home many nights after they’d gone to bed.”

Approaching the burn-out phase of this career, Steve was considering starting his own business in Texas, maybe a body shop, maybe a franchise restaurant. Instead, he packed up his family and returned to Waseca.

“He was homesick,” said Kal, with a wry, sly smile. “He claims I begged him.” Steve returns the smile. They spar with a gentle, respectful humor, like men who have measured and tested each other for years.

“When it all boiled down, my parents wanted to sell or have one of us step up to the plate. It didn’t make much sense (to start my own business) and ignore one that somebody had put so much effort into and was already successful,” he said.
Having grown up with Kiesler’s Campground, Steve recognized the pitfalls of family ownership, especially ownership by an extended family. “It’s a tough job, dealing with both customers and family members. I knew there had to be a point where there were some changes. My brothers and sister were developing their own lives, so they were independent of the business.”

Steve knew it would work best if the campground involved just one family, not the families of siblings and their spouses. He came back determined to buy it within a year. More wry smiles are exchanged. “One of the things we worked out was an understanding that he would buy it, but he wanted to do it right now,” Kal said. That was August 1992.

“I wanted to own it within a year. He said three, but it took six,” Steve said. “My wife and I finally bought it in 1998. In the end, the agreement we came up with in six years was better than we would have come up with after one year. It actually worked. We got it done, it just took longer. We ended up with a better understanding of each other and of the family dynamics. I got to know the business better and to better understand my parents’ concern about protecting other family members’ interests.”

Kal puts it a little differently. “We became adjusted to one another and I gradually backed off. Now I kind of sit back and analyze if he’s going in the right direction.”

A tone of admiration accompanies Kal’s next wry smile. “He’s basically rebuilt the campground in the last five years. The structures were getting old and he’s enhanced everything, even the landscaping. Most importantly, he’s become involved in the professional organizations connected with camping,” Kal said. “It’s a learning experience. It’s endless, going to all these meetings.”

Steve does belong to a variety of organizations, including one promoting Hwy. 14 improvements. “That highway is a challenge. It’s scheduled to bypass Waseca, and it can’t happen fast enough. We don’t like the noise from the highway and we don’t get much business from it. Most people have already made their reservations and know they are coming here,” he said.

Another challenge is the proposed DM&E Railroad expansion, which has generated controversy across Southern Minnesota. “We want them to be successful. We want to be a positive force, not a negative force, but the problem is there’s a crossing right behind us and several crossings between here and town,” he said. An average of three DM&E trains pass the campground every day, repeatedly blowing horns at those crossings. If the expansion is approved, there might be up to 37 trains a day. “We would like some noise mitigation. We want the Surface Transportation Board (which will rule on the expansion) and the Federal Railroad Administration to allow no-whistle zones. We don’t want whistles blowing hundreds of times every night, disturbing our campers. We want to be a good neighbor to DM&E, and we want them to be a good neighbor to us.”

Steve hopes to see successful resolutions to both the highway and railroad issues because he knows that will improve the ambiance around his campfires.

Business at the campground was “fairly flat” through the 1980s, but about the time Steve and his family moved back from Texas, “the economy started getting better and that helped. A lot of the things we’ve done have helped, but the economy helped too,” Steve said. “We had a very good base to start with. We worked it as a partnership and continued to build the business together. I brought back the energy and the ideas and he allowed me to keep implementing them even before we could get an agreement penciled together.”

Then he stops to make a point. “When I say ‘he,’ I really mean my mother, too. She ran the store when we were growing up, took care of the reservations and the telephone. She could remember almost all our customers’ names. She was the ultimate PR person.”

Although the campground is open from mid-April to Oct. 1, the “real” season spans Memorial Day to Labor Day. “Once Memorial Day hits, it’s hard to do anything but take care of customers,” he said. “There’s six months where it’s incredibly intense, but at least there’s a break in the winter.”

The campground’s niche is catering to families. “We provide a family atmosphere, with family activities. Everything revolves around the family,” he said. “We don’t rent campsites to anyone under 21 because we want to attract families, not folks who may want to come here and ‘party hard’ to the point of disrupting their neighbors. We focus on what moms and dads and kids can do together.”

“I truly believe there’s been a renewed interest in trying to do things as a family within the last five years,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s because everybody was so busy with careers in the 1980s and early ’90s, but they seem to be stepping back a little bit and trying a lot harder to do family things. It may be that with more disposable income, they’re able to do more family activities, which is nice to see.”

Campers who rent a campsite for the entire season make up about a third of Kiesler’s customers. “They bring their camper or trailer and use it like a cabin,” Kiesler said. “We have a great number of repeat customers who return every year.”

The secret to encouraging repeat business is to “offer people the opportunity to have a good time, treat them right, be accommodating and let them choose from a number of activities,” Kiesler said. When campers arrive, they’re handed an item-by-item schedule of entertainment and activities. That includes free bingo with prizes, DJs or live bands for dances, craft classes for youngsters, scavenger hunts and a variety of games or contests. Then there’s JJ the Clown, who sometimes roams the grounds, amusing youngsters. “But people can just sit by their campfire if they choose. They can just relax.”

Clear Lake is large enough for boating, skiing and other water sports, although it’s not full of trophy fish. “For the most part, we don’t get serious fishermen here,” Kiesler said. “But the fishing in Clear Lake suits us just perfect. Families can go down on our docks to catch crappies and bluegills. It’s fast action for the kids and after half an hour of it, they’re happy.”

Kiesler’s also doesn’t draw many tent campers. “The people who come here are looking for amenities, not for a ‘roughing it’ experience,” he said. This may not be the kind of camping you may remember from your childhood. There are plenty of amenities beyond hot showers. Some campsites include cable TV hookups, for example. “Many people don’t use the cable, but it’s a backup for bad-weather days, or for watching pro sports,” he said. The campground also loans movie videos and shows current releases on a big-screen TV in the recreation center.

Campers also go into town for diversions, eating in restaurants, shopping for necessities, hunting antiques, even buying furniture and cars. One camping couple hired a Waseca interior decorator to do their home in Wisconsin. “Tourism is a huge benefit to the economy as a whole,” Steve said. “Based on statistics from the Minnesota Dept. of Tourism, in 1998 Waseca County took in $4.9 million from tourism. We feel our campground is a real benefit to both the city and the county.”

Steve realizes he traded a fast track in Texas for another in Waseca, but there are differences. Instead of working 80 hours a week all year for someone else, he puts in 100 hours a week during the season and then “coasts” at 30 to 40 hours a week for the rest of the year. Instead of rarely seeing his family, he sees them every day because they’re actively involved in operating the campground. “I’m incredibly proud of this business and of my family working in it. I agree with what my dad said about having kids in the business.”

Steve’s goal for the past six years has been to “rebuild the campground. There’s been a project every year.” He plans to continue being proactive. “Our restrooms have always been highly rated. Rather than wait until the ratings go down, we’re going to remodel them before there’s a problem. That’s how we’ve always looked at things, anything from maintenance to building playgrounds.”

He intends to remain an “industry leader” and finds the ratings of trade publications to be one measure. “It helps us to understand where we might be in the marketplace. Consumers look at it too.”

His greatest satisfaction “is satisfying the customers. I have always enjoyed a challenge and owning a business is a challenge in itself. What motivates me is to keep improving what we offer in order to keep our customers coming back. I thrive on customer satisfaction.” The flip side is the frustration of knowing he’ll “never reach” his goal of 100 percent customer satisfaction. “We can’t always ‘click’ with everyone.”

Customer satisfaction is critical because it generates “word-of-mouth” advertising. “That’s the way most people find out about us. The internet is No. 2. (www.kieslers.com) The Explore Minnesota campground guide used to be No. 2, but now it’s No. 3, along with the Minneapolis camping show,” Steve said.

He’s proud of running Southern Minnesota’s top-rated campground. “When you have clientele that’s been built up over the years and they’ve become accustomed to the fact that you reinvest in the business and that you pride yourself at offering the best camping experience you can, you’re motivated to keep it up. I don’t want that to slip by not paying attention. That’s what drove my parents too. They wanted to be the best.”