All Roads Lead Back to Michigan
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header photo by Jeremy Carroll
When Jon Ferrando, ’88, decided to rebrand the recreational vehicle dealership business he founded, he wanted to include nods back to his alma mater.
Blue Compass RV’s logo features a familiar maize and blue color scheme, and the compass on it points from the company’s headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, right back to Ann Arbor.
“It has a lot of meaning within our industry and the lifestyle but also signals some of my connection back to Michigan,” Ferrando says with a smile.
Much of Ferrando’s life and career points back toward Ann Arbor as well. He describes his time at U-M as “foundational,” where he developed leadership skills and a standard of excellence. It’s also where he met his wife Katy Ferrando, ’88. The two have three children — all three are Wolverines themselves — and two dogs who are aptly named Maizey and Blu.
“I think most students that go there have this incredible experience similar to me — this life-changing opportunity. And it just creates and breeds a lot of connection and loyalty back to the Block M,” he says.
Those around Ferrando say he infuses the Leaders and Best mentality in everything he does, including building Blue Compass RV from scratch in 2018 to a business that draws $3 billion in annual revenue with more than 100 stores across 33 states.
Finding the RV Business
Ferrando grew up in a small town near Kalamazoo, Michigan, and arrived on the Ann Arbor campus as a first-generation college student. He excelled, joining LSA’s Honors Program while studying economics with an eye toward going to law school, and says he challenged himself while at U-M.
“If you take the hardest courses, you really do end up with a top-caliber Ivy League education on a fun Big Ten campus,” Ferrando says.
Following graduation, Ferrando went to Harvard Law, and became a corporate attorney. Soon, he found himself as a top executive at AutoNation, a burgeoning automotive dealership group. Ferrando spent 20 years as a leader at the company, helping it grow from a startup to one of the largest dealership groups in the U.S., but wanted to do something more entrepreneurial and looked at the RV market.
“The model was very similar [to automotive dealerships], but RV is a lot more fun,” Ferrando says. “People are saving up their whole life to buy an Airstream, a motor home, or a travel trailer to go see America, spend time with family and friends, engage in van life.”
The market demographics were good when the business launched in 2018. The core customer base was baby boomers, and 10,000 of them were retiring a day. But a younger demographic, driven by online influencers pushing “#VanLife,” started coming into the RV and outdoor lifestyle as well.
Originally started as RV Retailer, the company bought a small number of existing dealerships. When the pandemic hit and the public was wary of getting on airplanes and cruise ships, the RV market boomed and Ferrando and his team looked to take advantage of the accelerating market.
Building Leaders
Blue Compass RV began acquiring other dealerships, closing 52 deals in 2021 alone. The sudden change in the company was jarring.
“We were growing fast,” Ferrando says. “We were very quickly promoting leaders who might have led a two-store business or a single store, and suddenly we’re asking them to scale up to lead five stores or maybe 10 stores.”
Ferrando and the team went right to work helping equip these new leaders. He says the company is deeply focused on providing training and career support to its team members.
“I’ve got a passion around investing in leaders. Our leadership team is tremendous, and I think it’s a difference-maker in our company,” Ferrando says. “It’s almost like we’re a leadership development company that sells RVs on the side.”
Ferrando turned to his alma mater, working with U-M’s Ross School of Business to develop an executive education program for Blue Compass with a strong focus on scaling as a leader. A group of 20 senior leaders went through the program in 2021-22, spending several weeks on U-M’s campus throughout the process.
“It was exceptional,” Ferrando says. “It was transformational for a lot of our leaders and it brought the team together in a really powerful way.”
Blue Compass RV brought 20 more leaders through the program in 2024.
“One of the harder skill sets for a leader is being good at leading change, gaining buy-in for change, being able to explain change, and making change stick. So we spend a lot of time on that,” Ferrando says.
Chris Fuller, vice president of used operations at Blue Compass RV, says he feels like he’s part of the U-M family after attending the Ross program.
“It’s the entire Go Blue mentality, and how we’re going to win,” Fuller says.
He credits Ferrando for spending the extra money to make sure his team gets the best training possible.
“Jon, and his passion for his people, and this company, and the investment he makes, is nothing like I’ve seen before,” he says.
Michigan Ties
Ferrando’s passion for U-M is easy to spot at Blue Compass RV’s headquarters. A large U-M flag hangs in the breakroom and there are framed copies of The Michigan Daily’s coverage of the 2024 football team’s national championship run in the hallway. Some employees wear special maize and blue Nike shoes the team got with “BET” etched in the heel, and Ferrando has a number of U-M mementos in his office.
There are also a couple of Wolverines walking the halls. Jared Davis, ’21, MM’22, was hired as he was graduating from Ross to serve as chief of staff, and Shahnaz Broucek, MBA’11, is the company’s chief leadership coach. Broucek was teaching in the executive education program at Ross when Ferrando asked her to join his team.
“Jon is really next level,” she says. “I wouldn’t have left [Ross] if it wasn’t for him.”
She says watching the level of care and dedication that he took to help his team was something she had never seen before.
The Ferrandos remain deeply connected to U-M. They co-chaired the Victors for Michigan fundraising campaign for south Florida, a role they are reprising for the $7 billion Look to Michigan campaign that launched in October. Jon Ferrando is a co-founder of Champions Circle, the name, image, and likeness collective, and he serves on U-M’s Economics Leadership Council. Katy Ferrando serves on the Marsal Family School of Education’s Deans Council.
Ferrando says Wolverines worldwide are linked by their U-M experiences and pride.
“Michigan just has this way of connecting people to each other and back to the University,” he says.
JEREMY CARROLL is the senior content strategist for the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan.
