Visitation plans have been set for a Bowling Green entrepreneur who passed away over the weekend.
Seventy-one-year-old David Garvin died Saturday morning after falling off the roof of his home.
Visitation will held Thursday at Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green from 3:30 to 8 p.m. A private “celebration of life” for family and friends will be held at a later date.
As a 23-year-old, Garvin founded the business that later came to be known as Camping World. The company that began as asingle store and mail order business expanded to about 100 RV stores and employed over 5,000 people.
Garvin had planned to develop a huge RV center off of I-65 in Simpson County, purchasing nearly one-thousand-acres of land before the project fell through. He also developed the Sugar Maple Square shopping center in Bowling Green in 1994.
Original post:
The Warren County Sheriff's Office says Bowling Green entrepreneur David Garvin died after accidentally falling off his roof Saturday morning. The 71 year old Garvin was pronounced dead at the scene.
Garvin founded the business that would become Camping World at the age of 23 in 1966. Starting as a small store and mail-order business that sold camping products and supplies, it grew its mailing list eventually to more than 7 million names and expanded to about 100 RV stores with more than 5,000 employees.
He began working for the family business, Beech Bend Park and Raceway, as a boy and grew Camping World out of that. He had plans for developing a huge RV center along I-65 in Simpson County including a sales and service center, camping and amusement park but, after purchasing nearly 1,000 acres, the plans for the project fell through.
He developed and opened Sugar Maple Square shopping center in Bowling Green in 1994.