Staff Directory · Bureau of Recreational Vehicles

Active Curatorial Staff

As of the current fiscal period.

E. Mendenhall

Senior Fellow · Operations & Domesticity

On payroll since 1978 · Region IV

Earl came to the Bureau from twenty years on retail lots in East Texas and Louisiana, and brought with him a habit of writing about recreational vehicles as though they were houses. He has been with the Bureau longer than any currently active staff member, longer than several still-listed staff members the Bureau cannot presently locate, and longer than the table at which the founding statute was signed (since refurbished, 1997).

His curatorial statements are characterized by warmth, occasional melancholy, and an unwillingness to describe a unit without first describing the people likely to own it. He is tolerated by the Director of Research. He is the Bureau, in the way that one person eventually becomes the soul of a small institution simply by failing to leave.

Published works are catalogued under Mendenhall, E. in the Bureau's print index (Records Division).

Dr. M. Voss

Director of Research · Material Culture Division

Appointed 1982 · Office not open to walk-ins

Dr. Voss holds a doctorate in Vehicular Anthropology from an institution she has declined to name on Bureau letterhead. She joined the Bureau in 1982 with a mandate to “elevate the discourse,” a phrase she has never been heard to use ironically.

Her published placards are dense, footnoted, and frequently cite Bulletins which are not, themselves, available to the public. She does not reply to Mendenhall's curatorial statements as a rule; she publishes parallel ones. The two have not spoken in person since the 1994 Annual Retreat, the minutes of which are missing.

She finds the term “RV” insufficiently rigorous and prefers “domestic vehicular unit.”

Pending Activation

Drafted onto the roster but not yet publishing.

L. “Hitch” Brennan

Field Engineer Emeritus

Drafted 2024 · Awaiting first Bulletin

Came up turning wrenches at a Cummins shop in Arkansas. Recruited for his unmatched understanding of vehicular plumbing, payload geometry, and the spiritual implications of a well-routed propane line. Has not yet filed a curatorial statement; the Bureau is told he is “getting to it.”

J. “Junebug” Whitaker

Visiting Documentarian

Drafted 2025 · Photographic credentials on file

Lived in a Class B for eleven years. The only curator on the roster who has slept in the units she will eventually write about. Photographer first, writer second, increasingly the latter. Disagrees with Mendenhall's framing of the cottage. Disagrees with Voss's framing of everything.

Vacant Positions

Per the Bureau's organizational chart of record (1976, last revised 1983).

Position	Vacant Since	Notes
Deputy Director	1989	Position not filled following Reorganization 89-04.
Records Archivist	1991	Duties absorbed by Records Division (also vacant).
Photographic Documentation Chief	1997	Last filer: M. Halloran. Photographs catalogued through 1996.
Regional Liaison, Region II	1978	Briefly held by L. Antell (resigned to teach high-school civics).
Office Manager	2002	Duties redistributed informally.
Assistant Curator, Travel Trailers	1985	Position transferred from Class C division; never refilled.
Liaison to the National Recreation Council	1981	Liaison no longer required. Council dissolved 1981.
Junior Fellow, Folding Trailers	1974	Listed in the founding charter. Never appointed.

In Memoriam

Curators of the historical Bureau.

Dr. H. Pemberton

Founding Director · 1971–1979

Born 1923 · Died 1991

Drafted the Bureau's founding statute over a period of fourteen months in a borrowed office at the Department of the Interior, which has since denied any record of him. Authored the original mission statement, which has not been revised. Believed, against most contemporary scholarship, that the recreational vehicle constituted “the last sincere domestic invention of the twentieth century.”