"Undercover Boss" Tells All

Jim Rogers’ career in the hospitality industry started nearly 40 years ago when, as a new graduate from the University of California-Berkeley, he came to Kampgrounds of America, Inc., as a management trainee in 1972.

In 1974, Rogers pursued additional training in finance and accounting and earned an MBA from UCLA in 1976. KOA sponsored his master thesis on corporate family vacation centers. In 1978, Rogers went to work for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. At Harrah’s he served as senior financial analyst, the Vice President of Marketing in Atlantic City on the Harrah’s / Donald Trump development team, Vice President of Marketing for Northern Nevada, and in 1994 was named senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s Reno.  He received Harrah's Corporate Management Excellence Award in 1994.

Rogers took a few years away from Harrah’s to pursue entrepreneurial interests and became CEO of Curtis + Rogers, Inc., a full-service advertising agency in Nevada, serving clients in the gaming, hospitality, medical and education sectors.

Rogers returned to KOA in January 2000 to become the president and chief executive officer of the company, which with nearly 475 campgrounds is the largest network of franchised family campgrounds in the world.  Rogers currently focuses on strategic partnerships and corporate growth as KOA’s chairman and chief executive officer. KOA was founded in Billings, Montana in 1962, offers more than 55,000 recreational vehicle, tent and Kamping Kabin sites in the U.S. and Canada, and hosts nearly 14 million guest nights each year.

Rogers and his three sons, Ben, Judd and Tyler, have all achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. In fact, there are 10 Eagle Scouts in two generations of the Rogers family. Rogers served as the President for the Western Region of the Boy Scouts of America from 2008-2010. Upon nomination by the Nevada Area Council, he received the Distinguished Eagle Award on Feb. 9, 2002. In 2010, Rogers was awarded the Western Region’s prestigious Silver Antelope Award. Rogers is currently President of the Nevada Area Council.

In January 2013, Rogers was featured in an episode of the award-winning CBS reality show “Undercover Boss.” The one-hour episode featured Rogers going “undercover” on four different KOA properties. Rogers interacted with employees and KOA owners using the fictional persona of Tim Bickford, an out-of-work accountant from San Francisco who was competing for an investor’s support of his new campground business.

The KOA “Undercover Boss” episode on CBS garnered the second-highest ratings of the show’s fourth season, finishing just behind the season’s premiere episode. The show also had a huge impact on Kampgrounds of America, attracting several potential new campgrounds to the KOA system, and exposing KOA to more than 9 million television viewers and potential campers.

Jim and his wife, Sandy, live in Reno, Nevada, but he continues to spend time both at the KOA Home Office in Billings, Montana, and on the road as a spokesperson for both KOA and the outdoors sector.