In early September a small business in Miami earned national recognition, making a Top 100 list.

PinDrop Travel Trailers, owned and operated by Tim and Ruth Ellen Elinski, was chosen for the CO—100; America’s Top 100 Small Businesses list – an honor bestowed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and CO—, its digital platform for small businesses.

The Elinskis' company was chosen by a panel of judges from more than 14,000 applicants, making the list as a Customer Champion.

“We're really pleased that we made Customer Champion,” said Tim Elinski. “I think it speaks to how well we take care of our clients, the extra lengths we go to to make sure they have a good experience in their purchasing of a PinDrop.” That experience, he added, includes putting out-of-town customers up in a Miami vacation rental the couple operates.

On the eve of PinDrop Travel Trailers' sixth anniversary – Tim and Ruth Ellen started the company in October 2018 – they will travel to the nation's capital for an October 8 event at U..S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters celebrating the Top 100 small businesses. At an evening awards dinner, 10 Top Businesses will be named and will receive $2,000 each. The event will also select an overall  CO—100 Top Business, which will come away with $25,000.

“We have a shot to win top in that category [Customer Champion] and perhaps even top in the nation, so we're going to go out to D.C. and do our best,” Tim said.

“I was a general contractor for over 20 years and I had a really bad camping addiction, so we sort of married the two,” he said. As long as my wife and I have known each other, we've always gone out camping. We had vintage campers and sort of just kept on the road. All the while, being a builder and a tradesman, I just thought about a way to build a better camper.”

Tim said a road trip to Montana was the impetus for what became PinDrop, which manufactures solar-powered, self-contained micro-campers in the Elinski's Miami shop. “We wanted to drive my wife's little SUV to save on gas but we didn't want to sleep in a tent and we couldn't pull the bigger camper. I just got it in my head to build the trailer that had been rolling around in my brain for so many years. I locked myself in the shop and built what we now call the prototype. We drove it up to Montana and it was very popular on the road. People thought 'What a great trailer, what a great design. Where did you get it?'

“I was looking for a way to get out of contracting anyway, so we decided to move into manufacturing, We prototyped for about two years, just building trailers and we put out a rental fleet. We built trailers that were road tested by customers. Finally we had a product we were proud of, and released it to market in 2020. We've been building ever since.”

Originally run by Tim and Ruth Ellen alone, PinDrop now has a staff of three to four people. Tim leads design and manufacturing operations, while Ruth Ellen leading business operations, customer relations and marketing. All of their sales are done in Miami.

“It's important to us to support the Arizona economy, but more specifically the economy here in Miami. We get asked a lot by other dealers if we would consider taking on dealers so our products could go to a lot in Phoenix or wherever and be sold over there, but we're really adamant about keeping our sales focused here because the sales tax revenue we generate goes right back to the town,” Tim said.