Brian and Heidi Dondlinger met as mechanical engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and for years dreamed of starting a business together.
After more than two decades of working in product development at Harley-Davidson (Brian) and for GE Healthcare, among other employers (Heidi), the couple founded Orion Motors LLC, a company that combines their interests in vehicles and design.
What first began as an endeavor designing sports cars and SUVs soon switched to a business of creating configurable camper vans, said Brian Dondlinger, Orion's CEO. After upfitting a Ford Transit van into a highly functional camping vehicle for their family during the pandemic, the Dondlingers zeroed in on the RV market.
"We started to do it initially for ourselves and then very quickly, we realized it was a great business opportunity," he said. "We'd been looking for that right idea for a long time."
Their first product is the Orion 365, a configurable camper van that can carry cargo ranging from motorcycles to kayaks while seating five passengers. Once parked, the seats can swivel to transition into "relax mode" with a kitchen and living setup. For "sleep mode," two full-size beds lower from the ceiling with the push of a button.
After doing extensive market research and creating a prototype, Brian quit his job at Harley-Davidson to work on Orion full time, along with a team of other engineers he assembled. Heidi still maintains a day job but is involved with big product, team and design decisions, he said.
The company exclusively works with new or used Ford Transit T-250 or T-350 vans brought in by customers, although it says it can help source the vans. It estimates $50,000 for the price of the van plus $70,000 for the upfit, coming to a total cost of around $120,000.
In addition to Orion's team, Dondlinger said he has worked with partners like Kyle Jansson at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Prototyping Center, which has a fully equipped machine shop, and entrepreneurship coach Brent Halfwassen, who he met through the local entrepreneurship resource center BizStarts.
Orion began accepting orders in fall 2021 and recently completed its first customer van. It was the only "made-in-Milwaukee" vendor at the Milwaukee RV Show earlier this month, Dondlinger said.
Orion currently has the capacity to produce 20 camper vans annually in its Glendale shop, the Milwaukee native said. The company sources many of its materials in the Milwaukee area, including the steel fabrication, woodwork and upholstery, he added.
"It was really important for us to be made in Milwaukee because we want to be part of Milwaukee's rejuvenation," Dondlinger said.
Looking ahead, Orion plans to sell some of its van components as kits for customers who want to build their own camper vans. It also anticipates designing a model aimed at retirees and a lower-cost model built on a smaller vehicle, like a minivan.
"My imagination is about 10 steps ahead of my feet," Dondlinger said. "I've got all kinds of ideas. ...Then we'll get back to the sports car."
