Grant Wilson
Founding Partner
“I pride the company on our willingness to help people in our unique way. Communication, transparency, and wanting the best for the customer are our top priorities. We make dreams come true!”
A true renaissance man. Grant spent time in the US Air Force where his main job was maintaining aircraft. He learned valuable skills in mechanics which gave him the bug for suping up awesome vehicles. His love for tinkering and building led to many cars and rigs suited for drifting, racing, and off roading from Japan to Saudi Arabia. Once back state side, he spent his time overlanding, taking the leap from an off road Subaru, built out Tacoma, tear drop camper, then finally adventure van. In 2016 Grant founded VanGo Outdoors in St. Augustine Florida where he built epic vans from scratch. He’s learned all the tricks of the trade which has made him an expert in not just van life, but the overland community as a whole. This well rounded knowledge makes him essential to the business where he helps not only our customers, but the rest of us understand the ins and outs of this life style.
Chad Perce
Partner & Operations
“Our culture here is a meaningful part of our company because we do meaningful work! Everyone has each others back and that extends to every client. Real relationships make working here a blast!”
Business man extraordinaire! Chad comes from the health care IT world where he started his first busniess “iMethods” in 2004 with his business partner, Clint Drawdy. In 2013, Clints wife went through multiple life saving surgeries, taking out most of her large intestine, that unfortunately left her with symptoms similar to those with Chrones and Colitis. With limited freedom, Chad and Clint were in search of a solution that would allow her to take on day to day tasks without worry of a restroom. After months of searching, they decided to take matters into their own hands and build a van that was comfortable as a daily driver but had a bathroom in the back! This van allowed her to normally move about the world with new found freedom and less worry. They built a new company “Freedom Conversions” that specialized in bathroom builds to help others with similar problems. Chad’s business savvy mind and care for others is a driving force in our company.
Worlds Collide in 2019
As Freedom Conversions grew, more people came to them asking about adventure vans! Knowing very little about that industry, Chad met Grant through a mutual vendor. Chad would send customers Grant’s way and would rely on him for advice in the building process and camper van know-how. In 2019, Grant’s desire to expand his work and Chad’s business mindset collided and the two became one! They merged the companies into who we are now, FreedomVanGo. They started taking the van life by storm, building camper vans, installing parts, and helping people find new freedom with bathroom vans. Over the years we have grown from two men with a dream to a team of 21 awesome people who share the same dream of elevating the van life experience and upgrading customers’ adventures!
The Highlights:
Over our 5 years of growing with and in the van/ overland community, we have had some super exciting times!
Dream Team
Over the last 5 years we have grown from two men with a dream to 22 amazing people dedicated to making van life dreams a reality! Meet the crew here.
A Shop of Our Own
In 2020 we moved into our current location! It is a huge shop boasting enough room to work on 5 vans at a time, enough office space for our team, and our Van Parts Warehouse store front!
Florida Sportsman
One of our more notable achievements was being the cover story for Florida Sportsman, highlighting the growth of van life in our home state!
The Ekko BOOM
In 2021, the Winnebago Ekko dropped and it changed our life! We started modding this rig, seeing its incredible potential and ever since we have become the go-to shop for Ekko owners!
Official Partners with Winnebago
We are official partners with Winnebago! Thanks to our success in the Ekko community, we have been recognized as market leaders by Winnebago themselves. Together our goal is to elevate our companies and our collective customer bases. We are excited to be a resource to the Ekko and Winnebago community as a whole, and are so happy to work with the amazing people at Winnebago. Learn more here!
